Each citizen needs about 315 million Btus of energy to sustain our freedom of travel and way of life
Introduction
Yesterday I was a guest speaker at the “Money Talks Club” gathering in Sun City. I presented my views of Net Zero Carbon and was impressed with the interest and understanding of energy and electricity generation by the group. A fine gathering of American Patriots and I was honored to be their guest. At the same time of my talk, Santee-Cooper published their final 2023 IRP which shows the planned shut down of the 1,150 MW Winyah coal plant and plans to replace the generation largely with solar panels. Based on my experience yesterday, I thought it would be timely to attempt to explain in as short a post as possible, the importance of energy to our lives and where this primary energy can be sourced. Hint, it is not from wind and solar.
I have lived the American Dream and wish the same for my grandchildren to do so. I also pray that the U.S. politicians will wakeup and understand the energy sources to keep America strong, productive and free.
As shown above, the majority of the energy we depend on each day is sourced from traditional forms of primary energy. To me, sustainable living means that we Americans can continue to live our good lives as we have been. Doing so requires that reasonable cost, abundant forms of energy are an absolute pre-requisite. Replacing the traditional forms of energy with wind and solar is simply not possible. Attempting to do so by, shutting down, “Killing the supply chain”, demolishing and abolishing reliable forms of primary energy as shown above, is self sabotaging our quality of life. It is engineering fiction to believe that wind, solar and batteries can replace the Primary Energy sources that have served us so well for my entire life-time and I have been Blessed with many good years.
The most descriptive and simplified chart to show the forms of energy we depend on and how that energy is used, is the LLNL energy flow chart. The 2021 version is shown below.
Americans have used right at 100 Quadrillion Btus of Primary energy for over 20 years. The chart from 2021 shows a total of 97.3 Quads because 2021 was after the Covid lockdowns and reduced freedom of travel and reduced industrial production as well as other factors. The fact remains that Americans still used within +/- 3% of the decades long energy consumption, about the same amount of total Primary Energy, 100 Quads.
Electricity is Secondary Energy
The understanding of Primary and Secondary Energy should be clarified. When the government or MSM promotes “Electrify Everything” they are suggesting that electricity always will be available from some unlimited and magical source to power their EV’s, trucks, cooking, HVAC, industrial production, etc. The inference is that pollution free electricity can be provided by wind and solar to replace fossil fuels by simply spending billions of taxpayer dollars in incentives and installing millions of acres of wind farms and solar panels. My point here is to remind readers that Electricity is Secondary Energy. It must be generated using Primary energy! Batteries and hydrogen are also forms of Secondary Energy.
Let’s go back to the LLNL energy flow chart above. Note that wind and solar provided less than 5% of the total Primary energy in 2021. This is after over 30 years of incentives to force renewable wind and solar onto the Grid. Most of the other 95% Primary Energy was provided by conventional forms of energy.
How Can We Electrify Everything Without Increasing Generation From Traditional Forms of Energy?
The short answer is, we can’t. I have written other posts to explain. Donn Dears and Vaclav Smil together have written over 50 books to try to explain the importance of energy and the most likely sources for the future. I highly recommend their books to help understand the Importance of Energy and the differences between Primary and Secondary Energy..
Here is a list of the most common sources of carbon-free energy. Please refer to the LLNL Energy Flow chart above and then you decide how to replace or reduce fossil fuels by substituting those that are socially acceptable today:
Summary
I wanted to keep this post short and concise. For more details on the importance of energy in our lives, I suggest referring to other posts on my Blog and Donn Dears and Vaclav Smil’s books listed below.
The most important point of this post is to attempt to explain how keeping your quality of life depends on abundant, reasonable cost and reliable Primary Energy. Electrifying transportation and nearly everything else you use and doing so with wind and solar alone will be impossible in the near term.
Since the Oil Embargoes of the 1970 and 1980’s the public has been indoctrinated by extremists. Part of the indoctrination was well meaning to force government action on cleaning the air and water of our great country. This goal, has been largely accomplished. However, the extremists have grown in influence to seek more than clean air and clean water, they have morphed into promoters of Socialism and one world government. My previous posts on my Blog have described my thoughts on the demonization of carbon and the war on coal, and how they came to be. This post was primarily written to show my attempt through a two part course on energy and electricity generation to provide an energy information course for the general public. The course was provided as part of the USCB-OLLI program and entitled, “Understanding Net Zero Carbon”. It is posted on LinkedIn. Part 1 and Part 2. Then, as I thought about the misguided indoctrination of the public, I thought it would be helpful to provide some insight as to how such absurd energy policies came to be. Therefore, at the end of this post is a summary of some of how this public indoctrination into “Electrifying Everything with Wind and Solar” evolved. It began as misguided public indoctrination. Now it is the “Green New Deal” passed into law and codified into government policy as part of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act”. The green policy is based on the premis that, “Everything can be Electrified”. Really? The illustration below shows the traditional sources of 95% of our primary energy. A large part of the public’s misunderstanding about energy is NOT knowing the difference between Primary and Secondary Energy. Many Energy providers do not help with clearing up the public’s confusion. I will provide an example later.
Net Zero Carbon by 2050 and Sustaining Our High Quality of Living is Impossible
The short course I presented at OLLI is my attempt to explain the facts of: “Primary & “Secondary” Energy, Energy Density, Dispatchable Generation, Electricity Storage, Electricity Demand Cycles and production cost increases with increased percentages of wind and solar. The main point: If reduced carbon intensity is really sought after, then the only known and proven source of reliable 24/7 carbon-free Bulk electricity generation is to build many new nuclear plants. The current path of reaching Net-Zero carbon by 2050 using only wind and solar is impossible.
Donn Dears published the book(19), “Clean Energy Crisis” just a couple months ago. In about 100 pages Mr. Dears explains the futility and impossibility of achieving Net Zero carbon by 2050. One excerpt from chapter 8, “Impossibility of Net-Zero Carbon”, expresses the number of new nuclear power plants needed to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2050: “The total number of new nuclear plants needed to achieve net-zero carbon by 2050 is 881. This requires building thirty-one new nuclear plants, comparable in size to existing units, every year between 2022 and 2050. This in spite of the fact that the United States hasn’t been able to build one new nuclear plant over the last ten years.” Check the latest news update for Georgia Power’s Vogtle Units 3 & 4, the only major 1,100 MW+ new nuclear units under construction in the U.S. at this writing. The loss of nuclear component manufacturing facilities and obtaining a trained workforce of engineers, welders, machine tool operators, electricians and instrument technicians is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say here, The U.S. does not have the facilities and talent to build the components needed to build 31 new nuclear plants each year. Plant Vogtle is struggling to build two.
The current policies of decarbonization favor (and incentivised with tax dollars) wind and solar generation. Getting back to Mr. Dears “Clean Energy Crisis”, he has calculated that by 2050 almost a million wind turbines would need to be installed. To be exact, he calculated 995,141 wind turbines of 2.5 MW each. To achieve this number 35,540 must be installed each year. If they were 5 MW each, it would take 17,770 installations per year. The maximum actually installed in one year to date is 5,680. At this rate it will take 175 years to install the needed wind turbines. An important point I made in my course is that wind and solar are forms of “Intermittent Power Generation” and must be backed up by other forms of Dispatchable generation, such as gas turbines, coal plants or Diesel generators.
Replacement of conventional generation with solar is just as impossible. According to Mr. Dears, “It would take 3,918,996 MW of capacity. The most ever installed in one year is 21,500 MW. Therefore, it would take 182 years to complete”. Like wind power, solar power is intermittent power good for about 6 hours each sunny day. Therefore, energy storage by not yet invented batteries or other storage devices will need to be installed for backup.
Mr. Dears (and mine) Conclusions of the Net-Zero Carbon Transition:
It is impossible for the United States to achieve net-zero carbon by 2050.
CO2 is not a threat to mankind.
Energy Reality
The EIA chart of nuclear generated electricity for the state of S.C. is shown below. Over 54% of S.C. electricity was generated from four nuclear stations within the state in 2022. These plants are very reliable, robust and safe. Most are also very old. Two, Oconee and Robinson began operations in the 1970’s. I know that for a fact, because I was working for Babcock & Wilcox in Barberton, Ohio in 1966 when the Reactors and Steam Generators for Oconee were being manufactured. These outstandingly successful units may receive new operating licenses for another 30 years, but the fact remains, some day new generation will be required to replace the aging units.
I personally had believed that NuScale Nuclear’s “Small Modular Reactors” (SMR’s) would be a large part of future replacements for aging coal and nuclear plants. However, the recent cost escalations do not look very encouraging, based on Donn Dears cost analysis of NuScale’s SMR. (275)
Over 200 slides are included in my course to show the reality of all forms of Primary and Secondary Energy. Energy used by America is used for more than generating electricity. In fact, about 37% of total primary energy is used for generating electricity. The other 63% is for Industrial production, Transportation, residential and commercial, cooking, heating, lighting, entertainment and cooling.
The course includes information on all forms of energy and how it is used to power our lives. I invite you to take a look at it, if you are interested, part 1 and part 2.(2,3)
Confusing the Public
I live in Hilton Head, South Carolina and soon the Heritage Golf Tournament will take place. This is a huge event that draws tens of thousands of Golf fans to this island. The normal peak electric power demand on Hilton Head is between 150 and 250 MW’s and it is provided by Palmetto Electric Co-Op which distributes electricity generated by Santee-Cooper, a state run electric utility. Santee-Cooper has about 5,300 MW of installed capacity and most of this is coal, natural gas and nuclear generation. Santee-Cooper is interconnected with the Duke and Dominion nuclear plants as well as other generation from the Grid. Overall, over 50% of S.C. electricity has been from nuclear power. (Santee-Cooper owns 322 MW of Summer nuclear plant operated by Dominion Energy) Santee-Cooper advertizes that they have about 400 MW (Nameplate) of solar power capacity either owned or under contract. So at first glance the claim of 100% green power to power the island may seem plausible, especially if Palmetto Electric defined nuclear power (they don’t) as being “Green”. Nuclear is the largest form of carbon-free electricity generation in the world. The point not explained regarding solar and wind is that “Nameplate Capacity” is not the same as delivered Dispatchable power. The actual electricity produced in the state through the year 2022 to SC is shown above. 54% nuclear & about 5% solar.
The bill insert from Palmetto Electric Coop, the HHI electricity supplier is copied below. This infers that the island of Hilton Head is powered by wind, solar and landfill gas. If you check the website scgreenpower.com it shows that most of the green power is from the 29 MW landfill gas units that Santee-Cooper operates. Not solar and ironically, they mention nothing about the importance of carbon free nuclear generation?
The misinformation and resulting misconceptions are nationwide as shown below. The headline refers to installed “CAPACITY” not actual generation. My Part 2, OLLI course(2,3) , slides # 16-20 show the recent actual generation for the U.S. electric Grid by fuels. (about 80% conventional generation)(157)
The actual delivered wind and solar generated electricity cost when metered and billed to the consumer is typically a higher cost/kWh than electricity generated from conventional generation. This is partly because the intermittent solar or wind power needs to be backed up with natural gas, Diesel or other Dispatchable generating capacity. So, the installed cost of solar is only the cost to install solar collectors or wind turbines. In the real world, the cost to the consumer includes the cost of the installation and fuel for backup generation. Another factor regarding intermittent wind and solar is that maintenance costs tend to be very high. Especially for offshore wind turbines. The chart below is from European experiences. The case study of Hawaii Electric which has shut down their one highly successful, clean and reliable coal plant is shown on slide # 48 of part 2 of the OLLI course. Now, dependent on wind, solar and other renewables Hawaii has the highest cost electricity in the U.S.A.. (53, 223 & 224) Mostly because the backup power when the wind isn’t blowing or sun not shining must be made up by Diesel Fuel burned in Internal Combustion engines, gas turbines or oil fueled steam boilers. Diesel fuel in the middle of the Pacific ocean is the most expensive form of primary energy. Diesel fuel is also one of the highest cost forms of primary energy anywhere, second to hydrogen in $/BTU.
Weaponization of the EPA
The Biden Administration is hell-bent on killing coal power generation(29) in America. The latest EPA Rules may in fact kill over a third of the remaining U.S. Coal generation capacity. Many of the power generation facilities that have been depended on as recently as last December 2022, (even now) will likely be shut down in the next year or two. This despite the fact that electricity shortages are expected. We already have had Rolling Blackouts in 2022 due, in part to too many reliable coal and nuclear power plants being shut down without replacing them in kind. Check slide #81 of OLLI course, part 2. This shows the over 102,000 MW of coal generation shut down since 2011. This is from data in the NERC report.(4)
In addition to the concerns of solar and wind being intermittent generation, there is the concern of Grid voltage and frequency stability with increasing generation provided through inverters. (20) The “Spinning Reserve” of thousands of tons of generator rotors from conventional power plants add Grid Stability of voltage and frequency as new power demand is added. Solar and wind power provided through inverters does not provide this dynamic reserve stability.
“Roosters of the Apocalypse” How Junk Science of Global Warming Nearly Bankrupted the Western World(1)
The Heartland Institute published the short book, “Roosters of the Apocalypse” in 2012. Basically it is a story of how “in the spring of 1856, the Xhosa tribe in today’s South Africa destroyed it’s own economy. According to the book, the Xhosa killed an estimated half-million of their own cattle (which they ordinarily treated with great care and respect), ceased planting crops and destroyed their grain stores. By the end of 1857 between thirty and fifty thousand of them had had starved to death. A third of the population. The British herded survivors of the once powerful tribe into labor camps, and white settlers took much of their land.(1)
The Xhosa had acted on the prophecy of a 15 year old girl who promised that if they destroyed all they had and purified themselves of “witchcraft” (including evil inclinations and selfishness), the world before the white invaders came would be restored: The British oppressors would flee, and the Xhosa ancestors would return, bringing with them an even greater abundance of cattle and grain.”
I found a copy of this book which I had purchased in 2012 amongst some other old books. I paged through it and thought “gee whiz, this is very relevant to the absurd actions and Regulations our government is now forcing on us”. The EPA and most of the rest of the U.S. government (Nearly all government Bureaucracies) have been weaponzied.(5) An OpEd opinion writer to the “Wall Street Journal” has written at least one letter with the truthful title: “America is Self Sabotaging the Electric Grid”. Then considering the story of the young girl advising the Xhosa tribe we could say, this is much like the message of Greta Thunberg and non-energy savvy politicians. In current times we have an inexperienced and thoroughly green indoctrinated Greta Thunberg (and along with many energy ignorant politicians) addressing the World Economic Forum as if she (and they) is/are well credentialed Atmospheric Scientist(s) and Greta appears on the cover of Internationally circulated magazines and is Time Magazine’s person of the year in 2019. Greta’s message, “Stop using fossil fuels”.(270) The fossil fuels that power 80%+ of all that we depend on to achieve the high standard of living we have come to enjoy.
Are the free people of the western world as gullible as the people of the Xhosa tribe? It sure looks that way to me. The Net-Zero Carbon Path may be impossible and wrong-headed, but our government sure is hell-bent on following it no matter what the consequences.
How, Why or Who is Responsible for the Absurd Energy Policies and Demonization of Carbon?
The perpetrators of the war on carbon and all conventional fuels for that matter are numerous. In my opinion, it began with the United Nations Agenda 21 and that (later the formation of the UN-IPCC) I believe is the root cause of why and how the “Green” policies have been started in the U.S. and EU. Demonizing conventional forms of energy (carbon and nuclear) and strangling of the Free World’s Energy supplies. I started digging to try to discern how such ludicrous policies could become embraced by most of the leaders of the free western world, some who are otherwise reasonable people believed to be of above average intelligence.
The intent of the following is to show the progression of the U.N. Agenda 21 from the inception in 1992 and how it morphed into being a policy to promote “One World Government” and control over all of the citizens of the Free World and to do this through environmental regulations. Why did the UN choose the environmental route to promote socialism? Because, in my opinion, everyone wants clean water and clean air, so it was a means for the leaders of the U.N. and Socialists to appeal to the free world’s citizens, even if it meant using scare tactics(6). If it sounds like a conspiracy, well please read on. I have provided many references at the end for your further reading and research. I said the scare tactics are aimed at the citizens of the Free Western World. You would think that the Main Stream Media would notice and report that the war on carbon does not apply to China and Russia. These two countries have the most to gain as the OECD countries become weaker.
The largest influencers of U.S. energy policy has been environmental extremist organizations.(250, 251, 252, 253,254, 255)Not engineers or energy savvy organizations. Not even electric Utilities.
The Beginning of Agenda 21 1992-Rio De Janeiro -Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)
This conference produced three documents: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (an international treaty), the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (an international treaty), and U.N. Agenda 21, (not a treaty, but a “soft law” or suggestion)
President George H.W. Bush along with 178 other countries signed the agreement, along with 178 other countries. But he refused to sign the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity because it required transfer of technology without recognition of property rights.
The treaties and the Agenda 21 (soft law) were not ratified by the U.S. Congress. However, parts of it have been incorporated into other laws passed because all members of Congress do not read all of the words that are in Bills. (7)
Nancy Pelosi in 1992 introduced a bill to follow the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to conform to U.N. Agenda 21, its local sustainable community practices, and to follow international law.
The administration of the next President, Bill Clinton initiated the “War on Carbon”. (10) Many prominent members of the Democrat Party have hated coal for a long time, and I have yet to find a reason for their angst against the treasure of energy that America is Blessed with? Clinton’s administration started with appointing environmental activist zealot Carol Browner to the EPA. Between her and some clever and devious lawyers on staff at the EPA they ramped up the Rules on “New Source Review”. This is the point that extreme policies came to my attention. At that point in my life (early 1990’s) I was working as a boiler engineer/consultant and was directly involved in upgrading and improving older coal plants to improve efficiency, reliability, fuel flexibility, reduced NOx emissions and capacity. I learned the hard way that the word “Upgrade” was a trigger word to the EPA. It triggered NSR. Even if it improved efficiency and reduced emissions. The word upgrade in a technical report we wrote or a proposal triggered NSR “New Source Review”(8,9). The concept by the EPA was to eliminate coal plants gradually by forcing an environmental review of an older plant as if it was a new plant being constructed at that time. Because the older coal plants were built before the newer Regulations, NSR was a death sentence to any coal plant faced with NSR. Here are some links to NSR lawsuits. That was the beginning of the war on coal, based on my observations, then the U.S. had a pretty good run of enjoying some of the lowest cost electricity in the world for the next two decades.
Summary and Conclusions
It will not be possible to reach net-Zero Carbon by 2050. It may be possible to help the Chinese Economy and Influence in the world to surpass America’s by restricting, regulating and taxing America’s vast energy resources. Thus, weakening America as the WSJ OpEd title stated, “America is Self Sabotaging Our Electric Grid”. It is not only the electric grid. Remember there is a difference between “Primary and Secondary” energy. Electricity currently utilizes about 37% of America’s “Primary Energy. If everything is electrified (not possible) then the Grid will need much more than the 37 Quadrillion BTUs used currently to generate our electricity. Note the LLNL chart below of total PRIMARY Energy use in the U.S.
My hope is that the American people (and our elected officials) who are not involved in energy or electricity production, will wake up and study the fundamentals of energy and electricity generation. (that was the intent of my OLLI course) I have written to many elected officials. I have had little if any interest by these officials to do anything. Why? I think it is because the environmental extremist organizations have literally Billions of dollars of funding to use in election campaigns against any politician that stands up for Common sense Energy Policies. Check Capital Research Center’s “Influence Watch” website to see some of the enormous resources of funds that the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, NRDC and others have. Besides being enormously well funded, these are Tax sheltered. Also, the 2012 book, “The New Leviathan”(158) which outlines the funds of extremist non-profit organizations in Appendix X, page 245: $9,310,833,507. That was 2012 and at that time the average annual revenues were $6,454,568. Being 501(c)3 non-profits, they have even greater funding today,(15,16,162) thanks to American Billionaires and some Dark Money. Many of the non-profit leaders have participated in a Revolving Door of high government positions with the EPA and other agencies of the U.S. government. (254)
Also, I have written on my Blog on Influencers of Energy and Environmental Policy. America has not had an energy policy since the presidency of Jimmy Carter. His National Energy Act as older folks will recall, was following Oil Embargoes of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
A couple final thoughts on “Electrify Everything”…..
Itshould be obvious that Energy Independence is a prerequisite for National Security.
Everything cannot be electrified. For example, Plastics, Steel, Cement and Fertilizer. Yes, energy and food production are inextricably linked also.(182)
The bottom line is. America does not have an Energy Policy(159) for an orderly transition to Net-Zero Carbon. My message to my fellow citizens is this: Please wake up(59) and go study the true facts on energy and electricity. If you only check two references, the two I suggest are Vaclav Smil’s book, “How the World Really Works” and take a look at the Finnish GTK presentation, entitled, “Time to Wake up”. (59)
Yours very truly,
Dick Storm, March 18, 2023
When you have some free time, kindly read or at least peruse through the additional resources listed below. Learn about the details of our energy mess and then educate your friends and neighbors to the true facts. Especially your friends that are involved in education. Thank you.
References and Factual Information for Further Reading
Roosters of the Apocalypse by Rael Jean Isaac, published by the Heartland institute, 2012
“The Climate Change Hoax Argument” by C. Paul Smith, 2021
U.N. Agenda 21 by Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, ISBN: 978-0615716473
The Right Stuff Climate Team Reports and Videos. Outstanding applications of Science and Common Sense by retired NASA highly credentialed experts: https://www.therightclimatestuff.com
TED Talk Nuclear Power Is Our Best Hope to Ditch Fossil Fuels | Isabelle Boemeke on the need for more nuclear power. I do not agree with her bashing fossil fuels, but her promotion of nuclearis correct and well done with class and a little humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESAaz9v4mSU
America has foolish Decarbonization policies, now codified by our government. The U.S. Energy Policy amounts to No Energy Policy at all. It is absurd and unbelievable that such a great country as ours could enact such harmful policies. But, the U.S. Congress did. It is fair to ask, how could this come to be? The purpose of this post is to expose some of the organizations and people who have put America in Harm’s Way with Energy Insufficiency. The greatest country in the world may in fact be faced with energy & electricity rationing if Congress does not act.
Introduction
The sixty year journey of American Energy Policy fits my career. I started in the Power Generation business in 1962 upon graduation from Williamson. I retired in 2012 and after retirement have kept up with the energy and electricity generation business as an instructor to the USCB-OLLI program and I have been a speaker to schools, colleges and civic clubs on the topic of energy and electricity generation. Kindly allow me to review some of the highlights of the past six decades, from my own experiences as a coal power engineer, supervisor and eventually, engineering services company president. This is my story on energy and electricity generation from my own experiences.
During the 1960’s coal power provided over 50% of the fuel for electricity generation. Nuclear power was just beginning (I started work for B&W in the nuclear Division in 1965). Admiral Rickover’s gift of Nuclear power generation was heralded as leading to “Electricity that will be too Cheap to Meter”. Coal will no longer be used in the future…… was the common beliefs in 1965. In 1966, I transferred to the B&W Power Generation Division which designed and built coal, oil, and gas fueled boilers. Why? Because I did not like the enormous burden of paperwork required by the AEC and DOD. I decided I would study, work hard and learn as much as I could to be the best at fossil power generation that I could be, where there were fewer regulations. I thought, at least some of the coal boilers built in the 1960’s and 70’s would still be running when it was time to retire. (I was right)
The EPA begins in 1970 and coal plant stack emissions begin a long successful program of cleanup. When in 1972 I led the startup of CP&L’s 420 MW, Sutton #3 in Wilmington, NC, both Oil and coal fuel were about $0.50/million Btu’s. Because of the similar fuel cost of oil and coal, many Utilities faced with restricted emission limits on particulates and sulfur by the new EPA, changed fuels from coal to oil to reduce pollution. That was OK until….
Then in 1973 the Arab Oil Embargo is experienced and those of us that lived through those years remember the gas lines, stock market drop and Utilities that could not raise Capital for new plants. They were tough financial times in the energy world and for all Americans.
Jimmy Carter becomes President after the Arab Oil Embargo and he makes Energy Security a centerpiece of his Administration. In 1978, Carter introduced the National Energy Act, which established energy goals, specifically reducing the nation’s dependency on oil and increasing the use of renewable resources, such as solar energy. The Cabinet level position heading the Department of Energy, eventually grows to a Bureaucracy of over 15,000 employees. The goal of the new Department of Energy that I recall was to “Create Energy Independence” for America. A worthy goal with merit!
During the years following Jimmy Carter’s Presidency and enactment of the National Energy Act, many coal power plants were built to use America’s treasure of coal energy. Power generating units got larger, and larger until they reached the level of the magnificent 1,300 MW B&W Supercritical Units at TVA Cumberland and AEP Mountaineer, Zimmer and others. Later, these highly efficient supercritical plants were equipped with the latest stack clean up gear. Combustion Engineering also built large magnificent supercritical coal plants up to about 900 MW. Also designing and building Utility scale boilers were Foster-Wheeler and Riley Stoker. I worked for Riley as a startup engineer from 1969-1973. Then I joined CP&L as a senior engineer and later was promoted to Operations Superintendent at the 2,500 MW Roxboro Steam Plant in 1977.
The years 1962 until my retirement were exciting and I had the pleasure of knowing and working with many brilliant engineers (such as Mendall Long of CP&L , Bill McCall of Santee-Cooper and Bill Lee of Duke) They each led their teams of engineers to implement their vision to produce electricity at ever more affordable prices and at the same time, reduce emissions. The U.S. economy grew, pollution was reduced, power costs dropped relative to the increased cost of living. They were good times to be involved in power generation and I was Blessed to have had a long and productive career during that fifty-year period 1962-2012.
Then things changed. Instead of priorities of producing reasonable cost power, many groups & politicians began to demonize the very fuels that built our great country. (Fossil fuels and nuclear still provide over 87% of our Primary Energy). This post is to highlight some of the major players that are, in my viewpoint, the Root Cause of foolish energy policies that are harming and hastening the decline of our great country. Someone before me said “Energy=Life” I think it was Vaclav Smil. Here is my story of how this energy crisis came to be, based on my personal 60 years of being interested and involved in energy and electricity production.
The references I have used are open sources, easily verified for accuracy. However, few of the details listed in my references (over 180 links at the end of this post) have been reported in the Main Stream Media. The purpose of this post, is to expose those who have had the most influence on weakening America’s Energy Supply.
Here are My Nominations of the Top Sixteen Organizations and Individuals that have Put the U.S. in “Harm’s Way” concerning Energy Security
The “War on Carbon” has been around since at least 1998. My first concern of EPA over-reach was on “New Source Review” issues. On performance improvement upgrades of existing coal plants to improve capacity and reduce emissions, the Utility companies that I worked with were threatened (and some prosecuted) by NSR (New Source Review) I thought it was ludicrous because the improvement we had either proposed or implemented imroved efficiency. Since then NSR has been ramped up in intensity and hundreds of coal plants shut down. Over 100,000 MW’s of generating capacity. For those who may read this that are not involved in the power industry, let me provide a comparison to the Robert Moses Hydroelectric Plant at Niagara Falls. That plant has a reliable water flow from most of the rainfall and rivers feeding all of the Great Lakes. The size of the Niagara Falls Power Station on the U.S. side is about 2,500 MW’s generation capacity. Therefore, to replace the 102,600 MW of coal and nuclear plants shut down since 2010 would require the equivalent of over 40 new plants each with the output of Niagara Falls. This is, as Michelle Bloodworth of America’s Power put it in her Commentary in the January issue of POWER Magazine, “Are we headed for a Reliability Train Wreck”?
The EPA has become even more extreme in their effectiveness to shut down reliable coal plants. In addition, incentives for wind and solar have forced exceptional competitive burdens on coal and nuclear units by the tax dollar incentivizing of renewable electricity onto the Grid when it is intermittently available, thus driving down capacity factors of coal generation. I hate to use the term “Death Spiral”, but in essence that is what has been forced on the coal power generation industry by lucrative incentives for intermittent wind and solar generation. Further incentives (through the Inflation Reduction Act) of “Green Energy” will make the Grid less reliable. It will be difficult to change or correct because accountability is spread so widely. The harm to reliability has been documented by NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corp.) Many others including myself have written numerous other posts (in Donn Dear’s case, several books) on the need for a Rational Energy Policy. The Myths of wind and solar to power America on a Net-Zero Carbon path without conventional fossil and nuclear fueled plants to carry Base Load and to provide Dispatchable backup electricity generation is well documented. Energy experts, such as Donn Dears & Vaclav Smil have written numerous books and Blog posts on the dangers of following the Net-Zero Carbon path. In spite of the excellent work by many to report the true benefits of using the Treasure of Energy the U.S. has within our borders, our country is on a dangerous path of restricting the use of fossil fuels. To say it is absurd is a gross understatement.
Let’s get to the top influencers. These are my opinions and mine alone. However, at the end of this Blog, I will provide at least one hundred eighty references for further reading and you can decide for yourself the importance of energy and who were or are the top influencers of harmful and un-American energy policies. My choices for the top honors in weakening America follow:
Barack Obama. Under his administration the EPA was Weaponized to effectively attack Coal plants. His policies were very effective (Harmful is a better word). The last clean coal plants to startup in the U.S. was about 2013. Turk,Longview and Cliffside #6 were the three last new (600 MW or larger) coal plants in the U.S. that I am aware.
Gina McCarthy An important person of the “War on Carbon”, she was Obama’s EPA Chief then with NRDC (NRDC-Action Fund) and Biden’s Climate Advisor until resigning in sept 2022. She was replaced by John Podesta, who may turn out to be worse than McCarthy.
Sierra Club Has led a very successful public smear campaign against coal plants and publicized their “War on Coal” as the “Beyond Coal” Publicity Campaign. They have bragged on their website and in publications on the number of coal plants they have stopped from being built or shut down. They are (or at least were) also against natural gas and nuclear plants. Sierra Club (as well as other extremist groups) has Millions of dollars in assets and is continually funded by U.S. Billionaires as well as other sources.
Natural Resources Defense Council like the Sierra Club has had a War on Coal for many years. It was the employer of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy between her service (I use the word service loosely) in government between the Obama and Biden Administrations. Well funded and the NRDC has enormous financial assets.
John Podesta Now Biden’s Green Investment Czar, he was previously employed as Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton when the “War on Coal” began during the Clinton Presidency years, then Podesta was associated with Hillary Clinton during her years as Secretary of State when the Uranium One Deal was made to sell American Uranium assets to the Russians. Podesta was also involved in a business relationship with a Russian influenced company, Joule Unlimited. Now Podesta has replaced Gina McCarthy as the Whitehouse coordinator in spending the $370 Billion dollars approved by Congress to be spent on Green energy.
John Kerry Appointed special presidential envoy for climate creating a new Bureacracy. He is at a cabinet-level position. Mr. Kerry has traveled on private jets around the world promoting the war on carbon. He does this as energy prices have soared, citizens of the world have experienced wars, blackouts, industrial plant shutdowns, food scarcity, fertilizer shortages and inflation. John Kerry sees his “War on Carbon” as more important than “World Peace” Kerry doesn’t need money, but he has been accused of being associated with Green Groups.
Michael Bloomberg Successful business man and a Billionaire. He has generously funded the Sierra Club to fight coal plants.
Jeff Bezos Like Bloomberg, Bezos has funded the Sierra Club and other Environmental Extremists to fight coal plants.
Klaus Schwab Not that well known by the general public, but he is the Founder of the World Economic Forum and yes, they too have waged a war on carbon.
Anthony Guterres The United Nations Secretary General. He is a Socialist and has done an effective effort of leading the signers of the Paris Climate Change Agreement to Decarbonize the Free World. Note, he has done little or nothing to stop the Russia-Ukraine War or apply pressure on the world’s largest CO2 emitter, China, but he continues to push Decarbonization to the Free Western (Capitalist) world.
Michael Regan- EPA Administrator. Regan has been the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality since 2017. Before then, he worked on clean energy initiatives for the Environmental Defense Fund, a national environmental advocacy group. Regan returned to the agency where he spent much of his early career.
Environmental Defense Fund The current EPA head of Air Quality Joe Goffman was employed here before becoming a high level official at the U.S.-EPA He has been a mastermind on crafting legislation to codify the war on coal.
Joe Goffman- Assistant EPA Administrator, An activist lawyer that has been involved in forming legislation and rules against coal plants for years, before employment with EPA he was employed by the Environmental Defense Fund.
Jennifer Granholm Secretary of Energy. Here is an excerpt of her speech to the Europeans March 2022 of where she stands on energy policy: “Let me be clear though: We are playing catch up with Germany! Although the U.S. may make different choices in how we approach our own energy transition, you and other EU parties have already made some incredible progress.Germany has slashed greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels, and supercharged their clean energy output.Last year, Germany generated almost 50 percent of their electricity through renewables—more than all fossil fuels combined. These are the kinds of results we need to replicate here in the U.S.“ Note Secretary Granholm’s last line copied above, should be read and then also compare her statement with the reality of the recent energy struggles and de-Industrialization of Germany.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) The list would not be complete without including the EPA. They have over 18,000 employees, many of which are employed to implement policies and rules that, now that the air is cleaned (see chart above) are simply an Ideological War on carbon and are against the best interests of American Business, Industry & Citizens.
Department of Energy Like the EPA, the DOE has thousands of employees (over 14,000 not incl. contract employees). Many DOE employees have expertise in engineering and energy. However, they are led by Jennifer Granholm and other non-energy trained “Green Energy” Ideologues. Remember the original goal of the DOE, “To Make America Energy Independent”
Why a War on Carbon
Since my first involvement (about 1998) with “New Source review” I have wondered, “Why do these people hate coal”? A decade later when Obama was President they came out against carbon and all fossil fuels? Energy is Life and how can these leaders be so misguided? Is it a lack of knowledge in physical science? Is it a Green Religion and hate of conventional fuels? Are they concerned about the “Carrying Capacity of the Earth” in population growth? Are they influenced by foreign governments? As a Patriotic American that understands the importance of energy and energy independence, I have wondered.
Well, the more I dug down into the origins of the hate for fossil fuels the more I found out that it is some or all of the above. I also discovered in reading about the Sierra Club and the NRDC that they also object to nuclear power and pipelines. Many of the people involved with environmental extremist groups rotate into high level jobs in government where they are able to ratchet anti conventional energy policies to ever higher levels of Regulation and consequent energy cost escalation. When energy costs rise, so does almost everything else, including food.
America Has No Energy Policy
I was not going to mention political parties. However, all of the top influencers are members of the Democrat Party, including WVA’s Senator Joe Manchin. Manchin is as influential and responsible for the wasteful and harmful legislation as much as all of the other Democrats. The Green policies that they voted for have created enormous sums of financial incentives (about $370+ Billion). This taxpayer provided financial resource then creates interest of many Utilities and other businesses to cash in. As the expression goes, “Follow the Money”....now there are many Utilities and other large companies that are in on the gravy train and they will likely then become more “Woke” as they become dependent on the public Dole. This is not good for the American citizens, not good for Businesses, definitely not good for Industrial competitiveness with China and reshoring of American Manufacturing. National Security, like in President Jimmy Carter’s days, depends on Energy Independence. The green policies are in my viewpoint at the very least, Un-American. They are in my opinion, a path to Socialism.
No, I Do Not Believe in Man-Made Climate Change!
I have been an instructor on energy and electricity production and given public talks on energy. I usually do not discuss Climate Change for two reasons: 1. I am not an Atmospheric Scientist that is an expert on Climate and 2. I am an expert on conventional energy and electricity generation after having worked for six decades in power generation and power plants all around the world. Therefore, my main concern is that conventional fuels provide about 80-90% of our total Primay Energy. A transition from this 80-90% conventional to renewable will take time and Technology gains. In my experience and opinion, the current government policy to change to 100% renewable by 2030 or even 2050 is not planned and the path our government is on now is based on scare tactics to Demonize Hydrocarbon fuels and nuclear. I have written other Blog posts on the 100 Quadrillion Btus of Primary Energy that America depends on. Conventional energy cannot be discontinued and replaced with renewable wind and solar. A systematic transition is needed, not a shock shutdown of conventional energy. The following are my reasons for opposing Net-Zero Carbon:
The disruption (weakening of America) of our high quality of life to meet Net-Zero Carbon is not nessessary . The high standard of living Americans enjoy requires about 850,000 to 1,000,000 Btu’s per day, per person of energy equivalent. Total U.S. Primary Energy use/year about 100 Quadrillion Btus
Carbon Dioxide from manmade sources, in the opinion of many Atmospheric Scientists is not the primary driver of Climate Change. CO2 is however, beneficial for plants and crops to grow increased amounts of food.
Many of the Climate Scientists that are claiming manmade carbon dioxide emissions are changing the Climate have been subsidized by government grants and other funding to bias the narrative. In essence, the Anthropogenic Global Warming Scare is about control of the population and distribution of wealth, Decarbonization is not about saving the planet. Dr. Tim Ball had the courage to call it corruption of science
There are many Scientists that disagree with the government narrative that fossil fuels are changing the Climate
The United Nations IPCC and other pressures on the U.S.A. are not so much about saving the Planet as they are distribution of wealth from the top most wealthy countries to poorer countries.
The appendix of additional reading materials includes numerous publications, slide presentations and books authored by truly well credentialled Climate Scientists. I recommend referring to these Scientists regarding the question of Anthropogenic Climate Change.
There have been 50 years of wrong predictions by the Environmental Extremists, they have tried scare tactics for a long time
Climate is changing. It always has. We all know that about 11,000 years ago the Ice Age had large glaciers covering North America. There is time to adapt to climate change. It is not a crisis. The government response to the scare tactics of the Greens has in fact, caused a real “Energy Crisis”. The Energy Crisis can be fixed with a Rational Energy Policy.
Summary
America and Europe are going to have a tough winter. Much of the pain, inflation, suffering, deaths and De-Industrialization (loss of jobs too) will be caused by foolish Decarbonization policies. The Sixteen organizations and individuals above have been successful in scaring the public and exaggerating the impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I thought it was past-time that someone who is in the energy business should push back and post this information, just so anyone with an open mind and interest in truth can view some of the players and their background in Energy and Electricity generation. These organizations and individuals have inflicted serious harm to America. Perhaps innocently and with good intentions. However, there are very few, if any experienced energy engineers represented by the leadership of the 16 organizations and policy leaders listed above.
These thoughts and all that is written here is my opinion based on my personal involvement over the last 60 years, of which I worked actively for 50 years in the electric power industry. The opinions and research are all mine and I take full responsibility for the words written above. They are mine alone and are not influenced by any other organization that I have been a part of.
Yours very truly,
Richard F. (Dick) Storm
Want to dig deeper? Here are over 180 References and Documents for further reading and to support the comments that I have offered in the remarks above:
John Podesta, Head of 300+ Billion dollars of U.S. Taxpayer funds for clean energy. Check Influence Watch to read some interesting background on his career: https://www.influencewatch.org/person/john-podesta/
Professor Vaclav Smil Book, “The Way the World Really Works” One of his quotes: (Smil is a prolific author on energy issues and lives in Canada) I absolutely hate the word sustainability because there is no such thing. Sustainability cannot be defined. Sustainable for what? Over next year? Over 10 years? Over a millennium? On a local basis, on a planetary basis? I mean, there are so many time and space dimensions to it you cannot define what is sustainable. If somebody is boasting what they are doing is sustainable, it’s a total laugh. There is no sustainable thing.
Capital Research Center December 2021, “War on Consumers” article with Dick Storm contribution on why we cannot electrify everything. My part regarding the supply of 100 Quads of Primary Energy begins on pg 17, “Net-Zero Carbon, A Recipe for Disaster” : https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/Capital-Research-2021-8.pdf
Coal Plant Shut Downs without replacement of new coal units is largely due to opposition by Environmental Extremist Groups, such as the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Program. Their Website: https://coal.sierraclub.org
Monday evening I was invited to the Sunset Rotary Club to provide a presentation on energy and electric power generation. I accepted the invitation because I believe it is important for the general public to understand the importance of affordable, reliable energy and electricity generation. Rotary Clubs are comprised of great civic minded people that are involved in the community. Thus, the title of the talk, “Demystifying the Importance of Energy and Electric Power” . My intention was to help the Rotarians understand the differences of Primary and Secondary Energy, Dispatchability of electricity generation and provide an overview of the sources of our energy. Here is the presentation with a short narrative of each of the slides I used to compress a two hour topic into 30 minutes:
The object of the short talk was to cover the importance of energy and to attempt to bring the facts to community leaders that care, but are not experts in or involved in energy engineering or businesses.
Rotary members are very active in the community and the world in helping the less fortunate. The first part of the meeting was members discussing helping students and those people in the community that are living in poverty. (Yes, on Hilton Head Island we have a lot of poverty) In my attempt to pique the attention of members on the plight of people living in Developing countries and the relationship of energy and economic prosperity, I used the cover of the June 2021 Rotary Magazine. This showed an example of indoor cooking of a family in Mongolia. Another photo of a woman cooking over a wood fire in Africa. Lifting people such as these from poverty can be done with the wise and careful use of fossil fuels. Such as propane and natural gas for cooking and coal for electricity generation.
Most of America’s energy is provided by conventional forms of energy; petroleum, natural gas, coal, nuclear, biomass and hydroelectric. These six forms of primary energy provide over 90% of the energy we use, need and depend on to power our high quality of living. I used the John Deere tractor as an image to get attention to the energy component of food production. Rotary is involved in helping the less fortunate all around the world. The Energy cost component of food production is over 50% for most foods when “farm to table” is considered. Costs such as; fertilizer, tractor fuel, grain drying, food processing, refrigeration for dairy and meat products and distribution transportation power and supermarket refrigeration. As energy costs rise, they become one of the root causes of inflation.
The relationship of energy and economic growth is well known by those of us that have worked in the energy business but not so well known by the general public. To illustrate this relationship I used the data compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy back in 2010 to show the correlation of coal consumption and GDP growth from 1970-2010. This GDP growth was steady and in spite of the Arab Oil Embargo’s of 1973 and 1980. Back in the late 1970’s, when Jimmy Carter was President, his Administration promoted a National Energy policy that focused on Domestically produced energy. Because America is the “Saudi Arabia of Coal” over 50% of the U.S. ever growing electricity generation, continued to be from coal fuel.
Moving forward from 2010 to 2021, the Energy Flow Chart shows the sources and uses of each form of energy. Including renewables.
The LLNL Sankey Diagram of total primary energy flows is my favorite illustration. This shows on one diagram the total energy sources and consumption. I think it is an easy to understand graphic that any reasonable person can understand. Thus, it is my favorite energy chart.
Three points are to be made with this chart: 1. America uses about 100 Quadrillion Btus of energy each year and that this has been steady for the last 20+ years. The year 2021 energy use dipped to 97.3 Quads because of Covid and reduced travel and industrial output. 2. The LLNL chart shows PRIMARY Energy Flows. The distiction of Primary and Secondary Energy needs to be understood. For example, electricity and hydrogen are forms of Secondary Energy 3. The most important point emphasized by this chart is that wind and solar only provided 4.96% of the U.S. Primary Energy. This after decades of subsidies and taxpayer funded incentives for wind and solar.
Each South Carolina citizen uses an average of 866,000 Btus per day. Each of us in the room live a slightly above average life style. Thus, I submit that each one of us uses over a million Btus of conventional energy each day. The slide above shows the forms that energy is used by each of us, or on our behalf. I say on our behalf considering for example, the Diesel fuel used to power a truck delivering an Amazon shipment to our home, or Jet Fuel for a Fedex air freight shipment. Also, many of us will travel to see friends and family over the Thanksgiving Holiday and vacations. Travel such as that uses much more than a million Btus/day/person when gasoline and jet fuel are considered. The number is derived from dividing the total primary energy BTUs used in the state by the population then divide by 365 days, to come up with the energy/person/day consumption. The information on the illustration below is compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy for SC residents.
This reminds me of one of the excellent questions asked at the end of my presentation. The question was, “If we each use about a million Btus per day, how much do they cost in dollars?”. Great question and the answer reminds us of how fortunate we are to be Americans! A million Btu’s of natural gas costs about $7.00/million Btu and a million Btus of Diesel fuel costs about $46.00/million Btus. Depending on our personal use of energy it will be somewhere in between. Coal energy is the least costly and before Covid was less than $3.00/million Btus. But, lately due to so many factors resulting from the government’s “War on Carbon”, delivered coal costs are about the same as natural gas. This is what the proponents for renewables want, higher costs of fossil fuels which then makes renewables more competitive by increasing the costs of the once affordable fuels. In my opinion, this is not a good strategy to keep America strong.
The Alaska pipeline was approved by Congress and built after the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. It presents a vivid image of the amount of oil America depends on each day. The Alaska pipeline is above ground because of the Permafrost Tundra in northern Alaska. The above ground image provides a graphic illustration of a pipeline capable of transporting about two million barrels of oil per day. America uses about twenty million barrels per day of oil, so to illustrate that, imagine ten pipeleines like the one shown above, side by side. Yes, that is a lot of oil to be refined into gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, lubricating oil, grease and many other petroleum products. Not to mention the oil used in making plastics and other materials used for manufactured products of all types.
Total Primary energy production and use 1950-2020. I stated earlier that America has leveled off at about 100 Quadrillion Btus of energy each year. This chart by the EIA shows that from about the year 2000, the U.S. has used right at 100 Quadrillion Btus/year. Another point to make: Note that in 2019 it was the first year since about 1960 where America produced as much Domestic energy as we consumed. In other words, in 2019 America became energy Independent.
The data above is a few years old as it shows the world population at 7.2 billion. Just this week the U.N. estimated that the world has now passed 8 billion in total population. It is my opinion that not much has changed in the percentages of people living below the energy and HDI levels of the Developed world. As shown on the chart, about half the world population lives well below our quality of life in energy poverty. The difference? Energy and Liberty. This is the season of Thanksgiving and all Americans have much to be thankful for. I know I am.
A reminder that Energy Independence is important not only to power our HDI but also for National Security. Both militarily and for economic security. If one does not believe energy is important for a sustainable and good life, then that person should read up on the current events in Europe and Ukraine with energy shortages. Read the news on BASF downsizing fertilizer production in Germany because of high energy costs and also other German industrial plants are being downsized or shut down. All older Americans should remember the Oil Embargo’s of 1973 and 1980. Taking the U.S. Oil Embargos and Russian war on Ukraine into consideration this should elevate the understanding of the importance of energy independence and affordable production of energy to sustain our lives. Also, those of us living on the coast remember how our lives changed when hurricanes like Mathew in 2016 knocked out electricity and stopped gasoline deliveries.
Electricity generation that is “Dispatchable” is important for reliable electric service. The 24 hour chart above shows typical electric Demand for a Utility. The red lines are summer with higher air conditioning load and the winter in blue. Whether summer or winter, electric load is greatest in the morning and late afternoon. The Demand at 5:00 PM will typically be about 150% to 200% of the Demand at 5:00 AM. This is because of increased commercial lighting, cooking for dinner, folks returning home from work and turning on TV, etc. As my first “Electricity 101” instructor put it in 1959, “Electricity Needs to be Generated the Instant it is Needed”.…This is called Dispatchable electricity generation.
The Current Grid example above shows electricity generation for the 48 states of the U.S.A. This example is from October 2021 but it was similar for 2022. The cycling lines representing natural gas power illustrate the electric load Demand swings from daytime to night-time. The variations are similar but less extreme for coal and hydro. These four sources of electric generation are Dispatchable. Over 80% of the generation for the 48 states up till now, is from Dispatchable generation. Solar and wind are Not Dispatchable. So, as in California a year or two ago, as people came home from work, started cooking dinner, charged their EV’s and turned on TV’s…..the Demand for electricity exceeded the available supply and rolling Blackouts occurred. Texas in the winter of February 2021 had a similar experience. Both Blackout events were the result of too much intermittent power generation from wind and solar with too many Dispatchable coal and nuclear plants having been shut down in the last few years.
The graphic above is from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator known as MISO. Actual data from July 2022. The point is to show the generation by fuels which includes 41.85% coal. Many of these coal plants are planned to be shut down in the coming years, without planning replacement generation fron Dispatchable sources. (This is an absence of a Rational Energy Policy)
For people like myself that have been involved with energy and electricity generation for decades, it just seems foolish and ill planned. I started digging a year or two ago to attempt to determine why America has no energy policy to replace the coal and nuclear plants that have been shutdown with more to follow? The answer is that America’s energy policy is driven by environmental extremists that know little about energy and electricity generation and seem to not care about the consequences and weakening of America. Some of these organizations are shown below.
The public Indoctrination has been highly successful in indoctrinating the general public believe that green power can replace coal, gas, oil and nuclear energy. It cannot if we are to continue to enjoy our high HDI style of living.
Another RTO (Regional Transmission Operator) is the PJM Interconnection. This RTO serves as the electric power equivalent of an “Air Traffic Controller” to distribute the power genaration to the least cost electric generating plants between NJ and Illinois. A huge portion of the Northeastern states. Like MISO, much of the pwer generation this summer was from coal plants. Like MISO, many of the Dispatchable coal plants are planned for shut down in the near future. Until then neeeded preventive maintenance is not the same as if they were valued assets to be depended on for decades into the future. Also, there are no plans to replace the lost generation with new coal or nuclear units, at least, not yet.
Let’s talk about South Carolina and where we get our electricity.
Over 56% of SC electric generation is from nuclear power generation. SC ranks #3 in the U.S.
Here on Hilton Head Island our electricity is distributed by Palmetto Electric Co-Op. Palmetto Electric receives most of their Bulk Power from Santee-Cooper. The generation assets of Santee-Cooper are shown on the chart above. In the lower right inset, is shown the Summer Nuclear Plant which is operated by Dominion Energy. Santee-Cooper owns 322 MW of the nuclear generation capacity of Summer Unit #1. Two additional nuclear units were planned when SCE&G was the owner but mismanagement resulted in quitting the construction process after spending about nine Billion dollars on the expansion. Had it been successful, it would have been a good plan for carbon free electric generation capacity. Currently, most of Santee-Cooper’s power generation is from the Cross and Winyah coal power plants. As can be seen from the Santee-Cooper table above of electricity generation assets, over 67% of them are coal plants. The Cross Steam plant is about 130 miles north of Hilton Head in Pineville, SC. This plant is rated at 2,350 MW. Just to put that in perspective, the Cross coal plant is close to the same size as the American side Hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls. This is serious Bulk Power generation capacity.
The Santee-Cooper utility also owns the 3.5 MW rated Solar Farm off of I-95 near Walterboro. Again, referring to the generation assets of Santee-Cooper, the solar capacity is about 0.1% of the total.
The solar collectors are not Dispatchable and obviously only can generate power only about 4-8 hours during the sunny portion of a 24 hour period. Also considered “Green Power” and can function 24/7 is the Landfill Gas plants that Santee-Cooper operates. These capture and use the methane gas which is produced from the decomposition of the organic materials in municipal waste.
Santee-Cooper management recognized the electricity Demand growth of the future. As mentioned above, they correctly planned for the needed increase of new generation capacity by a 45% joint ownership of the Summer Units 2 & 3 nuclear units. Also, Santee-Cooper approved the design and construction of a new 600 MW clean coal plant near Florence, SC. The components for this plant were designed and purchased. However, extreme opposition from environmental extremist organizations forced it to be cancelled. As I understand it, The large Central Electric Co-Operative in upstate S.C. negotiated a power purchase agreement with Duke Energy to purchase excess Bulk Power generation from Duke’s nuclear plants. This agreement provided excellent low cost Bulk power up to about 2030. After 2030 the contract will need to be renegotiated. Also, in 2030 the Oconee #1 nuclear power plant operating license will need to be extended by the NRC. (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
The chart below is from the Santee-Cooper projection of electricity growth from 2020 through 2040. As can be seen from the chart, the 1,045 MW Winyah coal plant is planned for shut down in 2028. The difference between the expected growth to over 6,000 MW by about 2035 could have easily been made up for, were the Pee Dee coal plant and one of the planned additional units at Summer been completed. As this is written, Santee-Cooper and their stakeholders are working to figure out where to secure the replacement generation to replace the 1045 MW’s in capacity that will be lost when the Winyah plant is shut down. From what I have read, the most likely approval will be solar, batteries for backup and when all that is inadequate, they will install more Gas Turbine Combined Cycle units. Time will tell.
Based on the foregoing and a lot of additional information, some of which is included in the references at the end, I have formed my conclusions….
Thank you for this opportunity to be part of your program tonight. I sincerely appreciate your interest in energy and electricity. Feel free to contact me should you have any further questions,
Yours very truly,
Dick Storm, Monday November 14, 2022
Energy equivalents and other information relevant to this presentation is copied below. Further references and information for further reading are listed following these conversions:
Energy Units and Conversions The data and information which follows is listed for reference and further reading.
1 Watt is the power from a current of 1 Ampere flowing through 1 Volt 1 kilowatt (kW) is a thousand Watts
1 kilowatt-hour is the energy of one kilowatt power flowing for one hour. (E = P t)
A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is the amount of heat necessary to raise one pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit (F).
1 Megawatt (MW) is a thousand kilowatts (if Dispatchable power, up to 164 homes)
Hilton Head Island uses about 150-200 MW on a hot summer day
1 Gigawatt (GW) is a thousand Megawatts
1 kWh=3,412.6 BTUs (if converted at 100% efficiency)
1 BTU to convert to work at 100% efficiency= 778 Foot Pounds
1 Quadrillion = 1015 BTU (World energy usage is about 600 Quads/year, US is about 100 Quads/year since 1996)
Important Points on the use of Hydrogen (Secondary Energy) as Fuel:
Conversion by Electrolyzer of water to Hydrogen, takes about 50 kWh/pound of hydrogen (39 kW/pound is at 100% efficiency)
Electrolyzer produced electricity back to electricity = 26-30% round trip
It takes 9 pounds of water to create 1 pound of hydrogen
Hydrogen Energy from 1 cubic foot=325 BTUs, Methane CH4 = 1,030 BTUs Hydrogen has less Energy Density
Liquified Hydrogen is -423 Degrees F. (Liquifying is at cost of of about 30% of the energy available from the Liquid Hydrogen Fuel itself)
Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is -260 Degrees F.
Power Conversion
1 horsepower (hp) = 745.7 watts
I Air Conditioning Ton approx. 1 kWh
Gas Volume to Energy Conversion
One thousand cubic feet of natural gas (Mcf) -> 1.027 million BTU
Energy Content of Fuels
Coal (Bituminous) 10,500- 12,500 BTU/pound (Recent cost $15.00/million BTUs, Cost in 2019 about $2.50/million Btus)
25. Vaclav Smil Books: “Power Density”, “How the World Really Works”, “Energy and Civilization”, “Grand Transitions” and more. He has written about 40 books, most based on the importance of energy.
America and all Developed countries require Energy to power our lives and our economy. It is time (for the government, energy savvy citizens already know this) to face the facts and reality that nearly 90% of the energy America depends on, including for our Defense of National Security, is sourced from conventional fuels or sources of natural gas, nuclear, oil, coal and old hydropower generation. Wind and Solar cannot replace these forms of energy and the path to Net-Zero Carbon will weaken our country. A Rational Energy Transition is needed over the next few decades. As a reminder, the Sankey Diagram below shows the total primary energy flows by sources and flow for all of 2021 forms of energy . Note that less than 5% of the primary energy provided to the U.S. was from wind and solar.
The two key words are PRIMARY ENERGY! As a couple people have asked me on EV’s…..”You mean the electricity has to be generated somewhere else to charge an electric vehicle?”
Yes, over 89% of the PRIMARY ENERGY we use is from conventional sources of Petroleum, Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear and Hydroelectric and yes, electricity to charge an EV likely came from conventional sources.
I have met with numerous groups to discuss our energy future and every time I outline the current government path to Net-Zero Carbon the people I talk with are shocked that there is not a planned transition to reduced carbon emissions and sustaining a reliable, affordable energy supply. Why? I believe it is because those that are knowledgeable in all forms of primary energy production are a small minority. Similar for secondary energy production, such as for producing electricity and hydrogen. I estimate that the people who thoroughly understand energy production is less than 5% of American (and the world) citizens. Smooth talking non-energy savvy politicians, the United Nations, the Main Stream Media, World Economic Forum and Public Education have Hoodwinked the Public into Demonizing carbon and preaching and legislating Green Power incentives. These powerful innfluencers have forced wind and solar Green Energy Religion on Americans. It is not possible to switch all of America or the rest of the Free World to Renewable wind and solar energy. It is possible to have a smooth transition to increase carbon free nuclear power and nuclear power produced hydrogen over the next three decades, but not by 2030 or 2035 as is proclaimed by the Biden Administration. America has no energy policy, only a policy of demonizing carbon and forcing the citizens to depend on unreliable, intermittent wind and solar.
Energy Misinformation is World-Wide
My friend Vincent who lives in France has sent me dozens of informative documents on energy. One document he sent yesterday caught my attention. It is the opening introduction of Professor Samuel Furfari’s article published on the Friends of Science Blog of Calgary University. I will quote Professor Furfari as he captures what I believe to be true as well. Furfari is referring to Europe, but much of what he states is applicable all over the Free World:
“Energy is life. Without energy, we could not live. That is why our distant ancestors adopted, then invented ways to create fire. The use of energy is essential for life: animals and human beings eat because their bodies need energy. Moreover, energy is also the blood that runs through the veins of the economic system. In recent years, instead of seeing energy as a vital commodity, environmental activists have succeeded in reversing the logic by blaming energy for all the planet’s ills, to the point where energy is no longer spoken of in negative terms. Energy has become the symbol of pollution and climate catastrophe. A few days ago, at the end of a lecture, a student confessed to me that he had been shaken because I had shown, with data, that the quality of life measured by the UN HDI index and life expectancy at birth depended on per capita energy consumption. This correlation is also valid with CO2 emissions since 82% of the energy used in the world is fossil fuel. He had never thought about it. No one had ever told him that.” Furfari continues….
“Will the current crisis be enough to bring us back to the common sense of the absolute priority of having abundant and cheap energy, as the founders of the EU said in the past? This is not certain, as the population has been so indoctrinated with negative and even catastrophic messages. But if the current crisis was to last and worsen, climate policies could face fierce opposition from the population, since it is true that the population cannot do without abundant and cheap energy, as the current panic demonstrates. Thanks to the development of technology and our energy resources (North Sea hydrocarbons and nuclear energy), the EU was able to escape the oil crises of the 1970s. The energy terrorism that may develop in the near future will have much more far-reaching consequences, as the EU is now much more dependent on energy consumption than it was fifty years ago.”
The foregoing is from a European viewpoint. My opinion/commentary now continues:
We Cannot Electrify Everything!
It is not even possible to install enough wind turbines and solar collectors across the U.S. to “Electrify Everything”. Further, we cannot electricfy everything and still sustain our high quality of living. For such products/materials as fertilizer, ammonia, food production energy, plastics, cement manufacture and steel manufacture. So what would a Rational Energy Policy look like? Here is my shot at offering one:
A RATIONAL ENERGY PLAN
Here is what a Rational Energy Plan would look like:
Maintain Existing Coal & Nuclear Plants as If they will Run for 20 more years….because… we will likely need them.
Reduce Federal Regulations on Oil, Gas, Coal production and all hard rock Mining within the U.S.A.
Reduce Regulations and build more Refinery Capacity
Approve Keystone and other Pipelines for Construction
Reduce Federal Regulations on Coal Plant Emissions to levels in effect in 2020 (except CO2 restrictions that were later vacated by SCOTUS)
Build New HELE Coal Plants, Equipped with Provisions for Future CCUS (HELE=High Efficiency Low Emissions)
Continue R & D for Energy Storage and Hydrogen Production
Increase Hydrogen Distribution Infrastructure
Keep Options of Continuing Internal Combustion Engines Beyond 2035 for those citizens that prefer Internal Combustion Engines
Expand Oil & Gas Infrastructure to meet next 30 year Demand
Increase the pace for designing, NRC Approvals, manufacturing and construction of new Small Modular Nuclear Reactors to be built all across the U.S.A. to replace the 102,000 MW’s of reliable, Dispatchable electric power production capacity that has been shut down since 2010.
Summary and Conclusions
When America’s economy and our productive capacity are restored, it will be with the result of reduced Federal Regulations and increased Domestic Energy production. To sustain life as we know it, each American on average needs about one million BTUs of energy equivalence each day. This includes energy for electricity generation, transportation, Industrial production, National Defense, commercial and residential uses. Over 90% of that energy is sourced from conventional sources of natural gas, oil, coal and nuclear. These numbers are substantiated by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Sankey Diagram I placed as the first illustration. Yes, it shows 95% of the primary energy America runs on is from conventional forms of energy. It is Energy Fiction to believe that the conventional forms we use and depend on now can be provided by wind and solar as the Biden Administration and Congress have advocated. (I suppose we could add to this list of indoctrinators: the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Environmental Extremist groups, the MSM, U.S. Public Education and Woke corporations)
If the Biden Administration and Congress do not create a Rational Energy Policy as I have outlined above, then America’s Infuence in the World and our Economy will go into an ever increasing decline. As outlined by Professor Samuel Furfari, the same is true for Europe. “Energy is Life, Without Energy we cannot live”.
The Developed World runs on energy and America has the natural resources to regain Energy Independence.
Dick Storm, October 12, 2022
Quote of the Week: “Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” —James Madison (1788)
Food Supply, Ammonia, Steel, Plastics and Concrete
This is my personal opinion. My attempt to show how the policies of environmental extremists, some who hold elected office & some who have high Bureaucratic offices have placed America on a perilous path of energy insecurity. These are my personal opinions and they are not related with any other company or organization with which I am a part of or have ever been a part of. I have used references that I have checked and believe to be totally accurate. Many of the references used are listed at the end of this post for further substantiation of my opinions.
Introduction
The importance of energy is well known by engineers involved in the energy production and electric generation industries. Energy is essential to power our economy, high quality of life, freedom of travel, comforts and conveniences. Also, food production and distribution are impacted by rising energy costs. The MSM has not reported much on the impact of the rising cost of energy to food price excalations. I will here.
According to the EIA, 79% of our total primary energy in 2021 was provided by fossil fuels. When nuclear power is included as a form of conventional energy, then over87% of the energy we depend on is from conventional fuels. So, let’s think about important materials and crops that support our high quality of life, including more than adequate food. Energy is essential to produce the materials we need as well as the abundance of food that Americans are Blessed with.
Affordable, Abundant, Reliable Energy is Essential to Power Life as We Know It
I would like to focus this post on the importance of energy and especially fossil fuels to provide essential materials and food for people of the world. Oil did save the whales (true) with Drake’s first oil well and Standard Oil’s kerosene production. Then Edison, Tesla and Westinghouse’s successes in developing electricity, motors and illumination by about 1898. Now, let’s switch from energy to food production concerns in 1898.
The Relationship of Energy and Food
Interestingly, the Head of the British Scientific Society, William Crookes, gave a sobering talk in 1898 to state that the planet can only support a total population of about two billion people. Why? Because there was not enough guano (sea bird droppings deposits on islands) and imported Chilean nitrate fertilizer to grow crops to support a growing world population over about 2 billion. This is well documented in the book, “The Alchemy of Air” as well as books by Vaclav Smil.
Vaclav Smil is a well-respected energy expert and he has written dozens of books centered on the topic of energy. His latest book is, “How the World Really Works”. I borrowed part of the title of this post from his chapter #4 “Understanding Our Material World”.
Vaclav Smil Book Cover 2022, Viking
The four materials that Smil has selected are Ammonia, Plastics, Steel and Concrete. These are all dependent on vast quantities of energy to produce and yes, we all depend on them for our everyday lives. Let’s start with Ammonia.
Ammonia, A Pre-Requisite to Feeding the World
An interesting book by Thomas Hager, “The Alchemy of Air” chronicles the development of the Haber-Bosch process. The story of how Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch invented and developed the process for producing synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. The book starts out by reminding us of the concern by the head of the British Academy of Sciences, William Crookes in 1898 that the earth will not be able to support a population growing above about 2 billion people, because there simply is not enough fertilizer from natural sources such as guano, manure or Chilean Nitrate to fertilize the world’s crops in sufficient quantity to feed a growing world population. Thus, the prospect of famine was real. That was 1898 and within ten years Fritz Haber a Jewish chemist, living in Germany, invented the process to create ammonia from natural gas and air. Later, Haber teamed up with Carl Bosch then a senior manager at BASF and together the developed and commercialized the Haber-Bosch process for creating ammonia. Fast forward to 1972 and President Nixon’s first trip to China to open doors for trade. What did China want first? They wanted ammonia plants to produce fertilizer after millions(1) of Chinese had died of starvation during Mao Tse Tung’s “Great Leap Forward” of failed central control. According to Smil, China’s first trade deal after Nixon’s visit was to purchase 13 ammonia plants from M.W. Kellogg of Texas. That was the only way that China could produce sufficient food to feed their growing population. Today, as with many other products, China produces more ammonia than any other country.
50% of the World’s People Could Not Exist Without Ammonia
(Smil states on page 83) “I hasten to add that 50% of humanity dependent on ammonia is not an immutable approximation. Given prevailing diets and farming practices, synthetic nitrogen feeds half of humanity—-or, everything else being equal, half of the world’s population could not be sustained without synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers”.
Energy=Life
Of course, the point is, food production is related to fertilizer production and fertilizer production depends on natural gas as a feedstock. About 1.2% of the world’s total primary energy is used for fertilizer and about 3-5% of food production depends on fossil fuels. Thus, Vaclav Smil picked energy intensive Ammonia as the number one material of the four materials that are (his ranking) pillars of modern civilization.
The Cost of Energy for Food Production & Distribution is About 50%
The IEA published a chart to show the cost components of energy for nine selected crops. The chart is copied below. Note that total energy cost for the nine selected crops range from a low of about 40% for cotton to almost 60% for wheat and sorghum, over 50% for corn. The cost of production for all food crops in the U.S. is about 50%. Most of this fuel is from fossil fuels. Energy is important for all of the people of the world and reasonable cost, abundant energy is crucially important for crop production and processing. Escalating energy costs will increase the costs of food and in some cases, reduce the quantity of food production due to limited fertilizer (ammonia based) availability. The fuel for Diesel tractors and food processing is significant. The final point: Solar and Wind cannot create fertilizer and both are impossible in the near term to power tractors and intercity or Global transportation.
The world’s energy consumption does inrease year after year, except during the Pandemic of 2020 as can be seen on BP’s graph above. If we extrapolate and expand the forecast to 2050, then increased energy will be required for the estimated 9 Billion world population that is expected in 2050. For now, 86% of the world’s energy and 87.4% of the United States Energy is provided by conventional fuels of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear fuels. Solar and wind provide only about 7% of the world’s primary energy and less than 5% of the United States Energy for 2021. The U.S. energy flow chart is shown below:
Government officials for the last 18 months have been scolding and attempting to scare the general public into getting rid of our internal combustion engines and buy EV’s. Claiming we need to “Decarbonize our society”. In essence, they are literally saying, “Electrify Everything”. In fact, I did see at least one article on electrify everything. The two charts above which show the reality of the energy needs of the United States and the world, should help explain: NO, We Cannot Electrify Everything! For sure, plastics, concrete, steel, air transportation, aluminum and fertilizer cannot be produced from windmills and solar panels. I contributed to an article by Hayden Ludwig of the Capital Research Center in December 2021. Our goal was to try to set the record straight on “No, We Cannot Electrify Everything”.
Let’s get back to the relationship of energy and food production. Fertilizer production for a start, uses about 1.2% of the world’s total primary energy. As mentioned above, literally half the world’s population would suffer famine if ammonia fertilizer production was stopped.
Fertilizer and Food
The IEA chart above showed the energy cost component for food production. Much of the energy used is natural gas for fertilizer production. Here below are some fertilizer facts to consider. This reference is for the year 2010 and this is the most recent document I could find. I think it is reasonable to estimate that the 1.2% energy use for fertilizer production has tracked about the same trend for the last twelve years as the world population has grown and the nutrition for the people of the world has generally improved.
Energy, The Pre-Requisite for a High HDI (Human Development Index)
Here are three illustrations to show the importance of energy for both improved HMI (Human Development Index) and Economic Prosperity:
The first chart below is from a Power-Point presentation I prepared in 2016 for a course on energy and power generation at Williamson College of the Trades. This clearly shows the relationship of energy and economic prosperity as well as the relationship of energy to HMI.
Williamson College of The Trades-Energy and Electricity Generation Short Course 2017, by author; Charts from ExxonMobil, World Bank, United Nations and Our World in Data websites
Another chart by ExxonMobil’s Energy Outlook in 2017, also captures the relationship of energy, HMI and economic prosperity. As quality of life (including adequate nutrition) goes up, so does the demand for energy.
ExxonMobil-Energy Outlook, 2016
The final chart is the NASA composite photo entitled, “The Earth at Night”. This shows the earth’s illumination from space and the photo clearly identifies the countries that have a higher standard of living (HMI) and that tend to use more energy to provide their higher quality of life.
The modern world’s people need food, transportation, indoor cooking, refrigeration, materials for manufacturing and construction, manufactured products and much more. Over 86% of the world’s energy to provide crucially important materials, travel, shipping, industrial output, heating and airconditioning comes from conventional fuels. This includes fossil fuels of oil, natural gas & coal. When nuclear is included as a conventional fuel, then the total primary energy from conventional fuels is about 87% for the U.S.A.
The abolishment of fossil fuels may be possible someday, but in my opinion and observations, not until far beyond 2050.
Fertilizer and food production use between 3 and 5% of the world’s total primary energy. Much of this is required to come from fossil fuels.
Aircraft with batteries or hydrogen fuel may in fact be possible, someday. However, replacing the fleet presently flying of jet fuel powered Boeing and Airbus planes is not possible by 2050 and there are many of us that would prefer the proven safety of flying jets powered by jet fuel.
Steel made from hydrogen is possible, but not at a competitive cost with coke. China produces over 50% of the world’s steel now and they will continue to use the lowest cost production methods.
Aluminum is a very important metal for aircraft, automobiles and many other utilitarian uses. Aluminum uses the most electricity of all metals for production. Smelting alone uses about 5 kWh per pound and this is in addition to Bauxite refining, transportation, rolling and forming. Reasonable cost, reliable and abundant electricity is required to produce aluminum. China produces over 50% of the world’s aluminum also.
Plastics and synthetic fibers are used in everything we depend on through the day. Auto parts are largely plastic, so are many utility pipes. Many textiles are based on fibers from oil or natural gas.
The government “War on Carbon” is destroying America. It is contributing to inflation and shortages of critical materials that we depend on.
The United Nations, the World Economic Forum, The Main Stream Press, Entertainment is interested in power and influence over the citizens of the U.S. It is not about climate
Environmental Extremist organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund (and many more) have extensive funding of Billions of dollars obtained from Bloomberg, Bezos and others that is tax exempt and used against the best interests of American citizens.
The overall “War on Carbon” is making energy and electricity prices higher in the U.S. This makes America less competitive with China and it increases the job losses here and increased off-shoring of manufacturing
America does not have an “Energy Policy” per se’. America has an a “Hate Carbon Policy” that has progressed far enough to create an energy crisis, possible Rolling Blackouts, Brownouts and excalating food prices.
Each American that lives an above average life-style in our country uses about a million Btu’s per day. So, if the government wishes to outlaw fossil fuels through ever increasing regulations, then what are we prepared to give up? Politicians are continuing the war on carbon which began under the Clinton Administration in 1993. What freedoms are you and I willing to give up? As for me, and my family, I say none! As this is written, it is Memorial Day weekend and many fine Americans gave all so that we can enjoy our lives. The 2020 election created serious consequences for Americans to continue to live the American Dream.
Freedom & Sustainability
Joe Biden and the Democrats are doing their best to outlaw fossil fuels. This is un-American and in fact, anti-American sustainability. Sustainability to me, means to sustain our high quality of life and for our children and grandchildren to have an ever increasing quality of life. That is the way my God gifted life has gone, each year in general, became better with more manual work performed by energy. Some examples, modern electric appliances, power tools and yard tools. We depend on energy to replace muscle more than any time in history. Our quality of life is a result of using more energy and less muscle power. About a million Btus per day, per person. So, if Fossil Fuels are providing the majority of the energy we depend on (see 2021 LLNL chart below), then the Democrats must want us to scale back our quality of life? Because abundant, reasonable cost and reliable Energy is required to power our good lives. This includes the supply chain, fertilizer and food production, manufacturing, jobs, transportation and just about everything that makes living the American Dream possible. Fossil Fuels currently provide about 79% of our energy.
From Dick Storm ASME Presentation, “The Importance of Coal” 2011 Summer Annual Meeting
The illustrations above and below are copied from a presentation I gave to the Annual Meeting of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) in 2011. This was following the Financial crisis of 2008. Remember that? The energy consumption of the U.S. in 2009 actually dropped from about 100 Quadrillion Btu’s per year to about 94.6 Quadrillion Btu’s/year. The point is, that energy does in fact provide for economic prosperity and our high quality of life. Freedom too!
Dick Storm, 2011 ASME presentation, Chart & data from EIA
In 2009 about 50% of America’s electricity was being generated by coal. That was before the Shale Gas Revolution. After the recovery from the 2008 Financial crisis, life became very good again. Actually, we Americans have been Blessed with very good lives for many decades. I have had the gift of living for seven decades of a wonderful life reaching all the goals I could have wished for as a child. Energy has played a big part of America’s rise during the last 100 years. Now each of us uses about a million Btu’s of energy each day.
A Million Btu’s per Day per Person
I would like to show the progression of America’s energy mix from 2008 to the present. A steady 94-102 Quadrillion Btu’s of “Total Primary Energy” have been used. This is important. Our lives (and the American Economy) have been powered by about the same quantity of energy at a fairly flat level since 2001. I will confine this discussion to energy use since 2008.
From Dick Storm Presentation 2011 to ASME Annual Meeting, The Importance of Coal
Coal fuel produced about 50% of America’s electric power up to about 2012 when the Shale Gas Revolution took over and natural gas became so abundant that fuel prices for gas dropped below coal. The graph below shows the trend of natural gas prices from 2006-2012. When natural gas dropped to about $2.00/million Btu it became very competitive with coal and in fact in certain areas of the U.S., a less expensive fuel than coal for power generation.
From Storm Technologies, Inc. Seminar Presentation, 2016
One more point. The sub heading above uses the word “Dispatch” Yes, about 90% of America’s Power was from Dispatchable Fuels. Solar and Wind are not Dispatchable. Renewable power comes onto the Grid as nature provides. Government subsidies and regulations allow it to be forced onto the Grid making it tough for Thermal power plants to back down or pick up load as fickle nature varies the output of wind and solar.
From Dick Storm OLLI Course , Energy Production Part 1, January 2021
Total Primary Energy Flows
Shown above is the Sankey Energy Flow Diagram for the year 2009. Below is the latest version of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Energy Flow Diagram for the year 2021. If you compare 2009 with 2021 Total Energy Flows, they are very close at 94.58 and 97.3 Quadrillion Btu’s. In 2019 America used right at 100.2 Quadrillion Btus. The economy was improving and 2019 was the year before the Covid Pandemic. So, as the economy improves, more energy is used. When the economy shrinks, less energy is used. This is TOTAL ENERGY which includes energy from all sources, including renewables. It also included electricity generation (about 37%) and Transportation (about 27%). Keep in mind that if we maintain or sustain our current freedoms of travel and lifestyles, likely the total energy use will remain rght at 100 Quadrillion Btus. Population increase and reshoring manufacturing will increase energy use above 100 Quad’s.
From Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory web-site
Can EV’s for Transportation Substitute Electricity for Petroleum?
There are about 280 million light trucks and cars on our highways today. All but about 11 million of these vehicles are fueled with gasoline and Diesel fuel. Heavy trucks for commerce are mostly Diesel powered and of course, airlines are fueled with Jet Fuel. These comprise fuel for transportation, which is about 28% of the Total Primary Energy used in the U.S. If these were all electrified then the electric power generation would need to vastly increase to use about 65% of the total primary energy. Of course, the about 8-10% of petroleum that is used for Jet Fuel will still be needed even if all other vehicles were replaced with EV’s. This is not practical any time soon. Check the excellent research that Donn Dears has done on this.(3)
Hydrogen as Fuel
Replacing petroleum with hydrogen fuel has been talked about for decades. Yes, it is feasible to use Electrolyzers to separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules from water and thus produce “GreenHydrogen”. However, it takes about 2.5 to 3 times more electricity to produce a unit of hydrogen than what that unit of energy will produce in electric power.
Conclusions
America uses about 100 Quadrillion btus each year. Over 79% of these energy units are provided by Fossil Fuels. Replacing them with renewables in the near term is at the very least, impractical. In my view it is impossible during my lifetime or the lifetime of my children.
Net Zero Carbon Policies are not driven by science or protection of the planet. They are politically driven for the benefit of politicians to wield power over the people.
Climate Policies are being formulated by politicians and non-science trained individuals.
Energy and Economic Prosperity are linked together. As shown in the Energy Flow diagrams above, when there was a recession in 2008-2009 America’s energy use declined. Likelwise during the 2020 Pandemic. As the Economy thrives, we use more energy. Energy is vital for a thriving economy.
America will continue to use 100 Quadrillion Btu’s per year and more when our economy is performing at it’s best. As population grows and hopefully, more manufacturing is reshored, energy use will rise. Solar and wind power cannot meet this increase.
New Nuclear plants are needed to keep a Balanced Electric Generation Portfolio(7,8,9)
By not keeping a Balanced Electric Generation Portfolio, America risks energy shortages and Blackouts(10)
All Developed Countries depend on reliable, affordable energy. In my opinion, a significant portion of the 100 Quadrillion Btu’s America has been using for decades, should continue to be supplied by coal fuel.(6, 22)
The Transportation fuels of gasoline and Diesel cannot be replaced in the short term with EV’s or Hydrogen.
If America continues on the Net-Zero Carbon Path, then it will lead to a reduction in our freedoms to live sustainable lives as we have been accustomed to. (11)
Energy is important not only to power our high quality of lives, but reasonable cost, abundant energy is also important to the supply chain and food production(17)
Each person that lives in a Developed Country and enjoys our high quality of life uses well over a million Btu’s per day. This post is a reminder of the importance of energy to power our lives and the sources of the energy we depend upon.
Introduction
The war on carbon has been going on for a long time. I have written my thoughts on the start of the war on carbon which has been escalating since the Clinton Presidency and was ramped up during Obama’s. The Biden Administration has further ramped up Climate Policies (aka war on carbon) which encompass the entire government, making the Clinton and Obama attacks on carbon compare as small nuisances. Then the United Nations Secretary General has piled on with his urging to ban investment in any fossil fuel production and to use the world’s financial institutions to cut off investment through ESG policies. The Main Stream Media and Entertainment and many “Woke Banks and large Businesses” have joined in to create a serious indoctrination program for the people of the world and tightened up the available financial investment to expand or modernize energy production facilities of any type. Not only the U.S., but the Climate Policies of the world to attain Net Zero Carbon by 2050 now has much momentum. The purpose of this post is to simply lay out the facts of the energy needs of today for anyone living in the Developed World.
The Importance of Energy
Energy use, economic prosperity and Quality of life go hand in hand. The title of one of Mr. Donn Dears recent books is: “NET-ZERO Carbon, The Climate Policy Destroying America”.
At first glance, the sub title, “Climate Policy Destroying America” may seem to be an exaggeration. The intention of this short essay is to show that Mr. Dears is correct, if we move toward Net-Zero Carbon too quickly, it will destroy the American way of life and will cripple our economy. The word “Sustainability” means to me, that we sustain our quality of life as Americans have enjoyed for many years. Energy, quality of life and economic prosperity are all related. Kindly stick with me and read to the end to review the importance of conventional energy.
100 Quadrillion Btu’s Per Year Energy Use
America has used right at 100 Quadrillion Btu’s (+/- 10) annually of energy for the last twenty years. The EIA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have calculated and published this data for decades. Here is an excerpt of the LLNL description from their website.
“The national economy is reenergizing, quite literally”
Each year, LLNL releases flow charts that illustrate the nation’s consumption and use of energy. In 2021, Americans used 97.3 quads (quadrillion BTU) of energy, which is 4.4 quads more than last year’s 92.9 quads, equivalent to a 5% increase. Both 2020 and 2021 annual energy consumption totals are less than 2018 and 2019, where Americans used more than 100 quads per year. A BTU, or British Thermal Unit, is a unit of measurement for energy; a BTU is the amount of heat it takes to raise 1 pound (~1 pint) of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit. 3,412 BTUs is equivalent to 1 kilowatt-hour, which is the amount of energy it takes to light an efficient LED lightbulb for a week. “ The chart below includes all forms of energy, including wind and solar which are included as the thermal equivalents of the electric power they produced. The chart shows “Total Primary Energy” which includes electricity generation, residential, commercial, industrial and transportation. This is my favorite chart for illustrating energy sources and uses. Suffice it to say, it is a lot of information in one chart.
LLNL Energy Flow Chart for year 2021
Please note the quantities of solar and wind which are 1.5 Quads for solar and 3.33 Quads for wind. Yes, this is an increase from previous years. However, the total wind and solar is 3.85 Quads or right at 4%.
My point is that Electrifying Everything if it were possible to take a magic wand and change all energy use to electric power, including heating, cooking, transportation and industrial production, then it will take a growth of 25 times what is installed now by nameplate power. When considering capacity factors of wind and solar it will actually be more like 75-100 times current installed capacity plus, technological advancements in energy storage would need to be accomplished. In essence, it is impossible to get there within 8 to 28 years (2030 or 2050) and still sustain our high quality of life and yes, our high standard of living. Not to mention Dispatchability, energy storage limitations and land use requirements. Also, the practical limitations of changing energy use for transportation, the second largest use of total primary energy after electricity generation, to electric or hydrogen power. How many of us would be willing to fly on a hastily developed hydrogen fueled jet aircraft? Change our lives to use EV’s for long distance drives? Give up the plastics, textiles and numerous other products that are created from oil, gas and coal? Let’s get back to what we do and enjoy through the use of today’s forms of energy.
So, How Much Energy, in Btu’s Does Each American Use per day?
The illustration below was prepared to show a Middle School class the equivalent forms of energy they would use in a day. For our high quality of living, it is not hard to see how we depend on an average of about a million Btu’s of energy each day.
From Dick Storm presentation to Middle School Students, March 2022
Not shown in the illustration is the energy that is used on our behalf to provide industrial production, military defense and transportation of food and products to our local stores or even deliveries to our door via Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx or other delivery services. Also, about 1% of America’s energy is used to produce fertilizer for farming, not including the fuel for tractors and processing food. All of these energy uses averaged out come to (in a good year) about 100 Quadrillion Btu’s. Remember, up to now, 4% are from wind and solar.
Does it seem reasonabe to expect that we can electrify everything? Including aircraft propulsion, all light vehicles, trucks, ships, trains, fertilizer and more? I don’t think so.
From Dick Storm Presentation to Middle School Students
Think about your day and both the necessities and the conveniences made available through the use of energy. My heading stated we use an average of about a million Btu’s per person each day. For those that will read this post, I suspect each of you are using far more than a million Btu’s per day. For example if a person takes a two hour flight on a airline, even at 80 miles per gallon per seat mile, the per person fuel for a 1,000 mile flight is about 12.5 gallons of Jet A. The plane trip alone uses about a million five hundred thousand Btu’s. The LLNL and EIA data that show our “average use per citizen” include children and folks that live very modestly and do not travel much. Also, the importance of energy used for Industrial production (including producing products from oil feedstock) which provides jobs and a productive economy cannot be underestimated. Industrial production to compete with China cannot be powered by solar and wind any time soon.
Summary and Conclusions
Where extreme priorities have been imposed to switch to renewables such as in Germany, the UK, Hawaii and Texas, there have been issues of high costs, unreliability and economic impact. Some references for further reading are provided below.
I agree with the Title of Donn Dears book, “NET-ZERO CARBON, THE CLIMATE POLICY DESTROYING AMERICA“
Dick Storm USCB-OLLI Courses, Energy and Electricity, History of Energy and Electricity and the Future of Energy and Electricity. The four parts of the “History of Energy and Electricity” are on my website: https://dickstormprobizblog.org
The United Nation’s Highest Priority In November 2021 to Save The Planet Was COP-26. Which Is More Important , Peace in the World, The Paris Climate Agreement or Avoiding World Famine and Improving the Quality of Life For All of the People of the World, Including Ukraine?
By Dick Storm
Introduction
Horrible crimes against humanity are being committed in the Russia-Ukraine war. Innocent people are being murdered, homes demolished by military bombardment and artillery, world food production slowed(3,4,5) and what are the leaders of the world concerned about? Manmade Climate Change, the most successful scientific hoax in the history of the world. Three world leaders could improve world peace and start the correction of the mess the world is in today if they would change the priorities of the UN. Who am I referring to: Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres.
Remember the UN priorities in November 2021? If not, here is a review of what these three leaders considered the most sinister problem the people of the world would face in the future. Flashback to Scotland, November 2021:
Biden arriving in Scotland for COP-26Guterres Addressing COP-26, Stating the need for “Climate Action”Justin Trudeau at COP-26 in Scotland
What is The Purpose of the United Nations and The Paris Agreement? World Peace? Protection of the Environment?….or One World Government to Control The People of The World?
As the world is on the threshold of nuclear war with a world food crisis likely next winter from reduced fertilizer availability and massive unproductive farmland in a war zone, these three leaders and many other sycophants have the Paris Agreement for Climate Change Policies as their top agenda, instead of the best interests of their constituents, world peace and improving the human development index of the people of the world.
I feel strongly that the top priority of these leaders and the U.N. is not concern for the planet that drives them. It is politics and control of the world’s citizens. In short, power over people. For example, the UN Secretary General’s background is copied below. This is from his Bio on the UN web page, From Mr. Guterres Curriculum vitae: “For many years Mr. Guterres was active in the Socialist International, a worldwide organization of social democratic political parties.”
Let me digress and quote the past president of the Czech Republic on the “Climate Zealots” such as Guterres, Biden, Kerry, Gore, Trudeau and many more.
Vaclav Klaus is Past President of The Czech Republic and grew up under Communism then had to wrestle with policies by the “Greens” of Europe. An Economist by training. His words, from about 2007…..“Global Warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. The IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are polititicized scientists who have arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided argument”(49)
Justin Trudeau also could help guide the United Nations to a truly serious priority, but according to Peter Schweizer’s recent book, “Red Handed”, Trudeau also ranks political power above world peace. See page 187 describing the Trudeau family and links to China: Justin Trudeau is quoted in 2013: When asked which country he admired the most replied “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China….because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime and say, ‘we need to go greenest, fastest—we need to invest in solar’ I mean, there is flexibility that I know Stephen Harper (the Canadian PM at the time) must dream dream about having a dictatorship that he can do everything he wanted, and I find that quite interesting”
Avoiding Famine
It should be blatently obvious that ranking peace and the world food supply should be more important than the Paris Climate Agreement which is based on a scientific hoax anyway. Ukraine alone supplied about 12% of the global wheat before the war, and was the biggest producer of sunflower oil. About two-thirds of the country’s wheat exports had already been delivered before the invasion, but the rest is now blocked, and farmers may be unable to continue with spring planting, or take in grain harvests in the summer. A headline in the “Times of Israel” reads, “Israel scrambles for solutions as Ukraine war chokes off egg, wheat imports”Industry figures predict egg shortage and sky-high wheat prices just in time for Passover holiday. The prospect for the world later this year is shortages of food across the globe. (3,4,5, 30)
Fertilizer costs in the U.S. have also tripled this year. Partly because of Biden’s energy policies and exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The impact of energy on food availability goes beyond higher cost Diesel fuel for shipping transportation fuel in the supply chain. Fertilizer and farmland in areas of conflict are a huge problem. (2,3,4,9,10)
Perhaps better kept as a separate subject to write on, but most people are not aware that between 30 to 40% of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce Ethanol for a gasoline additive that lowers the energy equivalent of gasoline and reduces auto mileage. Suffice it to say, energy and environmental policies that promote burning food for fuel also affects the world food supply.(16,17)
How is Energy Linked to World Peace?
I began this essay on the priorities of the leaders of the world and the priorities they saw as top priority in November 2021. Well, if you think the Mainstream Media has been duped and indoctrinated then you are not alone. While the world’s media attention was on the War on Carbon, very serious problems were brewing and under-reported. Kindly take a look at the six charts below: 1. Total primary energy of the world, 2. Coal Consumption by Region, 3. CO2 Emissions of the World, 4. Total Energy by Source for China and 5. Total End Use of Coal Fuel for Products and 6. China, The World’s Superpower of Manufacturing.
Over 50% of the world’s Fossil Fuel energy is being used by China to manufacture over 50% of the world’s steel, aluminum and just about every other product needed by the free world. These are easily verifiable facts reported by Our World in Data, IEA.org, the United Nations, EIA and Statista. Energy and Economic Prosperity are inextricably related.
Energy Use by China, U.S.A., Japan, EU and India By IEAIEA Graph of Total CO2 Emissions from Combustion Processes 1900 2021
So what is driving the recent rapid increase in world CO2 emissions? According to the IEA, it’s mainly China:
The rebound of global CO2 emissions above pre-pandemic levels has largely been driven by China. . . . China’s CO2 emissions increased by 750 Mt over the two-year period between 2019 and 2021. China was the only major economy to experience economic growth in both 2020 and 2021. The emissions increase in China more than offset the aggregate decline in the rest of the world of 570 Mt between 2019 and 2021. . . . With rapid GDP growth and additional electrification of energy services, electricity demand in China grew by 10% in 2021, faster than economic growth at 8.4%. The increase in demand of almost 700 TWh was the largest ever experienced in China. With demand growth outstripping the increase of low emissions supply, coal was called on to fill 56% of the rise in electricity demand.(47)
Total Energy Supply (TES) By Source, People’s Republic of China, 1990-2019
“The South China Morning Post” reported April 1, 2022, quoting “China’s Zhang Jianhua, chief of the National Energy Administration: “It signed an agreement to be supplied with 100 million metric tonnes of Russian crude oil over the next 10 years and a 30-year gas supply contract.
The world’s second largest economy suffered a nationwide energy crunch in September of last year amid local decarbonisation and energy saving campaigns, which has forced policymakers to adjust energy policies.
In the 14th five-year energy plan for 2021-25 released last week, Beijing said it would set annual crude output at around 200 million metric tonnes and lift natural gas output to more than 230 billion cubic metres from 205.3 billion cubic metres.
Coal and thermal power will remain the bedrock of China’s energy security strategy, Zhang wrote in the article.” (31)
The above is a direct quote from the SCMP, except the bold and underlining of the last line which was by me.
A recent post in WUWT stated, “China Continues To Laugh At Western “Green Energy” Foolishness”(47)
Why? The graphs above show China’s energy sources and growth in consumption. Economic prosperity is powered by Energy and China has used a lot of energy to become the world’s largest manufacturer.
Russia is the World’s Gas Station, China is the World’s Largest Manufacturer, Still think the UN Has it Right with the War on Carbon as their Top Priority?
China continues to power their mammoth manufacturing might with coal plants. We should remember our history, do you remember the term “The Arsenal of Democracy” when America provided the remarkable production of airplanes, tanks, guns, ships, arms and materiel to help the Allies win WWll? Some say “History Repeats”…..and if we switch to current events, Russia and China are very cozy with each other at this horrible time for Ukraine.
My point is that energy is a pre-requisite for economic prosperity. China gets it. China, Environmental Extremists, Socialists and Russia have duped the UN and the world leaders into believing the planet is imperiled by 0.041% carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, China burns over half of the world’s coal to power their industries. Russia remains the world’s gas station and holds Europe hostage to Russia’s gas (and more) while the Green’s of Germany shut down safe, proven, reliable and reasonable production cost coal and nuclear power plants, making them beholden to Russian energy. This is nuts.
China has risen from a “Developing Country” in 2000 to the second largest economy in the world. They not only manufacture much of the steel, aluminum, rare earth minerals for batteries, solar panels and wind turbine components, they also manufacture much of the Pharmaceuticals used in the world and in the U.S. Have you tried to purchase a made in U.S.A. Drug lately? This brings me to banking. As a small businessman about thirty years ago, I remember how important banks were to sustain our business. To provide business loans for expansion, cover payroll until the invoice for products or services was paid and for conducting commerce in other countries. Banks and the size of banks is one metric to use to judge a country’s economic prosperity. China seems to me, to be pretty slick in their approach to dominating the world. They quietly support Russia and other rogue nations while they focus on producing products, acquiring world natural resources and taking over the world by using the weaknesses of Democracy & Capitalism to exploit their Financial muscle. Let’s take a look at China’s financial muscle. To be perfectly honest, the ranking of the world banks surprised me and I thought I kept up with world business news.
China and Banking
China now has five of the world’s ten largest Banks. Yes, being the world’s largest manufacturer has it’s advantages. It creates wealth which can then be converted into International Influence. The China “One Belt, One Road” or “Belt and Roads Initiative” is an example that is playing out around the world. Also, I am told by a financial expert, China holds about 4% of the U.S. Treasury debt.
A lot of people who have not run a business do not understand the need for working Capital. When a company cannot get loans to cover everyday costs or to finance future improvements they go out of business. We might ask some questions regarding the ESG Movement and Regulations that are pending with regard to discouraging or demonizing investments in fossil fuels (and suppliers to fossil fuel producers) by US investors. Is there a sinister, foreign influence side to the ESG movement and Federal Regulations? Here is the list of the top ten banks of the world. Yes, five of the top ten are Chinese.
My point is, manufacturing requires lots of energy. Especially primary metals and heavy manufacturing. As seen from the graphs above, China has grown enormously in manufacturing capacity since they entered the WTO in 2001. To put it in perspective, China built more electric generation capacity in twenty years than the U.S. did since the days of Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse 100+ years ago.
Getting back to finance, did you catch the small news item last week? As it is related to energy, Saudi Arabia is considering acceptance of the Chinese Yuan for oil and China will be pushing to use other currency than the USD as they continue to grow their economy. (50)
Let’s Review the Sources of the Dependable, Dispatchable and in 2020, Reasonable Cost Energy that We Depend On
If you take what you see in the newspapers and on TV seriously, you would think that we only have a little way to go to convert our economy to zero carbon. This is not true!
I cite the example of a usually conservative Newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. This is a screen shot of a video they had last year which was based on facts, but at the same time misleading the public on the success of “Green Energy”.
WSJ Video, Screen Shot with my Text Added to Be Wary of Headlines such as this
Yes, the 90% of “NEW GENERATION” in 2020 was Renewable, but the true useful energy production was less than 4% of the total energy provided to the U.S.A.
This is a reminder, over 90% of America’s energy is provided by conventional fuels such as oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, waste to energy, biomass and old hydroelectric power stations. The Lawrence Livermore Labs Sankey Diagram, in my opinion, is the best single illustration to show true energy flows from the sources to end use. It is copied below for the year 2019. This is simply the true facts of where we obtain our energy:
America has been using right at 100 Quadrillion Btu’s of energy for decades. The next chart below, shows the historical energy use from 1950-2019. This is a useful chart to consider the transfer of energy from fossil fuels to electric vehicles. Notice that only 3.78% of our Total Energy was provided by solar and wind in 2019. Now imagine the futility of replacing the 37% of our Total Energy now provided by petroleum, with EV’s. The Government Net Zero Carbon plans to replace not only the petroleum but also Natural Gas and Nuclear. The Total Energy supplied by Petroleum is about 37%, Gas 32%, Coal 11.4% and Nuclear 8.5%. These “Conventional sources of energy total 88.9%. Replacing this energy with renewables by 2030 or even 2050 will require an enormous technological breakthrough. The government should not promote policies based on miracles.
To keep our same freedom and high quality of life, it requires each of us 331 million Americans to utilize an average of about a million Btu’s in energy each day. Averages are often misleading, consider the millions of Btu’s used by the world elitists that traveled to Scotland for COP-26. My understanding is that there were over 400 private jets and that the fuel used for these delegates exceeded the total petrol used by Scotland for an entire year. That should provide a clue regarding the sincere interest of the participants in the UN Climate talks to save the planet. It is reasonable for each of us living in the Developed World to continue using our allotment of about a million Btu’s of energy each day.
America’s Total Energy Use has been steady at about 100 Quadrillion Btu’s each year for the last 20 years, EIA
My Suggestion, On How to Fix this Energy, World Peace and Food Supply Mess
The War of Carbon in my viewpoint is contributing to International conflicts and harming world peace. If Joe Biden would rescind most of his Executive orders including drilling on Federal Lands, Building the Keystone Pipeline and scrapping the Paris Climate Agreement, it would, in my opinion, contribute to world peace and much more.(1,2,3,5,13)
The Biden administration is testing new depths of mind-blowing political dysfunction, by begging OPEC for more oil, while at the same time maintaining their attack on the US domestic oil industry. (28) Speaking of attacks on the energy producers that we depend on…..
ESG, One of America’s Self Inflicted Roadblocks for a Sane Energy Policy
The (ESG) movement is harming U.S. productive capacity of conventional fuels that are needed. (See above Sankey Diagram to show what we need) These actions are pushed by environmental groups, by government and by big business. (33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40) These ESG punitive actions have been ramped up, such as Biden’s “Whole Government Approach to Climate Control Policies” with involvement of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the EPA, IRS Tax policies and more.
Meanwhile, NGO’s also are attacking US Energy producers. Does this look to you like it could be coordinated with America’s world competitors or enemies? It does to me. Check reference #44 entitled, “What Divestment From Russia Means for Activism Against Fossil Fuels” then the sub title: “It’s time to scale up fossil fuels divestment”(44). When 80% of the energy we depend on is from oil, gas & coal, does this seem like a Patriotic and good action? Not in my book. Another excellent reference on the good that Fossil Fuels do to keep America strong and to improve the quality of life for all of the people of the world. The publication by Liberty Oilfield Services is entitled “Bettering Human Lives, 2020 ESG Report”(45)
It could be argued, that keeping America energy independent and the Free World less dependent on rogue nations is important for national security. Look at the mess Europe is in now with their dependence on Putin’s Russian natural gas. The Greens helped push Europe toward Green Energy and they are working hard here in the US too. The environmental extremists were successful in stopping all major new coal plants from being constructed in the US since about 2012. The last major Utility scale clean coal plants I am aware of are Turk in Arkansas and Longview in West Virginia. Even then to obtain operating permits, the environmental extremists were paid off in settlements. These settlements were millions of dollars.(46) Quite honestly, it is extortion which was enabled by the US government. How does this make America stronger and more energy independent?
How About Clean Air?
Before Biden’s Executive orders to push America toward intermittent green energy, our air was and remains amongst the cleanest in the world. The EPA Graphic copied below shows the trends of cleaner air from 1970-2020. This is regarding the six major pollutants that are a real threat to health. I just like everyone else enjoy and appreciate clean air and clean water. I also like my freedom and the American life style that I have enjoyed all of my life.
From EPA website
From my personal experiences of traveling around the world, I can honestly say America’s air is as clean or cleaner than most other countries that I have visited either on business or pleasure. Note the EPA chart above does show the increases in population and GDP from 1970 to 2019, as the six aggregate named pollutants were steadily reduced. There does come to be a point of diminishing returns on air pollution controls just like most other problems. That is, unless you are a Bureaucrat and wish to keep making more and more and stricter yet Regulations. That is the case, in my opinion of the restrictions on CO2 and the Net Zero Carbon and Extreme Green policies. These Regulations and Executive Orders are harmful for American competitiveness and harmful for Peace and Prosperity of the world.
Conclusions
The Net-Zero Carbon Climate Policies are contributing to turmoil in the world by weakening America and NATO Allies. The Paris Agreement for working toward Net Zero Carbon is politically driven, not by concern to save the planet.
The Green Energy Movement in Europe should be an example for the U.S. to learn from. They have had extreme cost escalations and, in some cases, rolling blackouts.
Conventional Fuels of Natural Gas, Coal, Oil, Nuclear, Hydroelectric and Biomass provide over 90% of our energy. Ramping up Renewable solar and wind from about 4% to 100% is unrealistic and impossible to achieve without technological breakthroughs.
The ESG Movement (Environmental Social and Governance) is Discouraging needed investments in oil and gas production as well as harming most all Energy Producers. Check references 33 through 39 for more details.
If Net Zero Carbon was really needed or important, then the Government would encourage the building of more nuclear power plants. Hundreds of them as most of the about 20% of our electricity and over 50% of our carbon free electricity is produced by nuclear now. Most of these nuclear plants were started up in the 1970’s and 1980’s. (41, 42, 43)
World Peace and Prosperity could be better achieved if the world leaders were to focus on the true problems of the world, rather than a war on carbon.
The foregoing are selected facts and data to support my claim that if President Biden were to rescind his 2021 Executive orders and roll back EPA, Dept of the Interior and other Government Regulations to those in effect when he took office, America could begin a recovery of correcting inflation, supply chain issues, increased food production for the world, improved economic growth & Prosperity and even leading the world to peace.
Respectfully submitted,
Dick Storm, April 5, 2022
References and Resources for Further Reading to Support My Conclusions:
Donn Dears articles on the true facts and Common Sense of the Importance of Energy, including “How Europe Dithers” while the Russians prepared for war: https://ddears.com/donns-articles/
Helping our youth to understand the importance of energy and electricity to energize our good lives
Why Should We Invest Time with the Public School Students?
From a personal viewpoint, I have always considered it a high priority to do my best to support energy education of the public and especially our public school students. A great group to start with if we wish to improve the general public’s understanding of the importance of energy. Perhaps if we start with the youth, they will educate their parents on the facts; That conventional sources comprise about 90% of the total energy that makes our high quality of life possible. By conventional, I mean, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Coal and Hydroelectric.
All of us who have been employed in the supply chain of producing energy understand the rarity of energy savvy people we meet who are not or have not been closely involved with our industry. So, when an opportunity to present a short class on energy and electricity generation came up at our local Middle School, I accepted the invitation. Here are some of the slides I will use for this group of 8th Graders.
The general public’s knowledge of energy and it’s importance seems to be limited to gasoline prices. When in a social setting and I discuss the U.S. need for 100 Quadrillion Btu’s of energy and where it comes from, most people’s eyes glaze over and are not very interested. However, with the Russia-Ukraine war, it seems folks are more interested now than they were a few months ago. Perhaps timely to give a course on energy fundamentals.
Each American uses about 800,000 to 1 million Btu’s every day
Our Lifestyles Depend on Energy
How did I come up with 800,000 – 1,000,000 Btu’s per person, per day? Here is how: America uses right at 100 Quadrillion Btu’s annually. If 100 Quadrillion (15 zeros) is divided by the population of the U.S.A. of about 330 million people, the result is about 303 million Btu’s per person. This is the average energy use for each of us. Then, divide 303 million by 365 days per year and it is 830,000 Btu’s per day. The above illustration shows how we may use our portion of fuels to consume our share of the Nation’s energy. If we are traveling by car for an interstate trip, we can easily use more than a million Btu’s in a day. Likewise, ordering a large shipment of furniture or heavy goods from Amazon or other on-line Retailer will require energy to be used on our behalf to deliver our products to the door. You get the picture.
Another way to illustrate 300-330 million Btu’s is to show the equivalence in barrels of gasoline, Diesel Fuel, propane or coal. Also, nuclear. This is shown below.
Annual Equivalent Per Capita Energy Use of 300-330 Million Btu’s/person
So Where Did You Come up with 100 Quadrillion Btu’s?
The U.S. Department of Energy has been measuring, calculating and reporting total primary energy use for decades. I have been watching this and America’s energy use has held right at 100 Quadrillion Btu’s +/- 10%, for the last twenty years or so. Below is the Sankey diagram which shows 2019 total primary energy flows. The sources are on the left and uses are on the right. This is how the breakdown of uses was established: 37% electricity generation, 28.1% transportation, 26.4% Industrial, 11.4% Residential and 9.41% Commercial.
I stated above that the U.S. has used right at 100 Quadrillion Btu’s for decades. The chart below published by the EIA (Energy Information Administration) shows the total energy used 1950 to 2019. The differences in “Production and Consumption” are imports. As of December 2020, America produced as much energy as we consumed. Again, right at 100 quadrillion Btu’s.
Let’s Drill Down to See Where the Energy Is Used in SC to Generate Electricity
Currently and at least through 2030, over 50% of South Carolina’s electricity will come from nuclear power generation.
S.C. has four large nuclear power plants with a total of seven generating units. Here is a map of where they are located.
The second largest source of our electricity is natural gas fuel. This is burned very efficiently in power plants such as this. The newest natural gas generating plants can obtain thermal efficiencies over 60%.
Coal fuel was over 50% of Santee-Cooper’s electric generation about ten years ago. Since then, natural gas fuel became lower in cost and abundant and has replaced much of the coal power generation. However, today natural gas prices are increasing and it is likely that coal fuel will be more economical to generate our electricity not generated by nuclear and renewables.
The Santee-Cooper coal plants that provide electricity to our local electricity distributor, Palmetto Electric Co-Op are shown below.
Santee-Cooper Coal Plants
Isn’t Most of Our Power Provided by Solar, Wind and Hydro-Electric?
No! That is a popular misconception. Even the Wall Street Journal has misled people into thinking that most of our electricity is generated by renewables (wind, solar and hydro). The data above show the true facts of the sources of our electricity and total energy.
Note that of our total energy in 2019, wind and solar together only provided about 3.8% of America’s total energy. The 96.2% was provided by conventional forms of energy such as nuclear, natural gas, coal and hydro-electric. The WSJ Headline is accurate in stating that 90% of the New Electricity Generation in 2020 came from Renewables. That is because they used “Nameplate Capacity” for the Renewables and the simple fact that the “Old coal, Nuclear, Coal and Hydroelectric” plants are very robust, reliable and have long lives when properly maintained.
The Santee-Cooper Pinnopolis Dam, Hydro-Electric plant is shown above. When I use the term “Old Hydroelectric plants”, this is where I was coming from. If you look at “Total Renewables Energy” on the Sankey diagram above, you will see that most of the renewable generation is from old hydroelectric plants. In 2019 that was about 2.5% of our total primary energy as compared to 1.04% solar.
These are the hydro plants operated by Santee-Cooper. Located about 100 miles north of Hilton Head near Moncks Corner, SC.
Solar
Much is written in the news about solar and many people are of the impression that solar is a major source of Bulk Electric generation. The fact is that yes, much money is being invested in solar but the total generation is very small when compared to nuclear, gas and coal. Here below is a much hyped solar farm on the east side of I-95 about 50 miles north of Hilton Head. It is about 15 acres and during a bright sunny day will produce about 3.5 MW.
By the way, if 3.5 MW seems like a lot of electric power consider that on a hot summer day Hilton Head Island uses about 180 MW during peak Demand.
Palmetto Electric Co-Op distributes electricity on Hilton Head Island. They obtain most of their Bulk Power wholesale from Santee-Cooper which is owned by the state of SC. Generation capacity of Santee-Cooper power plants is listed below. Note, most generation capacity is coal, nuclear and natural gas.
Electricity is Secondary Energy and uses about 37% of America’s total Primary Energy. The other 63% of Energy is Important to Fuel Our High Quality Lives!
The Federal government, at this point in time, is stating and making policies that would “Electrify Everything”. Especially transportation. Most large automobile manufacturers have stated that they plan to phase out the Internal Combustion Engine by 2035. That is only 13 years into the future.
Think about the chart above. Yes, 96% of our Primary Energy comes from conventional sources. (I consider nuclear, coal, gas, biomass and hydroelectric all conventional sources) The highest percentage of primary energy is from petroleum. America uses about 20 million barrels per day of oil. To illustrate what 20 million barrels per day looks like, take a look at the photo below. This is a picture of me standing in front of a portion of the above ground Aleyeska pipeline in Alaska. It is above ground because of passing through frozen tundra and the heated oil must be above ground for environmental and pipeline integrity concerns. This pipeline is capable of moving about 2 million barrels of oil per day. So, to imagine the quantity of oil that America uses, picture 10 of these pipelines side by side. Yes, 10 pipelines like this. At 42 gallons per barrel, that is a lot of oil.(2)
Most rimary energy is used in “Heat Engines” that convert heat energy to motive force. Another point to imagine, is if the about 275 million light trucks and cars registered in the U.S. were converted to EV’s…..This could create Demand for an enormous amount of electricity. However, in some cases the electricity needs to be “Dispatchable” when it is needed, such as in charging EV’s on a road trip. In other cases such as long range aircraft and ship propulsion, electricity is not an option with current technology. Fossil Fuels are important to fuel our lives.
Heat Energy from fuels is enormous. Just a reminder of the definition of a “Horsepower” and a BTU (British Thermal Unit).
A horsepower is equivalent to the work accomplished by lifting a weight of 550 pounds in one second or 33,000 Foot pounds per minute. One BTU converted at 100% thermal efficiency to work is equivalent to 778 Foot pounds. A gallon of gasoline contains between 115,000 and 125,000 Btu’s. So one gallon of gasoline is worth over 90 million foot pounds of work.
Perhaps a reminder of agricultural productivity is timely. At the turn of the 20th Century, about 40% of our population was required to work on the farms to feed our nation. Then, we changed from muscle power of animals to mechanized farming, using tractors. The work of a team of horses could be accomplished with a single gasoline powered tractor.
A reminder from U.S. history…..Our Economy became the largest in the world as America switched from muscle power of draft animals and humans to mechanization powered by fossil fuels.
Summary and Conclusions
Energy and Economic Prosperity are inter-related
America has used about 100 Quadrillion Btu’s annually for decades and to preserve our high quality of life, will continue to require 100 Quadrillion+ Btu’s each year into the future
Fossil fuels provide about 80% of our total primary energy
Conventional forms of energy, including Gas, Nuclear, Coal and old Hydroelectric plants, provide over 90% of our primary energy
The Mainstream News, Entertainment and Misguided Politicians are wrong to attack fossil fuels. Donn Dears book(4) “Net Zero Carbon, Climate Policies Destroying America” lays out facts and policies to support the title
When I am in the classroom, I will not discuss the politics of “Climate Change”, only the facts on energy and electricity. I hope all of my friends employed in energy industries do likewise to attempt to set the record straight on the importance of energy and electricity.
Yours very truly,
Dick Storm, March 9, 2022
References for further reading and research:
Dick Storm USCB-OLLI Courses, Energy and Electricity, History of Energy and Electricity and the Future of Energy and Electricity. The four parts of the “History of Energy and Electricity” are on my website: https://dickstormprobizblog.org
Dick Storm's Thoughts on Energy, Education, Economic Prosperity & Environmental Blog 
