New Storage Technologies for Renewable Energy

Electric storage batteries based on zinc instead of lithium are now in widespread usage around the world, even though their existence is poorly recognized.  A report in the New York Times describes a zinc-air battery produced by the company NantEnergy.  The company received development grants of US$5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.  It has already deployed its batteries in Asian and African villages, and in cell towers in the U.S., Latin America and Southeast Asia.  Its founder, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, stated that 110 villages have established local microgrid systems, using electricity generated on site by solar arrays.  Dr. Soon-Shiong anticipates that use of the batteries will expand greatly in telecommunication towers, and expects use to spread to home energy storage and electric vehicles as well.  He foresees a potential market of US$50 billion.

The zinc battery has several advantages over lithium-based batteries.  Zinc has a high abundance in the earth, and is already heavily mined and used in many applications; its ore also includes other metals that are profitably extracted.  Its annual production rate is projected to reach a maximum between 2020 and 2030, with a high projected cumulative production tonnage being possible.  Zinc batteries cost about US$100 per kilowatt-hour of stored electrical energy, whereas lithium batteries cost in the range of US$300-400 per kilowatt-hour, according to the New York Times report.  Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, believes he can get the price down to the same level as the zinc battery.  Lithium likewise is abundantly found around the world, but active lithium mining is limited to a few countries, constraining its price to high values.  Its main demand is limited to batteries for fixed and vehicular electric storage.

An important advantage for zinc is that its batteries contain water-based electrolyte fluids, which are not flammable.  Lithium batteries, in contrast, operate using flammable solvent-based electrolyte solutions.  This is the reason that lithium batteries have been known to ignite and burn, sometimes spontaneously.

Recently an ambitious plan was announced for Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, reported in the New York Times.  The dam, 726 feet high and harboring 17 huge electricity generators that supply power to Los Angeles and much of southern California, holds back a large lake created from the river.  One way of storing electricity is to pump water from a low elevation back up to a higher one, so that the pumped water can be used to generate new electricity on demand.  In the Hoover Dam proposal, massive pipes further downriver from the outflow from the dam and generators would capture some of the water and pump it back up to the reservoir lake behind the dam.  The electricity to drive the pumps would come from renewable sources, solar and wind energy.  Currently the project is expected to provide electricity from the stored water at about 20% higher than current electricity rates, but for 40% less than provided by commercial scale solar electricity, according to the report.  The project’s cost is estimated at US$3 billion.

Analysis

The United Nations-sponsored Paris climate agreement of December 2015 set the goal of keeping Earth’s projected increase in long-term average temperature to less than 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial times by the end of this century.  It also set a preferred more ambitious goal of keeping that temperature increase to less than 1.5°C (2.7°F). 

In order to contribute to achieving these global objectives, many cities in the U.S. have established voluntary or statutory objectives of reducing the annual emission rate of all greenhouse gases to near zero as soon as possible; many cities seek to accomplish this by midcentury.  The movement to adopting these policies has become more urgent since federal policy in the U.S. has actually regressed in the last two years.  The government is actually undoing previously implemented regulations limiting emission rates in electricity generation and passenger vehicles.  That backtracking increases the greenhouse gas emission rate in the U.S.

As noted, the municipal policies strive to reduce annual emission rates to near zero.  This means that electricity must be provided essentially completely from renewable sources, that cars and trucks be powered by electric batteries or by hydrogen fuel cells, and that space heating and cooling in the built environment be provided exclusively by electric-powered heat pumps.  This migration away from coal, natural gas, diesel, fuel oil and gasoline (fossil fuels) will increase the demand for renewable electricity by 2-3 times its present level.

This is the reason that new technologies such as zinc-air batteries and pumped water storage acquire such high significance going forward.  The coming changes in our energy economy will be challenging; indeed they are nothing short of revolutionary.  The unequivocal needs for these changes will provide broad new business opportunities and new jobs for American workers.

© 2018 Henry Auer

Inquisitor Trump Might Delete U. S. Global Warming Data

Galileo Faced the Inquisition.  In 1633, the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was summoned by the Catholic Church’s chief  Inquisitor, Father Vincenzo Maculano da Firenzuola, to begin his trial for heresy.  He faced the charge of promoting the notion, considered heretical by the Church, that the Earth revolves around the sun.  Church doctrine held that the universe was centered about the Earth, i.e., that the sun turned around our planet; this dogma was central to maintaining the religious authority of Church.  Even so, the earlier work of Copernicus and Kepler had already shown that the planets orbit the sun.

The Inquisition found that Galileo was “vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of [the] heresy…of having believed … the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world… and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world.”  His penalty included the “public edict [that his] book of Dialogues be prohibited, and [that] We condemn thee to the prison of this Holy Office….”

This history shows that the scientific results obtained by Galileo and his predecessors, which did not conform to the Church’s pre-ordained worldview, merited censorship of his work and his imprisonment.  He agreed not to promote his conclusions any longer, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

President Trump Erases Global Warming Web Pages.  Minutes after taking the oath of office to become the 45^th President of the United States, Donald Trump’s White House expunged all references to global warming and climate change that his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, had included on the White House web site. 

This censorship of science-based policy by the new administration scarcely differs from the Inquisition’s banning of Galileo’s Dialogues.  It may presage the imposition of the pre-ordained worldview of Trump and his retinue which denies global warming, instead of adopting science-based policies to address this critical issue.  We may wonder whether members of the Trump administration acknowledge that the sun is at the center of our solar system.

The Washington Post reported on Dec. 13, 2016  that climate scientists fear that the Trump administration will intentionally oversee the loss of decades worth of data documenting the progression of global warming and climate change.  These data sets have been accumulated by U. S. government scientists, and others whose research is supported by the U. S. government.  They currently reside on government computers and servers.  An interview with meteorologist Eric Holthaus on NPR’s program “All Things Considered” on Dec. 14, 2016 speculated on how the loss of this data might transpire: “across-the-board” budget cuts in climate science that could result in government scientists having to make difficult decisions on which data to maintain, and which to allow to lapse.

The U. S. government’s data are robust repositories of climate information; the resources used to acquire them include satellites and ocean-based buoys.  The resulting information is freely available to scientists the world over pursuing climate research and to officials developing climate policy.  If these fears materialize, not only may existing data be lost, but the ambition to continue climate observation by the U. S. may wane under the Trump administration.  It may reason that pressure to adopt policies fighting warming may be weaker in the absence of new information supporting the need for action.  (Similar reasoning presumably underlies Congress’s failure to fund gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1997.)

In response to this potential threat nongovernmental climate scientists are volunteering to copy existing databases onto other servers to ensure their preservation.   

A different U. S. agency policy facilitates access to research data. The potential loss of government-sponsored climate data as a result of policies under the Trump administration stands in stark contrast to information policies in effect at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2003.  The U.S. government determined that it was in the interests of the public and the life sciences community that research data underlying published articles, supported by NIH funding, be made available to others.  The goals of the policy are copied here:

“Data sharing allows scientists to expedite the translation of research results into knowledge, products, and procedures to improve human health.

“There are many reasons to share data from NIH-supported studies. Sharing data reinforces open scientific inquiry, encourages diversity of analysis and opinion, promotes new research, makes possible the testing of new or alternative hypotheses and methods of analysis, supports studies on data collection methods and measurement, facilitates the education of new researchers, enables the exploration of topics not envisioned by the initial investigators, and permits the creation of new datasets when data from multiple sources are combined.

“In NIH's view, all data should be considered for data sharing. Data should be made as widely and freely available as possible while safeguarding [privacy and confidentiality].” (Emphasis in original).

In summary, data obtained by NIH-supported research must be made public in order to promote scientific, technological and medical progress, i.e., for the public welfare. 

Climate data must be preserved.  The same principles apply to climate data now held on government computers and servers.  Public welfare is promoted by safeguarding existing climate data, and by making that information freely available to researchers worldwide. 

The incoming administration does not have the right to oversee loss of these climate databases. The information was gathered by federal scientists working in U. S. government agencies, which are supported by us, the taxpaying public. The data belong to us.  The potential loss of this information would constitute a harm to our welfare, since it would impede research on the causes and effects of global warming, to our detriment. 

President Trump and members of his administration are behaving like present-day climate inquisitors.  They do not accept the incontrovertible scientific evidence that global warming is happening and that human activity is largely responsible.  President Trump has called global warming a Chinese hoax, and has threatened to withdraw from the United Nations-sponsored climate accord reached in Paris in 2015.  Scott Pruitt, the designated administrator of the Environmental Protection Administration, has repeatedly sued the very agency he has now been nominated to lead while serving as Oklahoma’s Attorney General.   Secretary-designate of the Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, has taken many anti-environmental positions in his earlier career.  The Economist (Jan. 21, 2017; p. 15) has classified other cabinet designees as “climate-change sceptics”: Vice President Mike Pence; Chief of Staff Reince Priebus; Rex Tillerson, Secretary-designate of State (disagreeing that climate change posed a national security risk); Rick Perry, Secretary-designate of Energy; Mike Pompeo, Director-designate of the Central Intelligence Agency; Steve Bannon, Chief strategist; and still others. 

The would-be inquisitors of the Trump administration cannot be permitted to destroy the public’s climate information.  Rather, the government should be protecting and using it beneficially to promulgate meaningful climate policies.

© 2017 Henry Auer

The Will to Change: Private Enterprises Reduce Their Emissions

Summary: Global average temperatures have been at record levels month by month up to the time of writing (August 2016), and for most years since 2000.  When attention focuses on the U.S., the number of days in a year above 100ºF (37.8ºC) is forecast to grow dramatically, for example by 2060 and 2100.

Contrary to the operating strategies of large fossil fuel companies, we present here examples of two companies and an industry that embrace the changes demanded by the growing global warming crisis.  A large electricity generating utility, NRG Energy, is developing renewable energy sources as part of its electricity portfolio.  The American trucking industry embraces the regulations just issued requiring trucks to be more fuel efficient and to emit lower amounts of greenhouse gases.  Apple, following examples set by Walmart and Google, is contracting with renewable energy providers for long-term supplies of electricity to fulfill its growing needs.

When confronting the challenges of global warming American capitalism has to rediscover the positive entrepreneurial attitude that led to American expansion in the last two centuries.  Fossil fuel companies are resisting such change.  But the three examples presented here show what can be achieved when will prevails.  They illustrate the “can-do” approach that will successfully address global warming.

  

Global average temperatures in 2016, month by month, are higher than in recorded history for the same month in earlier years, according to the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.    Three of four recent heat waves yielding record high temperatures were caused at least in part by man-made global warming .

Temperature extremes in the U. S. are projected to increase drastically in the remainder of this century (see the graphic below)

Number of days in 48 states of the U. S. in each year in which the temperature exceeded 100ºF (37.8ºC) historically averaged from 1991 to 2010 (upper left), and projected for the case that no measures are in place to abate emissions of greenhouse gases, for 2060 (center) and 2100 (lower right).  In each map, NEUTRAL SHADING characterizes 0-5 days per year; TAN, 5-10 days; LIGHT ORANGE, 10-25 days; MEDIUM ORANGE, 25-50 days; and FULL ORANGE, more than 50 days.  The BOLD NUMBERS give the historical or projected number of days per year over 100ºF for the cities named.

Prepared by and adapted from Climate Central http://www.climatecentral.org/;

Source: The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/sunday-review/climate-change-hot-future.html. 

  

The data for the recent past in the upper left map show that the area around Phoenix, AZ and the southern plains are already very hot, as many Americans already know.  But if worldwide emissions continue unabated for the rest of the century warming of the climate will continue.  Climate Central projects that much of the U. S. will have more days over 100ºF in regions that are now relatively temperate.  By 2100 this trend yields projections for drastically hot climates in the California central valley, the southwestern desert, and much of the central Great Plains extending all across the South to the Atlantic coast.  These results reflect that projected global average temperature increases at any time are directly related to the additional amount of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases, GHGs) in the atmosphere at that time.

Extremes of heat of the extent shown in the above graphic strongly suggest that agricultural yields may suffer seriously, and that human wellbeing may be severely affected.

Companies and industries grasp the need for reduced emissions.  NRG Energy is the largest independent electricity producer in the U. S.  The power industry emits the most GHGs, mostly as carbon dioxide (CO₂), of any sector in the economy, burning vast amounts of fossil fuels to drive generation.  In 2014 NRG was the fourth largest emitter in the power industry. 

David Crane became its Chief Executive Officer in 2003.  Although his earlier experience had been in the conventional power industry, shortly after taking over he undertook to transform a significant portion of NRG’s generation into renewable energy production.  He invested in the Ivanpah thermal solar plant in the California desert, and in a smaller solar panel farm in Massachusetts, as well as wind energy and electric car charging stations.  Mr. Crane stated “It’s the destiny of NRG to be a leader, to create a more sustainable and prosperous future while winning the fight against climate change.”  One year ago NRG set the goal of reducing emissions by 90% by 2050. 

The Ivanpah plant, however, encountered problems; it produced less power than expected, and a May 2016 fire in a major component damaged its ability to generate electricity.  NRG also faced competitive challenges from solar panels, whose price was falling more than expected. 

As a result, the NRG board and its investors lost faith in Mr. Crane, and he was replaced late in 2015 by the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Mauricio Guttierez.  Mr. Crane’s problems may have been due to his ambition to implement renewable energy too fast.  Indeed, Mr. Guttierez is continuing to steer NRG along a similar renewable path, but at a more measured pace.  In retrospect Mr. Crane’s vision served an important function, pioneering a positive culture in the company to expand the role of renewable energy in its operations.

The American trucking industry worked to prepare new fuel standards in collaboration with the Federal government and some environmental organizations.  Currently the nation’s truck fleet averages about 6 miles per gallon (39 liters per 100 km) of fuel.  Although trucks number only 5% of the vehicles driven they produce about 20% of the CO₂ emitted by transportation vehicles.  The industry was involved in the negotiations leading to the final rule, winning its support.  The rule imposes an improvement in efficiency of 25% over ten years, producing an estimate of US$170 billion in savings over that time and reducing fuel demand by 2 billion barrels in the useful lifetime of a tractor.  The costs of modifying the tractors to achieve this efficiency are recovered by the long-term savings in fuel use.  PepsiCo provides an example of corporate support for the rule.  Its chief executive said “The steps we have taken to boost efficiency of our fleet … have significantly reduced emissions while lowering our operating costs.  And we are committed to doing much more.”

This rule complements the Obama administration’s earlier rule governing passenger vehicles, whose fuel efficiency is to double over a similar period of time.

In its editorial on the trucking rule, the New York Times wrote “it is heartening, if not downright astonishing, to see an industry targeted by an aggressive rule to reduce GHGs welcoming that rule. It is also heartening to be able to provide proof … that regulators and industry can, in fact, produce a mutually acceptable result”.  The Times contrasts this case with the fierce opposition of the American electricity industry to President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the rule intended to reduce emissions from large power generation plants.

Apple Goes Green.  The technology company Apple is on track to furnish most of its electricity demand in the U. S. from renewable sources – solar, wind and hydroelectric power, both in California (where its head office is located) and elsewhere in the U. S.  Its demand is growing rapidly, because not only is it building a new corporate headquarter campus and increasing the number of retail outlets, but importantly its power needs for cloud storage are growing rapidly. 

Like Walmart and Google, Apple has been granted federal recognition as a wholesale provider of electricity, permitting it to operate nationwide; in fact its main customer will be itself.  For example, about 50% of its needs will be provided by a 25 year contract with First Solar’s California Flats solar farm, now under construction.  Apple’s motivations are both environmental and economic; renewable energy provides carbon-free power, and its contract costs are highly favorable.  Google’s Gary Demasi, director of operations for data center energy and location strategy, praised Apple’s strategy, saying “Renewable energy, from a cost perspective, is now competitive with other forms of energy, much more so than it was a few years ago.”

 

Discussion

 

American expansion in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its development into an economic power, were fostered by a positive attitude with respect to enterprise, a “can-do” culture that saw unmet needs, overcame obstacles and created successful enterprises in the private sector.   Machinery and technologies were invented, matured into widespread use, and perhaps declined as progress in allied fields overtook them.   But in the late twentieth century scientific investigations showed that certain technologies had dangerous or toxic side effects on society, demanding new creativity to overcome them.  But the industries in question, instead of rising to the challenge, sought to entrench themselves in the status quo, resisting change.  Instead of continuing with a “can-do” mentality, they adopted a “won’t change” mindset, overtly resisting change, seeking to continue reaping profit from their tainted technologies.  The conventional energy industry, based as it is on burning fossil fuels, is a prime example of the “won’t change” framework.  It promotes continued use of fossil fuels indefinitely, just as it has for more than a century.  It fails to concede the unintended harms wrought by use of fossil fuels on the global climate, and dismisses or belittles the damage foreseen by continued release of GHGs.

The three cases outlined here, NRG and its changing culture of developing renewable energy, the American trucking industry embracing the regulatory changes that will reduce GHG emissions, and Apple’s development of its own renewable energy sources, are all examples of a resurgent “can-do” operating culture in American enterprise.  This attitude is essential in addressing the worldwide crisis of global warming.  These companies and groups have embraced the existence of the problem and recognized that they can play a significant role in minimizing its future effects.  They shun the “won’t change” approach shown by many.  They accept the challenge that global warming confronts us with, and proceed enthusiastically with a “can-do” attitude.  The winds of change are at their backs.

© 2016 Henry Auer 

The Will to Change: Oil Companies Should Embrace Renewable Energy

Summary: Exxon’s scientists conducted extensive research in the 1970’s and 1980’s showing that use of fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases that warm the planet.  These results were accepted by the company’s management.  By the 1990’s, however, the fossil fuel industry changed its message.  It began a campaign to plant doubts in the minds of the public about the reality of manmade global warming and its effects.

Although many large American companies have prospered because they embodied an optimistic culture, a “can-do” spirit, by the end of the 20^th century the fossil fuel companies adopted a “won’t change” attitude.  They resisted the scientific reality of manmade global warming, seeking to continue their business model of producing fossil fuels to supply the world’s energy.

Yet objective climate science shows that continued atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide will lead to large increases in the global average temperature.  In face of this threat the world needs to move rapidly toward a carbon-free energy economy.  The large fossil fuel companies can play a major role in this shift, were they to adopt a “can-do” spirit.  The technologies already exist, the labor market is waiting, and they have the resources to carry out this transformation while remaining profitable.

  

Exxon’s Own Research on Global Warming.  As the issue of manmade global warming gained prominence in recent decades, scientists at Exxon carried out research on the phenomenon in its own laboratories.   This program was extensive enough that it led to about 50 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.  An Exxon scientist involved in this work told his corporate superiors that their company should embark on measures that would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).   

By the end of the 1980s, however, the corporate view on warming reversed sides.  The company sought to raise doubts about the reality of global warming.  As the United Nations-sponsored negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol, limiting emissions from developed countries, came to fruition, Exxon and other fossil fuel companies opposed the treaty, undertaking extensive lobbying efforts.  When the time came to consider the Protocol in the U. S. Senate in 1997, the vote to take up the treaty for debate failed unanimously.

Promoting Doubt about Global Warming.  From that period to the present, fossil fuel companies have engaged in a campaign that seeks to raise questions about global warming in the minds of citizens, leading them to doubt its reality and especially of its manmade cause.  This tactic had previously been used advantageously by the tobacco industry in its struggle to dissociate smoking from its harmful effects on smokers’ health (Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “Merchants of Doubt”, Bloomsbury Press, 2010).  Indeed, some of the same personalities, having seemingly authoritative backgrounds in science, appeared in both battles.  Such doubt results in reduced pressure for change such as abandoning the extraction of fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, an important GHG. 

“Can-Do” Optimism.  This writer pointed out in the preceding blog post that the optimistic, “can-do” spirit that drove the growth of the U. S. during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has faded somewhat.  Now, many powerful industries, including the fossil fuel industry, when faced with indisputable scientific evidence indicating that they should change their operations, resist stubbornly.  They do this by promoting doubts about the scientific findings in question, and by adopting “won’t change” attitudes. 

Simplified historical sketches are presented below of three large American corporations.  The first two are considered “can-do” companies here. They have confronted technological changes in their industries and adopted new business plans to adapt to them.   The third one is ExxonMobil.

International Business Machines (IBM) was founded in 1911 when three companies combined to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, IBM’s precursor.  The company wrote “[f]rom the beginning, IBM defines itself not by strategies or products—which range from commercial scales to punch card tabulators—but by forward-thinking culture and management practices…”.  This culture informed the company’s development of new apparatuses that, for example, contributed logistics enabling the Social Security Act of 1935, a major piece of anti-Great Depression policy, to function.  In the post-war years IBM expanded by developing electronic computers, which permitted it to become an important international company. In the following decade IBM responded to new challenges by expanding its mainframe computer systems, leading to five-fold growth in income.  From 1971 to 1992 it overhauled its business model to adapt to the growing trend toward personal computing, but even so confronted difficulties created largely by its own successes.  As use of the internet has expanded, IBM has moved away from hardware to provide software and computing services.

General Electric (GE) was founded in 1889 by Thomas Edison based on his electric lamps, electric generators and motors, and power distribution.  Over the years, it developed or acquired businesses such as radio broadcasting, railroad and aircraft locomotion, electronic computing, finance, and medical diagnostic technology.  The list of its acquisitions and divestments is extensive, and was responsive to the changing business environments the company’s operations encountered.  Finance, for example, was intended to provide funds for purchasing its products, but portions have been sold off in recent years.  Additionally, as an outgrowth of its generation technology, GE manufactures industrial-scale wind turbines.

ExxonMobil began operations shortly after oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859.  John D. Rockefeller formed Standard Oil in 1870 to harvest the oil; at that time the principal refined product was kerosene.  The company grew rapidly, operating in many states and abroad, but was forced to break up its units by two antitrust decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court, in 1892 and again in 1911.  Nevertheless, the separate companies prospered and many recombined again to form a smaller number of Standard companies.  In this period, as the number of automobiles powered by internal combustion engines grew gasoline production surpassed that of kerosene. 

Over the following decades, the various Standard Oil companies focused on extracting petroleum, refining it to yield gasoline, and distributing it at retail.  They also produced lubricating oils, petrochemicals and other products as years passed.  A principal Standard Oil company adopted the brand “Esso” (pronouncing the letters “S” and “O”) in 1926, which was changed to Exxon in 1972.  Exxon merged with Mobil, itself another Standard Oil company, in 1999 to become ExxonMobil.  ExxonMobil is now the largest non-state producer of petroleum and its products in the world.

Exxon set up its Solar Power Corporation in 1973 to make solar photovoltaic cells.  After determining that solar would not become profitable until 2012 Exxon sold Solar Power off in 1984.  (Mobil also had a solar venture from 1974–1994.)  From 1970 to 1986 Exxon ran a nuclear fuel preparation company.  Wikipedia (as of August 2016) lists no other non-fossil fuel ventures for Exxon.

In 2002 ExxonMobil, General Electric and others formed the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University to develop new energy technologies emitting greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions.  It intended to invest more than US$200 million over 10 years.  As of 2015, 46 research institutions worldwide are participating.  In 2009 ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics Inc (SGI). began research in their algae biofuels program.  Unfortunately, the project did not provide positive results and ExxonMobil cut back its support severely in 2013.   The company also established an energy research program with the University of Texas (Austin) Energy Institute.

Two “Can-Do” companies.  IBM and GE are categorized here as “can-do” companies.  Their histories embody a spirit of optimism, confronting the challenges of changing times and overcoming them to continue as successful ventures with new products.  IBM especially had troubles, and is currently dealing with yet more rapid change in information technology.

Energy demand is high and increasing, especially in countries of the developing world.  As their economies grow, the need for energy supplies grows in pace with their economies.  Their populations are becoming more affluent, entering the middle classes.  The most populous developing countries are China and India, and their demand for energy has been growing dramatically in recent decades.  In addition, whereas China’s population is relatively stable, that of India is growing rapidly.  In many developing countries including India, energy demand is fed both by growth in economic activity and by increasing populations.  The world’s population, now more than 7 billion people, is expected to grow to 9 billion by about 2040.

The fossil fuel industry has not had to overcome industry-wide challenges in order to grow.  The long-term worldwide demand for fossil fuels has never been in doubt (barring a few short-term hiccups and the current decline in demand for coal in the U.S. and Europe).  Commercial pressures in this industry have come primarily from within to improve its core technologies, rather than from a need to reinvent the companies by formulating new business models.  The large size of this industry and the confidence that demand for its products would stretch indefinitely into the future has led to its seeming complacency. 

ExxonMobil is actively resisting change.  In order to continue defending the role of the industry in the global economy, ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies are digging in their heels, resisting pressures for change coming from the need to minimize further warming of our planet.  As outlined above their attitude is one of resisting change, and of mobilizing their considerable financial resources and political influence to create doubt and oppose the need for change.  This may be changing, however.  Six non-U.S. oil companies and ExxonMobil have recently endorsed a price on carbon.

Total accumulated GHGs dictate how much warming (on average) Earth will undergo.  As manmade carbon dioxide and other GHGs continue accumulating in the atmosphere, the projected further increase in global average temperature rises accordingly.  This is shown in a chart from the Fifth Assessment Report (2013) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, below:

Dependence of the projected change in global average temperature from about 1870 to 2100 (vertical axis) on the total amount of manmade carbon dioxide (as the main GHG; horizontal axis) foreseen from four emission “scenarios”, starting in 1890.  Circles represent each decade.  BLACK, historical data to 2010.  DARK BLUE, LIGHT BLUE, ORANGE, and RED represent projections for successively less stringent limits on emissions, from almost complete of emissions by 2050 to no meaningful limitation at all.
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf

The graphic makes clear that the increase in the total accumulated manmade carbon dioxide concentration in the air governs the change in global average temperature.  Only by minimizing future emissions using the most stringent constraints possible (DARK BLUE line and dots in the chart) can humanity keep further increases in global average temperature as small as possible.

The fossil fuel industry needs rapidly to change its business model. In the 1970s-1980s Exxon understood the threat from global warming.  But by the end of the 20^th century it and rest of the fossil fuel industry were sowing doubts about manmade global warming and resisting the need to change.  Even so, the reality shown in the image above is that continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels moves the world further along the trajectory of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide and higher global average temperature, to the detriment of all humanity. 

 

There is no avoiding the imperative to abandon further extraction, and to begin at the present time to decarbonize the world’s energy economy.  Many needed  technologies already exist, the labor force awaits the coming job opportunities, and the large international fossil fuel companies have the resources to undertake these changes.  What’s missing is the will to change their business models.  The world looks to them to adopt the “can-do” spirit that drives capitalism, leading to new sources of revenue and profit, by creating a decarbonized economy.

© 2016 Henry Auer

Rediscovering the Will to Change: A New Energy Economy

Summary.  The growth of the U.S. from an agricultural society to an industrial power was driven in important ways by ambition, a positive attitude, and an ability to see opportunities and develop them.  Examples of changes that contributed to this growth include new means of transportation and communication.

As our economy grew and matured, however, unforeseen harmful effects of some activities became apparent.  Acid rain from electric generation was identified as the cause of dying forests.  Synthetic refrigerants were flagged as the cause of the depletion of ozone in the stratosphere.  Increased carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels for energy was marked as the cause of global warming and its harms. The industries in question ignored the science behind these findings, and fought the need to change their business activities.

Global warming remains an unresolved problem.  Because of the vast size of the fossil fuel industry and the major changes already brought about by global warming it needs to abandon its resistance to change.  Its business model of providing energy for a growing and developing world remains, but needs to switch to carbon-free sources and to develop new technologies.  This new model will still yield profits for the industry, and continue to provide jobs for the economy.

 

American growth.  Throughout much of our history America has been a country marked by people bent on succeeding.  An entrepreneurial spirit drove the development and widespread adoption of new devices and new technologies that dramatically advanced our economic growth and improved living conditions for our population.

Railroads.  For millenia news and articles of commerce could travel no faster than men, or their animals, could carry htem.  The advent of the industrial revolution in the early nineteenth century, however, brought coal-powered transportation; railroads crossed the landscape faster and further than had been possible earlier.  This dramatically accelerated commerce and the exchange of technologies among populations separated by large distances, improving the lives of the participants.   Coal was also the fuel used in the growing iron and steel industry that permitted forging the rails, building the bridges, and providing the skeletons for new skyscrapers rising in cities.  The force behind all this growth was the vision of the industrialists and architects who created these enterprises and buildings.

Automobiles.  Human ambitions also led to the development of the gasoline engine and its use to power individual transportation, the automobile.  This depended on newly discovered sources of liquid fuels, the petroleum deposits in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and elsewhere.  Liquid fuels provided vastly improved convenience and independence to the consuming public, as well as to the military.  The foresight and ambition driving this change is another example of the positive attitudes of the entrepreneurs behind this growth. 

This spirit gave rise to America's exceptional industrial expansion, helped it survive the Great Depression of the 1930's, and was the spirit invoked by President Roosevelt and our military leaders to fight the war that ultimately defeated the Axis powers. 

Electronics.  A final example is drawn from the electronics industry.  Over the course of the 20th century electronics moved completely from analog to digital circuitry based on solid state transistors.  This transformation likewise was driven by forward-looking scientists and entrepreneurs.  Its growth was highly dependent on creativity and resilience, since the pace of technological advance, and therefore the competition in the industry, was very intensive.

Optimism.  These examples are cited to emphasize the "can-do" enthusiasm that has marked the growth of America over its history.   Much of our expansion was further promoted by favorable state and congressional action.  The Homestead Act drew Americans with a vision to move west and spread roots in a new setting.  Railroad expansion likewise was fostered by supportive laws.  Recovery from the Great Depression and fighting the Second World War depended crucially on the cooperation between the president and Congress.

Resisting change: Acid rain.  In more recent decades, however, interest groups have opposed the need, based on scientific findings, for changes in their operations.  In the 1970s forests in the American northeast and southern Canada began dying mysteriously.  Lakes and rivers had massive fish die-offs.  Scientists eventually traced the cause to the presence of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, strong acids when they combine with moisture, in the exhaust gas from coal-burning power plants.  The plumes from these plants became windborne and carried the acids many hundreds of miles from their sources.  The acidic moisture fell to the ground whenever it rained.  The acidity became so severe that forests could no longer tolerate it and died in vast swaths.  The same phenomenon occurred in Europe.

The solution to this malady lay in desulfurizing the exhaust gases of the offending power plants or fuel switching to low sulfur fuels.  The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) imposed limits on how much sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides could be emitted by the power plants.  The power companies objected vigorously to what they protested would be the great expense required to implement this remedy. 

As of 2014 EPA projected that acid emissions would fall between 54 and more than 70% from 2005 levels, with estimated health savings of $120 to $280 billion per year . The measures have been effective, as the acid rain problem has diminished significantly in recent years.

 

Depletion in the ozone content of the upper atmosphere.  Ozone, a molecule consisting of three oxygen atoms, forms by the action of sunlight on the more common oxygen molecule, consisting of two oxygen atoms.  Depletion of ozone over Antarctica was first detected in the 1980's, and grew worse each year during that region's summer.  Ozone is important because it screens out the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays, whereas the oxygen molecule does not.  Penetration of UV increases the occurrence of skin cancer and promotes cataracts in the eye lens.

Atmospheric scientists Mario Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen showed that man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in aerosol spray cans, air conditioners and refrigerators, can cause the loss of ozone when combined with the action of sunlight.  (They were awarded the Nobel Prize for this work in 1995.)  The scientists strongly recommended phasing out use of CFCs for refrigeration. 

Companies in the U. S. that made CFC's, such as DuPont and Pennwalt; chemical manufacturers in Europe; and makers of aerosol spray cans mounted intense public relations campaigns questioning the science connecting CFCs with ozone loss.  They warned of massive economic loss if they were required to halt production.  Major constraints on CFC use came with the Montreal Protocol, an agreement under the United Nations (U. N.) in 1987, which U. S. President Ronald Reagan agreed to.  It called for phasing out the use of CFCs.  By 2016, Susan Solomon (who had helped identify the problem at the time of Montreal Protocol) and coworkers reported the ozone extent over Antarctica is starting to increase, decades after the Protocol was agreed to.  They were able to link the increase to lower levels of ozone-depleting chemicals in the stratosphere.

Global warming. Ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution, economic progress and enhanced living standards have relied on the ready availability of energy sources, primarily fossil fuels.  Worldwide consumption of energy continues to increase, driven especially by policies promoting economic growth in the developing world.  As of 2010, providing energy to the world’s population accounted for about 8% of global economic activity, of which about US$4.4 trillion was for the fossil fuel share.  Yet scientists as long ago as the nineteenth century recognized that carbon dioxide (CO₂), the combustion product obtained when fossil fuels are burned, is a greenhouse gas leading to global warming. 

In recent decades scientists from around the world have warned that the growing accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere from human fuel use would have serious harmful effects on the earth’s living systems.  They have pointed out in a succession of reports, beginning in 1990, that the sooner we agree to limit fossil fuel use, the easier and more effective the abatement measures would be. 

In the United States, the economic power of the fossil fuel industry and the political power of naysayers have been directed against the predictions of harm from the scientific community.  Dr. James Hansen, a renowned climate scientist, had been warning of the effects of global warming for many years.  His concerns were suppressed by the administration of President George W. Bush, made possible since Hansen, employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was a government employee (James Hansen, “Storms of my Grandchildren”, Bloomsbury, 2009).  Fossil fuel interests have mounted an ongoing campaign to plant seeds of doubt among the public concerning man-made global warming (Naomi Oreskes and Erik. M. Conway, “Merchants of Doubt”, Bloomsbury Press, 2010).  U. S. Senator James Inhofe has published the book “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Controversy Threatens Your Future” (WND Books, 2012).  Scientists at Exxon Mobil in the 1970’s and 1980’s published research addressing the global warming issue.  At the time they recognized “Exxon's … ethical credo on honesty and integrity."  Yet by the late 1990’s, when the U. N.-sponsored Kyoto Protocol to limit further warming was being negotiated, the company reversed its policy and sought to raise doubts about the scientific basis of man-made global warming.

Discussion
 
The growth of the United States, and its westward expansion, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a reflection of the optimistic, “can-do” spirit that pervaded the country in those periods.  Much of this growth depended on exploitation of new scientific, engineering and technological advances by enterprises in both the private and public realms.   

In more recent times as technology has expanded, however, unforeseen harmful effects of byproducts from the use of these technologies have become apparent.  The cases described above are examples of how commercial and political interests coalesced to refuse to accept scientific realities and to reject the remedies required.  Acid rain arose from the trace levels of sulfur present in coal and oil, while the heat of combustion converted the nitrogen of the air into acidic nitrogen oxides.  Depletion of stratospheric ozone is due to the diffusion to the stratosphere of trace amounts of man-made refrigerants.  The industries in question, electric power generation and chemical manufacturers, opposed implementing the changes needed to address the problems even in the face of compelling scientific evidence.  In the end the technological fixes for these two effects were not excessive, and remedies were put in place.

Refusal to accept the scientific validity of man-made global warming is the most profound example of the “won’t change” mentality that replaced the “can-do” attitude of American growth.  Because of the fundamental importance of the global energy industry in the world’s economy, the actions of this sector have major effects on our planet’s environmental wellbeing.  Exxon Mobil’s internal research, for example, set out the compelling need for energy companies to modify their activities and limit production of fossil fuels.  Yet by the time that the Kyoto Protocol was issued in 1997, Exxon Mobil changed its policy to one of creating doubt.  In general the world’s fossil fuel companies opposed changing their operations.  Political forces also resisted change.  Whereas Europe and most of the developed countries ratified the Protocol, the U. S. never did.  Canada and Australia, which initially agreed on policies to limit CO₂ emissions, later changed course and withdrew from the Protocol. 

 

Conclusion

In the U. S. the “can-do” mindset that inspired its early expansion and economic growth has, in the cases examined here, been replaced by a “won’t change” operating principle.  This is especially important for our planet’s wellbeing, in the global warming case.  Producing carbon-based fuels comprises an important part of the world’s gross economic product, resulting in emission of massive amounts of CO₂, a greenhouse gas. 

The world’s energy demand will continue to grow as economies develop and populations increase.  The U. N.-sponsored Paris Agreement of December 2015 recognizes the absolute necessity for worldwide change in energy production.

The present situation calls for the world’s fossil fuel companies to develop new business models. Fulfilling the growing worldwide demand for energy means that there is profit to be made in this industry.  That demand must be provided, however, by technologies that do not emit CO₂.  We have to change to an energy economy that emits near-zero carbon in order to minimize further warming.  New technologies will have to be developed.  The energy industry has to abandon its fossil fuel-driven business model, and create the vast infrastructure for provision of energy from renewable sources. It has to give up its present “won’t change” mindset and adopt again a “can-do” attitude.

 
© 2016 Henry Auer