Enabling safe, clean energy that will never run out is a key to averting catastrophic climate change.  Roughly half the “solution” to global warming is solar and wind [see "How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm"].  Of course, many U.S. concentrated solar plants will use low-cost, high-efficiency thermal storage.  In the longer term, plug-in hybrids and electric cars are likely to play a key role in storage, if issues surrounding battery life can be solved and/or battery leasing strategies pan out (which would also create a large aftermarket for batteries that utilities could use).  Another strategy for grid integration is natural gas.  In this repost, guest blogger Craig A. Severance discusses what he learned about available technology from interviews with leading storage firms.  Severance is co-author of “The Economics of Nuclear and Coal Power” (Praeger 1976) and a former Assistant to the Chairman and to Commerce Counsel, Iowa State Commerce Commission.

As the world meets this December to set plans to halt global warming, it is expected America and other industrial nations will commit to a daunting task: reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050.  In just 40 years, a complete revolution in how we use and supply our power must happen, or the world will face catastrophic effects of runaway climate changes.

As a new power plant typically lasts 40-50 years, many scientists are now arguing we must simply stop building new power systems that use significant amounts of fossil fuels.  They argue we must move to a high reliance on the wind and the sun for our electricity.

Abundant Power. The U.S. has enormous wind resources, capable of generating over 20% of U.S. electricity from wind by 2030, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The sunlight  falling on our deserts, parking lots, and rooftops has even more power  – enough to supply 69% of U.S. electricity by 2050 according to published studies.

Other renewable power sources — such as geothermal energy, municipal waste-to-energy, and biomass – will also play a role, but they pale in size compared to the gargantuan resources of wind and sunlight.

How We Use Energy vs. How Nature Provides. Though nature provides all the energy we may need, there is a problem.  We demand power literally “at the flick of a switch”, not just when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.

This basic fact about how we use power versus how nature supplies clean energy has caused many to discount the idea that wind or solar power can ever supply more than a small fraction of our electricity.  Critics of renewable electricity call it “intermittent” and “unreliable”.  They say we can’t “catch the wind”, nor can we command the sun to always shine.

These critics see two possible choices for the future. We can develop more stable supplies of renewable energy by coupling wind and solar projects with storage.  Failing that, they argue we should give up on renewables as a primary source of electricity, and instead build more nuclear power.

The flaw in the nuclear path, beyond its tremendous cost, long lead times, and imported fuel, is that nuclear is not actually “dispatchable” power.  Nuclear plants are designed to run all the time at fairly steady output — meaning nuclear power cannot provide the “peaking power” now provided by gas turbines.  Thus, a nuclear path would still rely heavily on fossil fuel power plants to “ramp up” on a daily basis to provide the power needed during these daily swings.

A truly dispatchable system providing over 80% reductions in carbon emissions, therefore, must rely on some form of energy storage.  The energy storage can allow us to fully utilize wind and sunlight as our main power sources – supplying both “base load” power and dispatchable daily peaking power with energy from these inexhaustible supplies.

Energy Storage and Today’s Grid.

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A Spanish paper that claimed support for green jobs “may destroy two jobs for every one created” has been debunked by an official publication of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The paper’s conclusions — led by Exxon-funded libertarian Gabriel Calzada — have been cited by GOP leaders, Fox News, right-wing columnists, conservative think tanks, and Big Oil front groups to attack President Obama’s green economic agenda. However, the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that the Spanish authors’ claim that renewable support kills jobs “is not supported by their work“:

The analysis by the authors from King Juan Carlos University represents a significant divergence from traditional methodologies used to estimate employment impacts from renewable energy. In fact, the methodology does not reflect an employment impact analysis. Accordingly, the primary conclusion made by the authors – policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses – is not supported by their work.

NREL reveals that what Republicans have called a “50-page empirical study” could have been written by ten-year-olds. All the study does is calculate two ratios of Spanish economic figures — renewable subsidies vs. private capital and subsidies vs. average productivity — and then draw extravagant conclusions not only about the Spanish economy, but project them onto the United States. Here are a few of the fundamental limitations, technical errors, and false assumptions drawn from NREL’s takedown of Calzada’s work of pseudo-economics:

The metrics used in the Spanish study are not jobs impact estimates. The primary conclusion of the report is that the Spanish economy has experienced job loss as a result of its RE installations. However, comparing the RE subsidy per job with the Spanish economy’s average capital per job and average productivity per job is not a measure of job loss.

The report lacks transparency and supporting statistics. It is striking that the authors’ calculations with two very different economic metrics generate the same result. The authors claim this increases their confidence in their result. However, because there is no statistical analysis, it does not seem reasonable to draw conclusions regarding confidence in either result. The authors also fail to justify their chosen methodology or cite others who have applied a similar methodology.

The authors assume that a dollar spent by the government is less efficient than a dollar spent by private industry and that it crowds out private investment. Government spending may be more or less efficient than private investment. To the extent that government spending is a correction for market failures (e.g., existing fossil fuel subsidies, environmental externalities), it is less likely to represent an inefficient allocation of resources. Furthermore, there is no justification given for the assumption that government spending (e.g., tax credits or subsidies) would force out private investment. This assumption is fundamental to the conclusion that Spain’s renewable energy policy has resulted in job loss.

Calzada also “fails to account for technology export potential,” “relies on jobs estimates that were developed in 2003 and do not reflect Spain’s RE industries in 2009,” and “relies on jobs as the sole metric to assess the value of renewable energy.” NREL’s Suzanne Tegen, a Ph.D. energy market analyst, and Eric Lantz conclude with a summary of what serious economic analysis of the impact of renewable energy investments has found:

In general, comprehensive analyses show that net employment impacts are sensitive to assumptions regarding future energy prices, strategies for addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, and the capacity to export technology. With increased awareness of potential energy price scenarios, recent research has found that it is only when conventional energy prices are forecast to be very low that net employment impacts from RE investments are negative.

In other words, unless you live in a world where global warming and oil spills don’t exist, and fossil fuels remain cheap forever, government investment in renewable energy creates jobs — just what our nation needs now.

(H/T Pete Altman)

UPDATE:  A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Jim Manley, just released the following statement:  “Senator Reid appreciates the leadership of Senators Boxer and Kerry as they shepherd this important legislation through their respective committees.  They are working diligently to craft a well-balanced bill and Senator Reid fully expects the Senate to have ample time to consider this comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation before the end of the year.”

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) have just released a joint statement:

The Kerry-Boxer bill is moving along well and we are looking forward to introducing legislation that will create millions of clean energy jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and ensure American leadership in the clean energy economy.

Because of Senator Kennedy’s recent passing, Senator Kerry’s August hip surgery, and the intensive work on health care legislation particularly on the Finance Committee where Sen. Kerry serves, Majority Leader Reid has agreed to provide some additional time to work on the final details of our bill, and to reach out to colleagues and important stakeholders.  We have told the Majority Leader that our goal is to introduce our bill later in September.

This delay from the planned Sept. 8 rollout for climate bill strikes me as a good idea.  A month ago I had written “Looks like no Senate vote on climate and clean energy bill until at least November “” thank goodness!“  I have said many times “Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010” “” although that is true only if he and Congress have a coherent strategy to do just that, which at this point, they don’t (see below).  The reality is that given conservatives’ immoral intransigence and progressives’ generally lame messaging, my statement should be revised to “Obama can get a climate bill — but only in 2010.”

To the extent Boxer and Kerry are taking this time to develop a better bill and a coherent messaging/outreach strategy, that is all to the good, because it’s increasingly clear we are going to get precisely one shot at this.  I had written in July:

Since the CBO has made clear that health care reform is tougher than climate action (also see here) and since conservatives see blood in the water (see TP’s Inhofe: If GOP Can ‘Stall’ Or ‘Block’ Health Care Reform, It Will Be ‘A Huge Gain’ For The 2010 Elections) and since the  Senate will try to do health care first and since tortoise-like Senate floor debates are a lot longer than hare-like House debates, it is all but impossible to imagine the Senate vote on a climate bill before November.

Now it is officially impossible to imagine a Senate vote before November.  And I’d say it’s now at most 50-50 the vote isn’t until December or January, which would put a final bill, conferenced and passed again by both House and Senate, on Obama’s desk maybe in March.  That should not be a surprise to CP readers.

I’ll update my July 4-part analysis below:

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Who would ape the Luddite U.S. Chamber of Commerce in their call for “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on global warming?  Why the monkey-see, monkey do deniers at Planet Gore and the office of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OIL).

Inhofe’s office actually quoted me:

Joe Romm, of the Center for American Progress, asks the board members of the Chamber “to declare whether they are evolved members of humanity or dedicated to our self-destruction.” This scathing, ad hominem response brings to mind John Stuart Mill, who, in his renowned essay “On Liberty,” discussed the practical implications of stifling opinions thought to be incorrect or misguided.

Note:  If you aren’t evolved, then my attack wouldn’t be ad hominem.  Ad simian, maybe.

In any case, my fact-based critique quotes at length from the major court case already held on climate science (see here), in which the witness for the deniers, John Christy, essentially agreed with the witness for climate science, NASA’s James Hansen on the key points, and where he didn’t, the judge explained that “it appears that the bulk of scientific opinion opposes Christy’s position” and that Christy’s view “does not fall within the mainstream of climate scientists.”

What is truly bizarre is that Inhofe staffer David Lungren quotes Mill:

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty.

So many things are wrong with this argument.  We’re not talking about an “opinion.”  Climate science is … science.  There have been innumerable “hearings,” including the Vermont court case, but far more importantly, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process in which every single member government — including the Bush Administration, China, and Saudi Arabia — got to “hear” every single word of the scientific conclusions of the hundreds of scientists who have reviewed thousands of articles (articles which themselves were subject to a scientific “hearing” in the peer review process).  The IPCC summaries are agreed to word for word by every government (which is one reason they tend to be watered down).  The results of the hearings can be found here and are summarzied here, “Absolute MUST Read IPCC Report: Debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly.”

The deniers just don’t like the facts that they hear, so they stick their fingers in their ears and yell “La la la la la la la” over and over again or is that “ooh ooh, ee ee, ah ah” (see “Can you PROVE to me that global warming is being caused by mankind?”*).

I am filing this under humor in part because it is unintentionally hilarious that Inhofe’s staffer quotes Mill, a man who understood the difference between science and opinion — a man who was one of the early proponents of the argument that unlimited growth was unsustainable!  Indeed, on that final point, Wikipedia’s entry on Mill notes:

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Can Push for Climate Bill Forge a Lasting Labor-Enviro Alliance?

The push for climate legislation has bolstered an alliance of unions and environmentalists, raising the hopes of liberal activists who have long sought a lasting and influential relationship between green groups and labor.

The Blue Green Alliance — a collaboration of six unions and two environmental groups — arrives after decades of intermittent cooperation and some major disputes.

“Both of these movements have realized they really need each other to get what they want,” said J. Timmons Roberts, a Brown University sociologist who has written on labor-environmental coalitions.

The Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers, after years of work together, formally launched the alliance in 2006. The effort expanded in 2008 and 2009, adding the Natural Resources Defense Council and several unions — the Service Employees International Union, Communications Workers of America, Utility Workers Union of America, Laborers’ International Union of North America, and the American Federation of Teachers.

The alliance has focused largely on supporting legislation that would impose national curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and boost deployment of low-carbon energy sources that both groups say will create scores of new “green jobs.”

… the alliance is booming, with a combined membership of partner groups of 8 million and a budget that has grown sixfold over three years to roughly $6 million this year, said David Foster, the alliance’s executive director and a former Steelworkers official.

About 60 percent of the coalition’s funding comes from foundations and the balance from the member groups, he said. Its paid staff has grown considerably, and last month it registered federal lobbyists for the first time.

The alliance is active in several states to rally support for the climate bill and has brought members to Washington to lobby on Capitol Hill. Last week, it kicked off a national tour with former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection that will make the case for the bill in several manufacturing-heavy states.

“I think we represent an extremely potent educational force in the country by being able to reach out through those 8 million members and pull them together around a common vision of how we use environmental investments to improve our economic opportunities,” Foster said.

Stop the Teabaggers, Give Them Green Jobs: Lessons From the Coalfields of West Virginia

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I was quoted on the front page of the Washington Post today in a very questionable story, “Environmentalists Slow to Adjust in Climate Debate:  Opponents Seize Initiative as Senate Bill Nears,” by staff writer, “David A. Fahrenthold”:

“Progressives and clean-energy types . . . made a mistake and slacked off” after the House of Representatives passed its version of a climate-change bill in June, said Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who blogs on climate issues. “And the other side really kept making its case.”

Now, my poor choice of words “slacked off” aside — many of my friends have never worked harder in their lives — this story and Fahrenthold’s use of my quote is seriously flawed:

1. On the specific issue of the effort of “progressives and clean-energy types,” I was quite clear to Fahrenthold that I was talking about the period immediately after the House vote.  I explained that by the end of July, progressives and clean-energy types, had gotten their organizational act together (and that the other side is pushing disinformation).  Now this in retrospect turned out not to be the narrative Fahrenthold wanted to push.  But I think it is wrong for a reporter to interview a subject and then use one quote from the person that fits the reporter’s narrative when the reporter knows that the interviewee disagrees with that narrative.
2. The fact that Fahrenthold’s narrative and conclusion is, ultimately, wrong comes from his paper’s own polling — see Yet another major poll [by WashPost] finds “broad support” for clean energy and climate bill: “Support for the plan among independents has increased slightly.” It’s downright absurd for the Washington Post to argue in a piece today, Monday, that industry groups are winning the messaging war when on Friday they published the results of a survey that demonstrates the opposite.  Heck, that piece’s headline was “On Energy, Obama Finds Broad Support.”
3. When the political reporters treat this as just another political horse-race story, treating the industry falsehoods as equivalent to the accurate statements of climate action advocates, they play into the hands of the right-wing disinformers (see How the press bungles its coverage of climate economics “” “The media’s decision to play the stenographer role helped opponents of climate action stifle progress”).  You’d never know from this story that the Post has actually done some very good reporting on the dire nature of the climate problem (see, for instance, this 2006 Juliet Eilperin story, “Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change:  Some Experts on Global Warming Foresee ‘Tipping Point’ When It Is Too Late to Act” or this 2008 story on the dangers to this country of our current do-nothing path).

Let me elaborate on the second point before coming back to the larger question of how the climate action advocates are doing.  Fahrenthold himself is forced to concede:
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I don’t have time to debunk Bjorn Lomborg every time he writes a disinformation-filled WSJ op-ed [and yes, that is redundant].  I’ve debunked him enough [see "Lomborg skewers the facts, again" and "Debunking Lomborg "” Part III and "Voodoo Economists 4: The idiocy of crowds or, rather, the idiocy of (crowded) debates"].  But I’m happy to feature the work of guest debunkers (see “Lomborg’s main argument has collapsed).”  Today’s guest debunker is the uber-accomplished Dr. Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, in a post first published on his Green Grok blog.

Bjorn Lomborg is at it again on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. (See previous Lomborg posts here and here.) No action on climate change, he argues, because it’s too hard *and* too easy. Cool argument.

I woke up this morning to find one of my favorite columnists in the journal’s op-ed pages. In “Technology Can Fight Global Warming” (Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2009) Lomborg outdoes himself in his sleight-of-hand pseudo-logic arguing against imposing emission reduction targets through a global climate agreement. In Lomborg’s worldview, the whole climate problem will go away if we just throw a few dollars at the problem and stand back. Actually, I thought that’s exactly what we’ve been doing over the last two decades or so, and look where that’s gotten us.

Misinformation

A Lomborg piece would not be a Lomborg piece without a healthy supply of misinformation, and his latest does not disappoint:

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