This chapter is entitled ―real energy‖ for unlike the previous energy sources reviewed that are unrealistic the sources discussed here are the main sources we have for energy and are the sources which will continue to be the main sources for some time to come.
According to the Energy Information Administration renewable resources produced 2.3% of the U.S. electrical supply in 2008.
Biomass was responsible for 1.5%, wind for 0.44% and solar power for only 0.1%. In contrast, coal fired generation produced 49.7%
of the U.S. electrical supplies in 2005, followed by nuclear power at 19.3%, natural gas at 19.1%, (now at 23.2%) hydro power at 6.5% (now at 7.5%) and oil-fired generation at 3%. We have coal, oil, natural gas and the ability to develop nuclear power and refine oil and are not doing it because of the government. Let‘s look at each of these.
Natural Gas.
As natural gas is essentially irreplaceable (at least with current technology), it is important to have an idea of how much natural gas is left in the ground for us to use. However, this becomes complicated by the fact that no one really knows exactly how much natural gas exists until it is extracted. Measuring natural gas in the ground is no easy job, and it involves a great deal of inference and estimation.
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With new technologies, these estimates are becoming more and more reliable; however, they are still subject to revision.
There is an abundance of natural gas in North America, but it is a non-renewable resource, the formation of which takes thousands and possibly millions of years. A common misconception about natural gas is that we are running out, and quickly. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, there is a vast amount of natural gas estimated to still be in the ground. In order to better understand exactly what these estimates mean and their importance, it is useful first to learn a bit of industry terminology for the different types of estimates.
U.S. Natural Gas Resource Estimates
The most recent EIA data on proved reserves in the U.S.
When combined with EIA‘s latest estimate of proved natural gas reserves, the Potential Gas Committee‘s report said total available future supply is 2,074 Tcf, equaling about 100 years of supply at current rates of consumption. (Americans consume an average 22
Tcf/year.)
Natural gas is a major source of electricity generation through the use of gas turbines and steam turbines. Most grid peaking power plants and some off-grid engine-generators use natural gas. Particularly high efficiencies can be achieved through combining gas turbines with a steam turbine in combined cycle mode. Natural gas burns more cleanly than other fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, and produces less carbon dioxide per unit energy released. For an equivalent amount of heat, burning natural gas produces about 30% less carbon dioxide than burning petroleum and about 45% less than burning coal. Combined cycle power generation using natural gas is thus the cleanest source of power available using fossil fuels, and this technology is widely used wherever gas can be obtained at a reasonable cost. Fuel cell technology may eventually provide cleaner options for converting natural gas into electricity, but as yet it is not price-competitive. Natural gas now provides 23% of the electricity generated in our country but that is due to increase because of the increase in supply which leads to a decrease in the cost of natural gas. In addition, the push to reduce carbon dioxide and other pollution from coal is leading to the use of more natural gas.
Natural gas is supplied to homes where it is used for such purposes as cooking in natural gas-powered ranges and ovens, natural gas-heated clothes dryers, heating/cooling and central heating. Home or other building heating may include boilers, furnaces, and water heaters. CNG is used in rural homes without connections to piped-in public utility services, or with portable grills. Natural gas is also supplied by independent natural gas suppliers through Natural Gas Choice programs throughout the United States. However, due to CNG being less economical than LPG, LPG (propane) is the dominant source of rural gas.
Compressed natural gas (methane) is a cleaner alternative to other automobile fuels such as gasoline (petrol) and diesel. As of 2008
there were 9.6 million natural gas vehicles worldwide, led by Pakistan (2.0 million), Argentina (1.7 million), Brazil (1.6 million), Iran (1.0 million), and India (650,000). The energy efficiency is generally equal to that of gasoline engines, but lower compared with modern diesel engines. Gasoline/petrol vehicles converted to run on natural gas suffer because of the low compression ratio of their engines, resulting in a cropping of delivered power while running on natural gas (10%-15%). CNG-specific engines, however, use a higher compression ratio due to this fuel's higher octane number of 120–130.
It is surprising that the environmentalists have not pushed the use of natural gas in automobiles or trucks for it is cleaner than gasoline which they seem to hate. Hydro power
Globally, hydro power provides about 16% of the electricity generated and in the U.S. about 7%. Mother Earth worshippers have objected to the development of hydro power because of their love of fish and the resulting long waits for federal permits have interfered with more development. There can also be some high capital costs involved with some of hydro power facilities. The Electric Power Research Institute believes that drawing power from water could add 40,000 megawatts to the grid by 2025 which is the equivalent of putting two dozen nuclear power plants online. The Department of Energy has now allocated $50 million to hydro power research this year although nothing had been allocated before. The DOE estimates that a new hydro project in 2016 would generate power at a cost of $120 per megawatt-hour which is still cheaper than wind or solar.
There are about 80,000 existing dams which do not have hydroelectric capacity and the addition of that could add lots to our electric power supply. We have had this Department of Energy for some years and it must be totally incompetent to not have investigated this before. Here we have a clean source of power and very little has been done to develop it.
Nuclear Power
The following is taken from the Department of Energy EIA.
The demand for energy in the United States is rising. By the year 2030, domestic demand for electrical energy is expected to grow to levels of 16 to 36 percent higher than 2007 levels. Nuclear energy today provides about 20 percent of U.S. electricity, and 70 percent of its carbon-free electricity. It does not produce greenhouse gases, and so does not contribute to climate change. Nuclear energy produces large quantities of continuous, affordable electricity. Today in the United States, 104 nuclear reactors provide carbon-free electricity to help drive the American economy.
Globally, nuclear energy is undergoing renewed growth, with 13 countries constructing 53 new nuclear power units and 27 countries in the planning stages for an additional 142 units. In the United States, a renewed interest in nuclear energy has resulted in blueprints for the first new nuclear power plants in over 30 years. Combined Construction and Operating license applications have been submitted for 28 new U.S. nuclear power plants, with 8 more expected.
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Over the past 15 years, consolidation of plant ownership to a smaller number of excellent operators has made the operation of U.S.
plants: safer; more cost-effective; and more reliable. Efficiency improvements and power uprates have allowed existing U.S. nuclear plants to produce more energy than in previous decades, adding the equivalent of nearly 5 to 6 new nuclear reactors to the electrical grid. U.S. nuclear plants, which were available to produce energy only 70 percent of the time on average in the early 1990s, are now producing power around 92 percent of the time. Nuclear power plants do not release air pollutants or carbon dioxide in the production of electricity, providing an important option for improving air and environmental quality. As a result of this success, essentially all U.S. nuclear plants are expected to apply for renewed licenses that will keep most plants in operation into the middle of the century.
As of 2007, Watts Bar 1, which came on-line on February 7, 1996, was the last U.S. commercial nuclear reactor to go on-line. This is often quoted as evidence of a successful worldwide campaign for nuclear power phase-out. However, even in the U.S. and throughout Europe, investment in research and in the nuclear fuel cycle has continued, and some nuclear industry experts] predict electricity shortages, fossil fuel price increases, global warming and heavy metal emissions from fossil fuel use, new technology such as passively safe plants, and national energy security will renew the demand for nuclear power plants.
According to the World Nuclear Association, globally during the 1980s one new nuclear reactor started up every 17 days on average, and by the year 2015 this rate could increase to one every 5 days. Many countries remain active in developing nuclear power, including China, India, Japan and Pakistan (all actively developing both fast and thermal technology), South Korea and the United States (developing thermal technology only), and South Africa and China, (developing versions of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
[PBMR]). Several EU member states actively pursue nuclear programs, while some other member states have bans on nuclear energy use. Japan has an active nuclear construction program with new units brought on-line in 2005. In the U.S., three consortia responded in 2010 to the U.S. Department of Energy's solicitation under the Nuclear Power 2010 Program and were awarded matching funds—
the Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorized loan guarantees for up to six new reactors, and authorized the Department of Energy to build a reactor based on the Generation IV Very-High-Temperature Reactor concept to produce both electricity and hydrogen.
However, as of 2011 nothing is being done.
As of the early 21st century, nuclear power is of particular interest to both China and India to serve their rapidly growing economies—
both are developing fast breeder reactors. In the energy policy of the United Kingdom it is recognized that there is a likely future energy supply shortfall, which may have to be filled by either new nuclear plant construction or maintaining existing plants beyond their programmed lifetime.
China plans to build more than 100 plants, while in the US the licenses of almost half its reactors have already been extended to 60 years, and plans to build more than 30 new ones are under consideration. China may achieve its long-term plan of having 40,000
megawatts of nuclear power capacity four to five years ahead of schedule.
Further, the U.S. NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy have initiated research into Light water reactor sustainability which is hoped will lead to allowing extensions of reactor licenses beyond 60 years, in increments of 20 years, provided that safety can be maintained, as the loss in non-CO2-emitting generation capacity by retiring reactors "may serve to challenge U.S. energy security, potentially resulting in increased greenhouse gas emissions, and contributing to an imbalance between electric supply and demand." In 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) predicted that nuclear power capacity could double by 2030, though that would not be enough to increase nuclear's share of electricity generation.
In the U.S. there have been no new nuclear power plants built in the last 30 years nor have any refineries been constructed. The reason for the lack of constructions is that the government dictated that the nuclear plant to be constructed had to be reviewed and approved before construction could start and then a separate approval was required to operate the plant. Naturally, no sensible company would start a project and spend millions and then wait for a government agency to rule on whether it was capable of running the plant that had been built.
The effect of the environmentalists and asinine rules and regulations is shown by examining the Millstone and the Shoreham power stations. In 1970 the 660 MW Millstone 1 nuclear power station was licensed and began operating in January, 1971. The cost was about $65 million. The Shoreham reactor was a near twin sister to it and was to be built on Long Island. Between the county, the city, the state and the federal government honoring all of the complaints of the environmentalists the cost of the Shoreham rose to over $6
billion plus $186 million for decommissioning it. It never did operate.
Much of the above problems are due to our government‘s obedience to environmental groups and abolishing the EPA will also benefit this area.
The Department of Energy has contributed to the problems by their issuance of rules and regulations concerning the construction of nuclear plants and refineries. It is obvious that the rules that existed 30 years ago were excellent for the record for operation of the nuclear power plants is excellent.
We are falling behind the rest of the world in nuclear power. France now obtains 70% of their power from nuclear and the rest of Europe is far ahead of us in the use of nuclear power. We have 103 nuclear power plants producing 20% of our power. Nuclear power is the cleanest, the cheapest, the most efficient and the most environmental friendly form of power and we are woefully behind the rest of the world in our use of it.
President Obama has promised an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. However, they are meaningless in the absence of regulatory certainty. The loan guarantee has now been increased to $54 billion 34
but that will not help without the removal of other impediments. The interference with the construction of nuclear power plants has come from the environmentalists and exposes their real purposes. They wish to impede all progress and return us to the ―horse and buggy days‘ for if they really were for clean, safe energy they would be promoting the use of nuclear energy.
On October 8, 2010 Constellation Energy gave up trying to persuade the government to reduce its proposed fee for a loan guarantee for a planned nuclear plant on Chesapeake Bay. The company said, ―The governments price would clearly destroy…the economics of any nuclear project‖. Experts now predict the project, a joint venture with EDF, a French state-controlled electricity giant, will die.
Currently, just two nuclear plants are under construction in America, neither yet with full regulatory approval. One is being built near Waynesboro, GA by Southern Company and the other is being built in South Carolina by Scana. It is competing for a loan guarantee with NRG Energy which has plans to build in Texas.
The rest of the world is adding to their nuclear power and we are still debating what to do. Our bureaucrats are being led by the environmentalists who really don‘t care if we ever build. The Obama administration acts as if they are in support of nuclear power but there is nothing being done at this time to prove that. In order to build a nuclear plant in our country it takes about ten years – four years to get approvals, two years to answer all of the environmentalists law suits and four year to build. China has four nuclear power plants under construction and anticipates constructing one in four years. We have the knowledge, the operating history and are prevented by our government from adding to our nuclear capacity.
OIL
We have been blessed with material resources but our main problem in developing and using them has been our government. Our trucks and cars move on our highways fueled by oil and gasoline. We can speculate and dream about ―renewables‖ but right now the reality is that we are totally dependent upon oil for our transportation. We have to have oil and if we do not produce it here then we will have to buy it. Which is what we are doing for we are importing around two thirds of our petroleum needs.
The reason we have had gas prices up to $4.00 per gallon is our government. The reason we are dependent upon foreign countries for oil is because of our government. It seems that a Department of Energy would have helped us overcome this dependency but in fact they and the Congress are the cause of the problem.
The Federal Energy Information Administration expects world oil demand to grow significantly over the next 30 years, from 80
million barrels per day in 2003 to 98 million barrels per day in 2015 and then to 118 million barrels per day by 2030. With t hat information the logical action would be to do those things that would develop our own oil and reduce our dependence on foreign countries. Especially should that be considered a problem when we evaluate the countries that have that oil. Would Iran be a threat today if the price of oil was cut in half? Or Russia or Venezuela? When we see China working with Cuba to develop oil wells just 75
miles off our coast shouldn‘t that lead us to question our own policies? And, when we consider the present unrest in the Middle East and the likely disruption in the oil supply and the probable rise in gas prices it would seem proper to add to our oil refineries and oil supply as soon as possible. In fact, we should be treating this as an emergency.
China has secured oil supply deals totaling $41 billion with Russia, Brazil and Venezuela and are preparing for their future oil supply for the next ten years. We may be left out of the future oil supply and are not taking steps to develop our own supply.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management has just released its inventory of oil and natural gas deposits on federal land. That report indicates we have onshore holdings of an astounding 187trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 21 billion barrels of oil. In addition, another federal study calculates that an additional 83 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 19.1 billion barrels of oil lie beneath federally controlled territorial waters and there are 660 million acres of government owned land in the west and on military installations which are off limits to oil and gas leasing. Less than 29% of government owned land is available for exploration and development.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners finds that the U.S. has more than 200 billion of oil and 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are recoverable with today‘s technology. If fully developed it would eliminate our 10 million barrel diet of foreign oil for 50 years. In other words we have enough oil and gas to handle our own needs for many, many years. Since exploration is not taking place on federal land ( only 17% is available for exploration) the amounts available may be much higher.
Just 3% of onshore federal oil and 13% of onshore federal gas are accessible under standard leasing terms. Restrictions such as a ban on surface occupancy tie up 46% of the onshore federal oil and 60% of the onshore federal gas. The rest – 51% of the oil and 27% of the gas – are completely off-limits to development. Off limits because of government laws or regulations. We should open up the barren wasteland of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our own offshore waters to oil and natural gas drilling.
It is hard to understand why our government is unwilling to drill for oil. Denmark, Great Britain, and Norway are supposedly very friendly to the environment and yet they have oil wells in the North Sea off of their coasts. Australia has had oil wells in their coastal waters for over thirty years. Brazil has a very large oil field in the ocean and has just announced the discovery of another large oil field in the Atlantic ocean. Cuba and China have formed a joint venture to drill for oil just 75 miles off the coast of Florida. Every one else has off shore mining and our decisions to not drill do not effect the mining and use of oil. It only effects us and keeps us dependent on others for our oil.
In 1981 there were 325 oil refineries in the US with a capacity of 18.6 million barrels a day. Today there are 148 refineries with a 35
capacity of about 17 million barrels though demand has increased by over 20%.
Refineries have had to spend some $37 billion to meet the demands of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the National Environmentally Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. That has led to the reduction in the number of refineries and our present condition. Congress could help considerably by waiving all of these environmental rules and regulations as they pertain to oil refineries, oil drilling or nuclear power plants. They could but it is unlikely that they will do so. It would also help to remove the requirement for environmental impact studies.
Meeting the requirements of the above environmental regulations is bad enough but in addition we have the lawsuits instituted by the environmental groups. There are good reasons why there have been no new refineries built and once again it is the government. One of the major hurdles to overcome is the lawsuits instituted by environmental groups that are designed to stop production of new plants.
Those who would build are faced with long delays and large legal fees and this could be solved by having Congress pass laws preventing law suits that are instituted to stop construction and limiting the law suits invoking the environmental laws to existing or operating facilities or exempting the oil companies from complying with the environmental rules and regulations.
With the present regulations oil companies are not going to build any new refineries. While they can predict their costs for construction they can not estimate the legal costs they will incur from law suits from environmental groups trying to stop construction.
These law suits are not instituted to halt pollution. They are instituted to stop our refining oil. The present oil refineries are meeting all of the environment laws and they obviously can build other refineries to meet those laws. Thus, the logical conclusion is that the environmentalists want to stop adding new refineries. They actually want to harm our country. They want to keep our gasoline prices high and increase our dependence on foreign oil. With the situation in the middle east where most of the oil exists makes that dependence a security threat.
Oil companies also can not predict the actions that the EPA may take to stop them nor do they know what the Congress might do next.
Those legal costs have and could mount to millions of dollars and the oil companies are not going to build in the face of that possible cost. IF we really want new refineries the Congress will have to exempt the oil companies from those rules, regulations and laws or in some manner pass laws preventing law suits designed to stop them from construction.
Presidential executive orders issued by the President George Bush (41) existed to stop offshore drilling on our Outer Continental Shelf until 2012. (President Bush -43- has finally rescinded that) A recent House bill would allow us to drill for natural gas off the US coast but that hasn‘t received final approval.
A bill was passed by the Republican Congress in 1995 to permit drilling for oil and gas but President Clinton vetoed it. We can not get a bill through the Senate that permits drilling for oil in Alaska. In 2008 the Democratic Congress passed a bill permitting drilling for oil and claimed they had solved the problem. However, that bill permitted drilling 100 miles off the coast or between 50 and 100 miles if adjacent states permitted. Thus, drilling within 50 miles of the coast was prohibited and that is where the oil companies have explored. That effectively stops any drilling for another several years.
The Bush administration had a plan for leasing the energy – rich Outer Continental Shelf but within a month after Obama took office, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar halted leasing by extending the public comment period by six months. It has not yet released a summary of the comments. The ban has been extended to 2012 and according to House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (R-WA), ―The Obama administration has no intention of opening up new areas for offshore drilling during his four years in office‖.
In the meantime the Dept.of Interior cancelled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land Utah and also stopped eight parcels from a lease sale in Wyoming. Shell oil has just announced they are postponing their plan to drill for oil in Arctic waters off Alaska because the Environmental Appeals Board invalidated its air quality permit. The permit had already been issued but the Board changed its mind. It was estimated that 54,700 jobs would have been created and that a payroll of 145 billion dollars would have occurred due to that project. Shell had already spent $4 billion ( $2.4 billion was for permits and leases) over the last five years in preparation and now is forced to stop.
Several leaked Interior Department memos disclosed that Mr. Obama planned to use executive power to designate 10 million acres of western land as ―monuments‖ which would put them off-limits to energy developments and could stop current timber and mining work.
President Obama revealed a plan to open more acreage to exploratory oil and gas drilling but the plan creates reduces more acreage than it adds. Some choice sites in Alaska were removed and the ones that were added have to have environmental studies before a lease sale can be held. Then there would have to be seismic surveys and federal air permits obtained before drilling could start. The net result is a removal of acreage for the near future.
Rep. Trent Franks (AZ-R), said, ― the ironic reality is that the administration‘s new policy actually closes more offshore drilling sites than it opens. Had the administration done nothing, a lease plan was already set to take effect that would have opened vast expanses of the Outer Continental Shelf, drastically increasing our nation‘s ability to tap into our domestic energy supply‖.
The National Petroleum Reserve- Alaska (NPR-A) was a 23 million stretch of Alaska‘s North Slope set aside by President Warren Harding for the purpose of supplying our country with oil and gas. It is estimated to hold 12 billion barrels of oil and 73 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. For more than five years the state of Alaska has worked with energy companies, local communities and Native 36
Alaska corporations on a balanced plan to open NPR-A to drilling in a site known as CD-5. In February, the U. S. army Corps reversed course and denied the issuance of a critical permit for the site. As Alaska senator, Lisa Murkowski stated in a recent address,
―For heavens sake, if we can‘t drill in the National Petroleum Reserve – an area specifically designated by Congress for oil and gas production – where can we drill?‖
This has even greater importance than it appears for the production from the North Slope is starting to slow down. In 1988 the Alaska pipeline carried about two million barrels a day and now only about 670,000 barrels a day which is about 13% of the U.S. production.
As the amount flowing through the pipeline slows down there is much concern that the slower flow will result in the oil freezing or forming into a waxy mass and thus raise the risk of interruptions and spills. NPR-5 would add the oil flow needed to solve that problem and since NPR-5 is almost adjacent to the pipeline it would require very little infrastructure to join to the pipeline. To add to the problem the moratorium issued due to the Gulf oil spill has also stopped drilling in Alaska. Royal Dutch Shell was awaiting Interior Department approval to start drilling five offshore wells this year but the moratorium will move that into 2011 because of the winter weather.
Which brings us to the Gulf oil spill. The blowup occurred on April 20th and by the 22nd the oil started flowing from the well. It was not capped until July 15. The lack of action by President Obama was amazing. Other countries had experienced spills before and many had special equipment for spills. Thirteen counties offered to send ―skimmer‖ ships to help skim up the oil and Obama refused their help which meant the oil kept flowing with inadequate measures to stop it and much of the Gulf coast was contaminated from the oil.
The only real decisive measure taken by Obama was to issue a moratorium that stopped all drilling – everywhere - claiming that the action was taken after having reviewed a study from seven experts on oil drilling. "The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deep-water drilling was made by the secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House."
After one of the reviewers complained, the Interior Department promptly issued an apology during a conference call, in a formal letter and during a personal meeting in June.
All seven experts asked to review the Interior Department's work expressed concern about the change made by the White House, saying that it differed in important ways from the draft they had approved.
"We believe the report does not justify the moratorium as written, and that the moratorium as changed will not contribute measurably to increased safety and will have immediate and long-term economic effects," the scientists wrote earlier this year to Louisiana Gov.
Bobby Jindal and Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter. "The secretary should be free to recommend whatever he thinks is correct,