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Part 1. Chapter 5:
The Current US Energy Path
Is the Bush Administration planning to do better than the US has done for the last 30 years?
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On Valentines day 2002, President Bush announced the Clear Skies & Global Climate Change Initiatives.
My administration is committed to cutting our nation's greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent over the next 10 years.
This sounds like the administration is committed to making an 18% improvement over 10 years, or almost 2% per year. That impression was subsequently reinforced with dozens of similar statements by the White House and in particular, the President's press secretaries.
This administration has moved forward to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent, come 2012. —Mr. McClellan, 6/15/2005
In 2002, in February, the President committed to cutting greenhouse gas intensity, how much we emit per unit of economy activity by 18 percent. —Mr. Snow, 10/31/2006
But in the Executive Summary provided with the President's initial message, there is a further claim that the 18% cut will "achieve 100 million metric tons of reduced emissions in 2012 alone." Strangely, this works out to be only a 4% cut in GHG intensity. Perhaps someone else was curious, because a rather plain looking, undated document was later linked to the web page for the Clear Skies & Global Climate Change Initiatives.
This "Addendum" explains that the "100 million tons" of reduction amounts to only 4% because the other 14% was already predicted by the "business as usual" reference case. In other words, had the President taken no action, the US would have achieve a 14% reduction of GHG intensity by 2012, more or less. The initiative is at best a 4%-in-ten-years initiative.
18% or 100 million tons, which is it?
The Administration makes two conflicting claims. The "Addendum" states that "the reference case intensity declines from 183 to 158 mtce/$million. 14% = 1 – 158/183," while the Executive Summary states that the goal is to reach an intensity of 151 in 2012. Hence the President's goal is for an additional intensity decline from 158 to 151. So, the extra 7 mtce/$million corresponds to the additional 4%.
"Mtce / $million," means a metric tons of carbon for each million dollars of GDP. The Addendum puts GDP at $14.5 million million. So 7 mtce/$million works out to 7 x 14.5 million mtce in 2013, 101.5 mtce. So the 100 million tons corresponds to the President's additional 4% in 2012.
How does this compare with past? EPA's numbers show that in the previous decade, 1992--2002, the country achieved an 18% reduction in GHG gas intensity. Exactly what the President promised. So apparently, by 2002, the country appeared to be headed for a slower rate of intensity reduction, and the President's policy is to keep it on the same track for the next decade that it was on for the previous decade.
But, what exactly is "intensity reduction." First note that if 18% goal is met, and President Bush does "achieve 100 million metric tons of reduced emissions in 2012 alone," emissions will actually be 256 million metric tons greater than they were in 2002. Sound impossible? The confusion stems from a simplification in the President's claim. A more precise wording would say "achieve 100 million metric tons of reduction relative to the 356 million ton predicted increase."
Understanding Intensity
To put "intensity reductions" in perspective the Department of Energy has evaluated the five decades from 1950 through 2000. Unfortunately, it only has data on CO2 and not on all green house gases, but these are similar. In the last decade, 1990--2000, the GHG intensity reduction was 17.7% while the CO2 intensity reduction was only 15%. During the five decades after 1950, the CO2 reductions were 13%, 3%, 18%, 26% and 15%. So this process started is not primarily the result of government policy. In spite of a CO2 intensity reduction of 15% per decade for 50 years, and perhaps a faster rate of GHG intensity reduction, emissions have continued to climb at an increasing rate.
Greenhouse gas intensity is mainly a matter of energy intensity, On average,
GDP (think income) increases about 3% per year, but on average people spend only 1% more on energy. This is because most energy goes for basics, transportation, light, heating and cooling. As people become wealthier, they want more of the basics but their spending on non-essentials grows even faster. As people get richer, their energy use goes up, as do GHG emissions, but not as much as their income, so energy per dollar of income goes down, as does GHG emissions per dollar GDP. Emissions per dollar GDP is just GHG "intensity."
So mainly GHG intensity falls because we are getting wealthier. But even though wealth increases makes intensity fall, they still make GHG emissions increase. The second major factor is the cost of energy. In six years, from 1980 to 1986, GHG intensity fell over 20% because of the oil price spike in the early '80s. So President Bush could achieve his target and quite a lot more if, for example, China's demand for oil increased, or there were a war in the middle east, and the price of oil tripled to $75/barrel.
Finally, there are two other causes of decreasing intensity, more efficient energy technology and alternative fuels. Efficiency increases naturally with technical progress, but it can also be stimulated by government-funded research and efficiency standards. So far alternative fuels, mainly nuclear have reduced a benchmark of 100 in 1980 to 94 in 1995 after which it has increased to 97. So this is a very minor effect.
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The US Department of Energy (DOE) Publishes an Annual Energy Outlook which describes their "Reference Case" predictions for the next 25 years. This is the best estimate we have of what "business as usual" will lead to. Between 2004 and 2030, DOE expects a 34.3% increase in energy consumption and a 37.5% increase in CO2 emissions. In spite of all you hear about renewable energy, wind turnbines, solar power, hydrogen cars, nuclear power, and carbon trading, DOE is not buying it. All of those reduce CO2 per unit of energy consumed, but DOE predicts it will go the other way.
Between 2004 and 2030, annual US energy use will grow by 34 Quads. A Quad is the energy in about 9 billion gallons of gasoline, but size is not the point. Of this 34 Quad increase,
15 will come from imports,
11 from coal
3 from renewables, and
1 from nuclear.
These numbers reveal the culprit. Nuclear and renewables, do much better than average on CO2, but coal does a little worse and there's a lot of it. Renewable energy is expected to increase 57%, but its a small number and coal is expected to increase 53%. With business as usual coal will again be king.
Coal deserves special attention for another reason: something could be done about it. Coal could become a much cleaner energy source--less air-borne pollutants and almost no CO2. Unfortunately business as usual will build about 350 new large (500 MW) coal plants by 2030 and these will not be carbon-capture ready. It will still be possible to retrofit them but at much more cost than if the extra investment had been made up front.
Because coal plants last about 40 years, this mistake will haunt us well into the second half of the century.
The Good News
If coal is the bad news, price is the good news. Coal is cheap, and DOE does not expect oil prices to be worse than what we have already experienced. In its January 2006 report, DOE shows a price $60 for oil and $20 for the same amount of coal energy, very little differnent from when this book was written. Another piece of good news, though not as good as we need it to be, is that energy use per person is expected to stay constant due to improvement in energy efficiency. This means we will be spending about the same amount per person. However, we will be much better off than we are are now, with consumption per person increasing 63%. That means, that energy expensese will consume much less of our household budgets. In fact energy will drop from about 9% to 6% of the cost of living.
To be continued ...
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Cutting Greenhouse Gas Intensity by 18 Percent Over the Next 10 Years. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output. The President's goal seeks to lower our rate of emissions from an estimated 183 metric tons per million dollars of GDP in 2002, to 151 metric tons per million dollars of GDP in 2012. By significantly slowing the growth of greenhouse gases, this policy will put America on a path toward stabilizing GHG concentration in the atmosphere in the long run, while sustaining the economic growth needed to finance our investments in a new, cleaner energy structure. America is already improving its GHG intensity; new policies and programs will accelerate that progress, avoiding more than 500 million metric tons of GHG emissions over the next ten years -- the equivalent of taking nearly one out of every three cars off the road. This goal is comparable to the average progress that nations participating in the Kyoto Protocol are required to achieve. Bush Fact Sheet
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We are moving forward with the President's climate change initiative, which does work to reduce the growth in greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent. --MR. McCLELLAN
This administration has moved forward to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent, come 2012. --MR. McCLELLAN
In 2002, in February, the President committed to cutting greenhouse gas intensity, how much we emit per unit of economy activity by 18 percent. --MR. SNOW
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http://zfacts.com/p/624.html | 01/18/12 07:26 GMT
Modified: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:58:04 GMT
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