|
Energy fact or fiction? Myers argues for solid scientific data in solving world’s complex energy issues Alan Bailey Petroleum News
As the world’s population continues to grow and energy demand continues to climb, scientific facts rather than misinformed policy making need to guide the way through the morass of energy-related issues that society faces, Mark Myers, the State of Alaska gas pipeline coordinator, told a meeting of the Alaska Geological Society Feb. 18.
“Energy and the environment have obviously been on a collision course in recent history, at least from a political standpoint,” Myers said, while also reflecting on what he characterized as a scarcity of factual, authoritative knowledge among energy policy makers.
And expressing his personal views as a geologist who during his career had been director of Alaska’s Division of Geological and Geophysical Services, director of Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas and director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Myers said that geoscientists — geologists and geophysicists — can play a pivotal role by providing that necessary underpinning of objective scientific data for informed energy policy making.
“The amount of energy used, the way we use energy, the way energy is distributed is a huge, huge issue,” Myers said, commenting on an image of the Earth at night, photographed from outer space and showing broad swathes of bright light where fossil fuels are powering the infrastructure of modern technology-dependent communities.
Population increases As the Earth’s population of about 6.8 billion people continues to increase, energy demand will continue to grow — the current rate of energy demand growth in the developed world is relatively small, but demand is rapidly increasing in the developing world. And people need to be realistic about where the energy of the future can come from, Myers said.
Current U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts for the United States show an anticipated increase in energy supplies from renewable energy sources, and a modest increase in the amount of biofuel produced. But, according to the EIA forecasts, an inexorable growth in energy demand will also drive an increase in the use of coal, natural gas and liquid fuels.
And the impracticality of building further hydropower plants in the Lower 48 states will actually cause a decline in the percentage of hydropower in the mix of energy sources for power generation, as the demand for electricity climbs. In fact, natural gas, an environmentally preferred fuel, will show the biggest growth of any energy source for power generation, Myers said.
On the other hand, there is a commonly held view that new technology breakthroughs, all of them scalable, workable and economically feasible, will somehow solve our energy problems, despite the absence of any credible forecasts or data predicting that such breakthroughs will happen.
“If you have to rely on Harry Potter’s magic wand, there are concerns,” Myers said.
Environmental concerns At the same time, environmental concerns, especially concerns about human-generated carbon dioxide, are playing a major role in public policy. Without adequate action on carbon dioxide emissions within the next few decades there will be a significant rise in global temperatures, Myers said.
“If you’re going to make the choices on cleaner fuels, you’re going to deal with anthropogenic carbon dioxide, you need to do it in the relatively near future,” he said.
But, although people claim that the use of renewable energy sources and the sequestration of carbon dioxide on a massive scale can solve the climate-change problem, it is unclear how people can implement these approaches in practice. For example, there is a general lack of adequate data for determining the feasibility of large-scale carbon sequestration in underground rock formations, other than in depleted oil and gas fields and for oilfield enhanced oil recovery. And the long-term environmental impacts of carbon sequestration are poorly understood.
Some environmental organizations want carbon-generating energy sources shut down, but they don’t offer viable alternatives. Greenpeace, for example, has issued a shopping list of energy sources that it wants off the table. That list, if implemented, would remove three-quarters of the current energy supplies, but it is unclear how this could realistically be achieved.
“I don’t have a problem with the concept, but I want to see the math work,” Myers said.
Land and water The key issue, when it comes to future energy supplies, is conflict over land use and access to resources, as the population continues to increase and climate change impacts regional water supplies. People need land to live on; they need food; there is competition for water resources, Myers said.
At the same time, any form of energy supply has some form of environmental impact. For example, the production of corn ethanol in the United States is drawing huge amounts of water from the High Plains aquifer and affecting the cost of food, Myers said. And U.S. shale gas resources, considered a major potential future energy resource, tend to lie in areas primed for conflict over land and water use.
“We claim we can produce energy without environmental impact. I don’t believe it,” Myers said. “… I believe every single source of energy has its own environmental consequences. Some are different. Some are worse. Some are better. The bottom line is no free lunch.”
But although the United State faces major issues concerning its energy supplies, polls indicate that only 3 percent of the U.S. population sees energy and the environment as key concerns. And that relatively low level of public priority poses problems for politicians considering the funding of energy initiatives.
“We’re way behind the economy and health care, or the budget deficit, terrorism, wars,” Myers said. “We’re right up there with same-sex marriage.”
So, there is a lot of talk about quick and cheap energy solutions, without adequate consideration of the economic and technical realities of what is involved.
“Claims have to be adjudicated with real data, real facts, real economics, if we’re going to make headway on the problem,” Myers said. “This is a problem in Alaska. This is a problem in the nation.”
Decision making cycle In a world where major energy projects may take 10 years or so to come to fruition, the cycle of political decision making is typically four to six years, as elections come and go, and business budgets appear annually, with an eye on share prices.
But major energy decisions need full life-cycle evaluations. Who is going to accept the risk on a 25-year project to construct a new nuclear plant? Where will the nuclear waste be disposed of? If the country converts to the use of electric cars, where will the materials for manufacturing the batteries come from? How long would it take to upgrade the electric grid to a smart grid?
In Alaska, there is a debate about whether to move to major hydropower, what to do about in-state gas lines and the future of Cook Inlet gas supplies. Part of that debate concerns the economies of scale that often work in major energy projects, with a related debate regarding government intervention in the free-market economy.
In the muddled tangle of competing ideas over energy policy, geoscientists can act as honest brokers in providing factual information, providing unbiased perspectives on the accuracy and level of uncertainty in resource and environmental data, Myers said. For example, USGS is doing an excellent job of evaluating the amount of natural gas that might realistically be extracted from vast methane hydrate deposits, including an evaluation of the levels of uncertainty in its estimates.
Environmental data Perhaps geoscientists also have a role to play in placing some hard numbers on the environmental side of the energy development vs. environmental impact trade-off, Myers wondered. It is vital to obtain good environmental data prior to, say, building a large pipeline system or a new oil production facility, to ensure an understanding of the potential impact of the development on the ecosystem.
And Myers sees techniques of adaptive management, as propounded by the U.S. Department of the Interior, as offering a way forward. In an adaptive management approach, environmental activists and the pro-development people would all work from a common set of objective data, modeling techniques and standards, to find facilitated solutions to development and environmental roadblocks. Then, where there are significant uncertainties in the data, plans can be adapted to accommodate those uncertainties, perhaps through the overdesign of structures or through designs that allow for later modification.
With development and environmental agendas currently “pretty much at gridlock,” obtaining and using good, solid environmental data could provide a route forward, Myers said.
“If we can do this successfully, I think we can (all) win,” Myers said. “I think we can get the projects going, and we won’t have the court cases.”
|
