Transcript Energy Security - Georgia Institute of Technology

Peak Oil, Gas, Coal, Food
& The Great Race to
Clean Global Baseload Power Space Solar Power
Atlanta Peak Oil Meeting
April 9, 2008
Atlanta, GA
Darel Preble
chair, Space Solar Power Workshop
www.sspi.gatech.edu
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The US is not leading the Great Race
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But we
could
be!!
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I hope you have all read the
National Space Security
Office’s excellent SSP
report at:
http://spacesolarpower.files.
wordpress.com/2007/11/fina
l-sbsp-interim-assessmentrelease-01.pdf
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America’s energy security and global
environment are at risk
• These threats are imminent - in the time
frame required to address them.
• Nothing is being done on the scale and time
frame required.
• SSP is the most important clean baseload
energy source - with the potential to
strongly address our energy, environment
and related problems with a magnificent
alternative.
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Peaking Oil
Dr. Robert Hirsch finds the most current and authoritative
research predicts peak global oil production between 2008
and 2018: "In a worst-case scenario, global oil production
may reach its peak in 2008, before starting to decline. In a
best-case scenario, this peak would not be reached until
2018.” “Giant Oil Fields – Highway to Oil”, dissertation,
F. Robelius, Uppsala University, 2007.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070330100802.htm and
www.peakoil.net/GiantOilFields.html
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Peaking Coal
The most current and authoritative research
predicts peak global coal production by
2025. - "Peak coal by 2025 say
researchers", initiated by a German member
of Parliament. Authors: Dr. Werner Zittel
and Jörg Schindler
www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coalreport.pdf and
www.energybulletin.net/28287.html
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Skyrocketing Materials Prices
April 9, 2008 - Japan's three biggest steel makers -- Nippon Steel
Corp., JFE Holdings Inc.'s JFE Steel unit and Sumitomo Metal
Industries Ltd. -- all accepted Australian miner BHP Billiton
Ltd.'s offer to supply coking coal at $300 per ton for fiscal 2008,
up from $98 last year.
Influential power producer Chubu Electric Power agreed to pay
Swiss mining firm Xstrata $125 per metric ton of Australian
thermal coal this fiscal year, more than double the $55 per ton
paid last year. Earlier this year a 65% increase in iron-ore prices
was absorbed. The price hikes increase inflationary pressure on
finished goods.
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120773119565901329.html
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The Natural Gas Peaking Disaster
The U.S. has the highest natural gas prices in the world.
Why?
Price
Natural Gas Prices - Henry Hub $/MMBTU
$15.00
$12.00
$9.00
$6.00
$3.00
$0.00
Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08
Date
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“High natural gas prices are a particular hardship for
the U.S. chemical industry, the nation’s largest
industrial consumer of natural gas. U.S. natural gas
prices are the highest in the world. We have lost more
than $50 billion in business to overseas competition.
“More than 90,000 good-paying jobs in our industry
have disappeared, as well as collateral jobs in
associated businesses. Unless immediate action is
taken, the continued viability of a great American
industry is in jeopardy.
- Tom Reilly, President, American Chemistry Council, letter to President Bush
November 19, 2004 http://accnewsmedia.com/docs/2100/2073.pdf
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USGS assessment of Mexico’s oil & gas
reserves (billion barrels oil equivalent)
(EIA estimates)
1998
2003
Oil
49
12
Natural Gas
35
6
Total
84
18
Source: "A Case Study on Peak Energy - The U. S’s Natural Gas Disaster”
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/ASPO2004.pdf
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The supply gap for the US natural gas market alone could
reach 10 Trillion Cubic feet/year by 2020[1]. (In Btu
equivalent terms, this is nearly twice the amount of oil the
U.S. currently imports from the Middle East.) Globally the
oil supply gap of 2020 has been projected to be 15 million
barrels per day[2]. On the massive TeraWatt scale soon
required, only SSP can provide the clean reliable baseload
energy the world requires. No other alternative energy
technology succeeds:
[1] “Playing with Fire - Part II”,
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1397
[2] “Is There A Painless Way To Fill The Oil Supply Gap?”, by Dr Michael R.
Smith, http://www.energyfiles.com/oilsupplygap.html
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Flying Blind
Declining oil & gas supply data reliability
Outside the US global oil & gas reserve data is
of extremely poor quality
www.ipaa.org/meetings/ppt/2007Annual/JeffDietert.pps
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US Energy Companies Declining in
Global Clout and Production Control
Gazprom working on Gas Monopoly
April 9, 2008 - While Russia's Gazprom regularly disrupts gas supplies
to its neighbors, it is working hard to partner with gas suppliers in Libya,
Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria – the top four gas producing countries in
Africa.
It is clearly motivated by the desire to acquire a monopoly or nearmonopoly of gas supplies to Western Europe and perhaps the US.
-“The de-flattening of the world”, By Martin Hutchinson,
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD09Dj02.html
http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2008/03/30/wld02.asp
http://www.zawya.com/marketing.cfm?zp&p=/Story.cfm/sid20080403_2
5798_258?cc
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EIA says no change fossil fuels keep growing and growing
1980
263 QUADRILLION BTU
2030
702 QUADRILLION BTU
2004
447 QUADRILLION BTU
NATURAL
GAS
OIL
COAL
WIND / SOLAR / GEOTHERMAL
HYDRO
NUCLEAR
BIOMASS
Source: EIA International
REFERENCE CASE
“It will require more than a decade to transition our
civilization away from our heavy dependence on oil.
Nothing close to the efforts envisaged have yet begun.”
- Testimony by Robert Hirsch, SAIC, at the Pentagon and U.S. Congressional Committee
on Energy and Commerce hearing, from the "Hirsch Report", commissioned by the
Department of Energy http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/hearings/12072005Hearing1733/hearing.htm and
"Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management
www.netl.doe.gov/otiic/World_Oil_Issues/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf
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The Energy, Food & Environment
view ahead is disastrous!!
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The best we’ve got – SSP – is unfunded
- still in the pits!!
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Conservation
Carpooling
New LED and compact flourescent lighting
Energy efficient appliances
Air Conditioning
Refrigerators
Dish Washers (& do not use hot dry)
Cooking with Microwave ovens over conventional
Adding insulation to walls and ceiling
Double glaze windows
Bermed houses. etc.,
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Electrifying our transportation system
Hybrid/electric cars & trucks
Light rail & subways
Electric trains
Super batteries
Super capacitors
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What are our alternatives?
Clean? Safe?
Reliable?
Baseload?
Fossil Fuel
No
Yes
Peak Imminent
Yes
Nuclear
No
Yes
Fuel limited
Yes
Wind Power
Yes
Yes
No, intermittent
No
Geothermal
Yes
Yes
No, Limited
Yes
Ground Solar
Yes
Yes
No, intermittent
No
Hydro
Yes
Yes
No; drought; complex scheduling
Bio-fuels
Yes
Yes
Very limited quantities - competes
with food production.
SSP
Yes
Yes
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Yes
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“Peaking units”, such as wind or terrestrial solar, may
provide power for 25-30% of a good day, (on average).
Space Solar Power (SSP), however, is “baseload”
available 99% of the year from GeoSynchronous Orbit.
(Baseload nuclear or coal plants, typically running 24/7,
are actually available only 90% of the year.)
SPS requires no fuel and has no operations personnel –
it is an antenna – with farms underneath. SSP is the
cleanest source of virtually unlimited baseload energy.
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Solar panels a 'loser,' professor says
Installing them amounts to 'THROWING MONEY AWAY'
Feb. 21, 2008 - Installing solar panels on homes is an economic
"loser" with the costs far outweighing the financial benefit, said a
respected University of California-Berkeley business professor.
Using photovoltaic panels to generate electricity is not competitive
with fossil fuels and costs more than other renewable fuels, said
Severin Borenstein, who also directs the UC Energy Institute. A
typical PV system costs between $86,000 and $91,000 to install,
while the value of its power over its lifetime ranges from $19,000 to
$51,000. Even using favorable criteria, the cost would still be 80
percent more than the value of the electricity produced.
http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2008/02/18/daily43.html
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"We are in the beginning stages of major changes to
agricultural markets caused by rapidly expanding production
of bio-fuels.“
– Credit Suisse Group, in “Corn Is Booming as Ethanol Heats Up”,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116260858542413472.html
Although that is only one-seventh the quantity President Bush foresees for
2015, that demand has pushed corn to near-record prices. “If all the corn
produced in America in 2005 were dedicated to ethanol production it
would reduce U.S. demand for gasoline by, at most, 12 percent...
– “A bumper crop of unintended consequences”,
http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=180746
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To reach Bush’s 20 percent goal, corn production must
grow to 167 percent of its 2005 levels, and every kernel
must go into ethanol. Kiss your corn pudding goodbye.
Corn is also the major feed/ingredient for chickens, pigs,
cattle; milk, cheese, eggs, hamburger, Coke, Pepsi, Jack
Daniels, etc., ...
(By weight, a McDonald’s hamburger is 52% corn.)
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Biofuel Myths (1)
These myths include:
• Large-scale biofuel production is sustainable
• Biofuels are environmentally friendly and reduce CO2
emissions
• Biofuels will help us (the USA) achieve "energy
independence“
• Biofuels will help the farmers
• Biofuels will let us continue our current way of life
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The Myth Of Biofuels (2)
Little known Biofuel Facts
- In 2007, in the USA, corn for ethanol will exceed corn for
export. USA corn exports provide 60% of the world
market.
- As demand for corn goes up, production of other crops
will decline, for years, including wheat, rice and others.
- Biofuels do not have the energy density of oil. The EROI
(Energy Returned On Energy Invested) of bioethanol has a
ratio of about 2:1 We currently benefit from Middle East
crude oil, with an EROI of 30:1
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The Myth Of Biofuels (3)
Little known Biofuel Facts
- Biodiesel. The four best (kg/hectare) biodiesel crops only
grow in the tropics. If all the world's vegetable oil were
converted to biodiesel, it would provide about 8% of world
consumption of diesel. Some countries have targets of 10%
biodiesel, thus the reason why some groups are convinced
these targets will lead to starvation.
- The Myth of Biofuels is excerpted from a presentation by David
Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley Labs, June 2007. More details and
information are available from the website, The Myths of Biofuels.
http://www.odac-info.org/bulletin/bulletin.htm#myth_of_biofuels
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“We think that the market share of bio-fuels
in 2030 will only be 7 % of global fuel
production. To reach 7 %, one will need an
agricultural area equivalent to the surface of
Australia, plus Korea, Japan and New
Zealand.
- International Energy Agency chief economist
www.energybulletin.net/32242.html
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“The 111 ethanol refineries now in operation, the 75 under
construction or expansion, and others still being planned,
would be able to use 10 billion bushels of corn a year by
2009 — about the same as the entire 2006 crop. The price of
pig feed has gone up 25 per cent since the summer, and it's
not the price so much as the fact that it's just not available“
- Dave Warner, National Pork Producers Council.
"The days of the United States meat industry in its current
state appear to be numbered. The gates are down. The lights
are flashing. Does anyone see the train coming?“
- David Nelson, agribusiness analyst for Credit Suisse Group, in “Ethanol fuels
concern of US farmers“ http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/ethanol-fuelsconcern-of-us-farmers/2007/01/28/1169919212154.html
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Forget oil, the new global crisis is food
BMO strategist Donald Coxe warns credit crunch and
soaring oil prices will pale in comparison to looming
catastrophe - A new crisis is emerging, a global food
catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than
anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the
reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will
pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald
Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group
"It's not a matter of if, but when," he warned investors. "It's
going to hit this year hard." - Financial Post,, January 03,
2008, www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=213343
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So How do we build SSP?
No company(s) or agency(s), however, is prepared to assume
the immense financial risk of initiating construction of an
SSPS.
There are simply too many engineering, financial, regulatory
and managerial risks for any group we have been able to
identify to undertake SSP today.
But this road has been well traveled by America before ...
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There is a tried and true vehicle, that could initiate SSP
construction today.
A private Congressionally chartered corporation has all
the requisite advantages. Comsat Corp., chartered in 1962,
opened space for communication satellites - when we knew
little about space, rockets or space communications.
Communications satellites are now a $100 Billion industry
per year. The “Sunsat Act” would accomplish the same
task, creating a space solar power industry of much greater
size.
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Trans-Continental Railroad
“Cape Horn at The Head of The Great American Canon”,
…- Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 27, 1878
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Congress chartered Comsat Corp.in 1962 to build
communications satellites. Comsat Corp. opened space to the
diverse $100+ Billion per year communications satellite business
of today. Congress should charter a new corporation, Sunsat
Corp. to build power satellites. Draft legislation for Sunsat, very
much like Comsat, would have all the requisite advantages. We
recommend that congress charter Sunsat Corp.
The electric power industry is the most capital intensive business
in the world. This is why utilities are generally regulated
monopolies – because ownership of major power plants is really
a public trust. Sunsat also needs to be organized the same way.
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This legislation would provide a launch “subsidy” to new
private or public/ private businesses, such as SunSat Corp,
which are contracting for space transportation. This
subsidy would be in the form of stock transfers and loan
guarantees.
Sunsat Corp. is aiming for 42,000 flights per year,
nominally. Prices would quickly fall below current levels
once subsidies established such a market volume.
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Prices drop as flight rate increases
Red dots are Elon Musk, SpaceX, $1300/lb and Roger Angel’s $20/lb (Sandia
electromagnetic launch)
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COTS Program
NASA plans to retire the shuttle by 2010 and Orion-Ares is
not scheduled until 2015. NASA has selected two
companies to build replacement services:
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX),
Hawthorne, CA and
Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, VA.
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The FAA’s 2007 Commercial Space Transportation
Forecast shows a declining launch market – no change is
forecast in high launch costs – necessary for SSP.
SSP must incentivize the orbital market fleet it needs to
close the business case. SSP is the only market capable
of doing this. The FAA shows it won’t happen with
business as usual assumptions, we need Sunsat Act.
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 Continuing - since space transportation is
expensive we want to find high performance
photovoltaic cells – to increase the power output
for the same weight carried to orbit.
 Space qualified thin-film solar cells in the pipeline
today can provide 4550 Watts/Kg. These are
adequate specifications to begin SSP design and/or
construction now.
 We anticipate tripling that performance within 3-5
years, using current laboratory PV cells.*
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Photo courtesy NASA, and ManTech-SRS
Technologies
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Source:
Ken Zweibel, NREL
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SkyWorker
an autonomous robot to build multi-kilometer size space
structures
Credit – Red Whitaker, CMU Robotics,
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/projects/skyworker/temp/skyworker2.mpg
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ASTRO Captures NextSat
On July 23, 2007, for the first time
ever, a satellite autonomously
rendezvoused with and captured
another orbiting satellite,
pioneering future robotic work in
space . ASTRO (Autonomous
Space Transport Robotic
Operations), part of Boeing’s Orbital Express system, successfully
demonstrated advanced on-orbit satellite refueling and reconfiguration
capabilities with NextSat. ASTRO, the robotic, on-orbit spacecraft
mechanic, successfully captured NextSat. Orbital Express is a DARPA
program which has validated on-orbit satellite servicing technologies.
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Advantages of Space Solar Power
• Unlike oil, gas, ethanol, and coal plants, SSP does not
emit CO2.
• Unlike coal and nuclear plants, SSP does not compete
for or depend upon increasingly scarce fresh water
resources.
• Unlike bio-ethanol or bio-diesel, SSP does not compete
for increasingly valuable farm land or depend on
natural-gas-derived fertilizer. Food can continue to be a
major export instead of a fuel provider.
• Unlike nuclear power plants, SSP will not produce
hazardous waste, proliferate nuclear weapons, or
provide easy targets for terrorists.
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Advantages of Space Solar Power - 2
• Unlike terrestrial solar and wind power plants, SSP is
available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in endless
quantities. It ignores cloud cover, daylight, or wind
speed.
• Unlike coal and nuclear fuels, SSP does not require
environmentally problematic mining operations.
• SSP can provide true energy independence for the
nations that develop it, eliminating a major source of
national competition for limited Earth-based energy
resources and dependence on unstable or hostile
foreign oil providers.
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Advantages of Space Solar Power - 3
• SSP can be easily exported anywhere in the world, and
its energy can be converted to local needs, from
household appliances in rural India to desalination of
sea water.
• SSP can take advantage of our current and historic
investment in aerospace expertise to expand
employment opportunities in solving the difficult
problems of energy security and climate change.
• SSP can provide a market large enough to develop the
low-cost space transportation system required to enable
an SSP business case. This will slowly open the solar
system to Earth’s economic reach and even settlement.
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The Path of Space Solar Power
If we move soon, we can alleviate much of the disastrous
impact that other attempts to substitute for SSP will have,
such as raising the cost of food and starving millions
worldwide. Many economical alternatives can contribute beginning with electrifying our transportation systems, such
as hybrid-electric cars, as Japan and France are doing . The
technologies and infrastructure required to make SSP
feasible include:
• Low-cost, environmentally-friendly launch vehicles. Current
launch vehicles are too expensive, and at high launch rates
may pose atmospheric pollution problems of their own.
Only SSP enables and requires these.
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The Path of Space Solar Power - 2
• Large scale in-orbit construction and operations. The
physics requires that solar power satellites must be huge,
gathering massive utility-scale quantities of energy.
• World photovoltaic (PV) production would be greatly
expanded into space, where it began in 1958 with our
Vanguard I spacecraft. Currently just 0.03% of worldwide
electricity is generated from photovoltaic power. 2006
world PV production was 2.1 GW
• All other necessary technologies are similarly reasonably
near-term and have multiple attractive approaches.
However, much work (STEM jobs) that we understand well
is needed to bring them to practical fruition
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SSP would revitalize America by showing that a multitude
of space-development-related-educational-fields, from
telerobotics to wireless power transfer and environmental
sciences, are vitally relevant to these great problems.
Reduced launch costs, the key enabler, will provide
unprecedented access to space and space operations
beginning with clean, baseload, sustainable SSP - reliable
power delivery and global energy security at greatly
reduced environmental impact. Only SSP can support this
vastly expanded space launch market.
Choosing to charter an SSP corporation would be “a small
step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”
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Sunsat Act Draft legislation available at:
www.sspi.gatech.edu/sunsat-how.pdf
FOR MORE INFO...
Learn more at www.sspi.gatech.edu
Email: [email protected]
And many other resources such as:
www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/sspvideo.htm
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