“Objective, neutral” Forecasts

“Desired future” Backcasts

“Normative values” Scenarios
Michael Totten
Conservation International
January 27, 2006
Vaclav Smil

Chapter 3 on
Against
Forecasting is
superb.

Essential reading
about
forecasting
energy supply
and price.
 Off by 714 billion
1 ExaJoule=6.8 billion gallons of gasoline gallons of gasoline

105 EJ
US govt.’s Energy
Independence legislation

Corporate & government projections of total U.S. primary energy use from the
1970s. Forecasters clearly did not anticipate the ability of the economy to
deliver energy services with less consumption, cost and risk..
 Amory
Lovins

1 billion
gallons/day

Seattle
Mayor
Greg
Nichols
 Multiple uncertainties
& uncontrollables

(forecasting)

Scenario planning is appropriate for systems in which there is a lot of

uncertainty that is not controllable. In other cases optimal control,
hedging, or adaptive management may be appropriate responses.

G. Peterson et al., “Scenario Planning, a tool for conservation in an uncertain world,” Conservation Biology, V. 17:2, April 2003
 Cloudy Crystal Ball
BACKCASTING SCENARIOS
reason from a desired future
situation and offer a number
of different strategies to
reach this situation.

NORMATIVE SCENARIOS
take values and interests
into account.

European Environment Agency

http://europa.eu.int/
 Normative values Scenario
Select a portfolio of market-based energy service options, policies, incentives
and regulatory measures that satisfy multiple criteria for accruing myriad values
and benefits, including:
• Optimizing the delivery of efficient energy services at the point of
use as the key goal, rather than simply expanding [ever-larger]
resource supplies [shipped over ever-longer distances]
• Biodiversity friendly (terrestrial, freshwater, marine)
• Economically affordable now, or in foreseeable future (via R&D)
• Risk resistant and risk-manageable – against inflation, price
spikes, sudden disruptions, acts of nature or malicious attack
• Resilient - if the energy system fails, it fails gracefully, not
catastrophically
• Climate, Air & Water Quality friendly
• Externalities and adverse impacts are minimal and capable of
further reduction through innovation and best practices
• Experience Curves are robust - potential for significant, ongoing
improvements in cost, performance, reduced footprint, etc.
through ongoing R&D and cumulative learning experiences
Visualizing Planetary Overheating

Humans release
greenhouse gas
emissions (carbon
dioxide, CO2)
equivalent to a
Mount St. Helen
volcanic eruption
every other day

Atmospheric CO2
concentration now
380 parts per million
(ppm) and increasing
2 ppm annually
 Visualizing Rapid Overheating
1100
The present
atmospheric CO2
concentration has
Your grandchildren’s lifespan not been
Your children’s lifespan exceeded during
Your lifespan the past 420,000
Your parents lifespan years and likely
not during the
past 20 million
years.
Today
methane

Global
dioxi

carb
de

on
temperature
Past
rising 15 to 60
400,000
times faster than
years
Species at risk of extinction
from climate change
25 billion tons of CO2 emissions/year are lowering the ocean’s pH and acidifying
the ocean, detrimental to organisms that secrete shell material made of calcium
carbonate, e.g. phytoplankton and coral reefs. Scientists warn the ocean pH
change will persist for millennia and acidified to a much greater extent
than has occurred naturally in at least 800,000 years Royal Society UK
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Range of global energy-related and industrial CO2
emissions for the 40 SRES scenarios

Historically, gross CO2

emissions have increased
at an average rate of about
1.7% per year since 1900.

If that historical trend

continues global
emissions would double
during the next three to
four decades and increase
more than sixfold by 2100.

1990 range
2005 GHG emissions = ~5 GtC

How much in a world twice as populated and

10X the gross world product in 2100?
 Stabilizing atmospheric GHG levels

Contraction & Convergence “ . . . the logical conclusion of a

rights-based approach.” IPCC Third Assessment - June 2000
 HOW TO TRANSFORM MARKETS INTO
CLEAN, SAFE, SECURE, SUSTAINABLE ONES?
OIL SUPPLY unSAFE, inSECURE, unSUSTAINABLE
 Oil Disruption Vulnerabilities
Below: Saddam Hussein's
setting fire to the oil wells in
Kuwait, February 1991. The
black smoke plumes of more
than 700 individual oil well
fires are being blown to the
south.

Oil tankers must run a gauntlet of

narrow sealanes. About a fourth of
the non-Communist world’s oil
must pass through the Strait of
Hormuz. The Strait connects the
Persian Gulf, to the left, with the
Gulf of Oman, to the right. The
 NUCL EAR
POW ER?

The fascination with nuclear power is due to the fact

that 1 ton of uranium can displace 20,000 tons of coal
Unfortunately, uranium-generated electricity carries
some intrinsic downsides that are inherently
intractable:
• Ever-present target of nuclear facilities for
military or terrorist attack;
• Dual civilian-military nature of a nuclear
reactor;
• Proliferation of weapons-grade material;
• Diversion of uranium fuel for military or
terrorist use in fabricating atomic bombs;
• Contaminant fuel wastes that remain
radioactive for millennia; and,
• Generating systems that can fail
catastrophically, with disastrous
human health and ecological
consequences lasting for
generations, and economic
impacts lasting for centuries
Displacing coal use worldwide by 2100 would require constructing a 100 MW
nuclear reactor every 10 hours for the entire century. It would require
reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium for use in breeder reactors by 2050.
This would produce 5 million kilograms of plutonium per year, equal to 500,000
atomic bombs, annually circulating in global commerce.
 Terrori sm – the 21 st Century
Real ity
After the
September 11th
terrorist attack
with airplanes it is
a most uncertain
world presenting
inherently
Among the many
unanswerable
sources
What-if of electricity,
questions.
nuclear power
creates a target with
the greatest risk of
major, destructive
acts of terrorism and
acts of aggression by
national or sub-
national
If not, whygroups.
President & Congress spending $1 trillion every 30
months on Military & Security?
Nuclear reactors as targets?

Unlike the World Trade Center

disaster, a hit on a nuclear
reactor would unleash orders
of magnitude greater damage
both in scale and over time.
Over $300 BILLION IN LOSSES.
 Chernobyl s tri gger ed
mal ici ou sly?
The Chernobyl accident released 100 times more
radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. It led to the permanent evacuation of
135,000 people from an area of nearly 3,000 square
dentkilometers.
contaminated 31,000 square kilometers or 12,400 square m

It is estimated
that 30,000
people may die
prematurely of
cancer induced
by radiation
exposure from
the release
Catastr ophi c, not gracef ul
fai lures

Chernobyl nuclear
accident caused
$200 billion
losses.
 Nuclear – inherently brittle power?
1000 MW reactor contains >15 billion curies (~2,000
Hiroshima A-bombs’ fallout) +heat and
mechanical/chemical energy facilitating release
comparable to a megaton ground burst

 Cut onsite & offsite

power and the core
melts
 1-kT bomb 1 km away
(in parked truck) melts
core
 Wide body jet or
certain standoff
attacks can release
virtually the full core
inventory
 Seriously contaminate
Nuclear legacy – terrorist zones?
A legacy of many vulnerable targets and a looming
question of how many more will be added before shifting to
targets that fail gracefully, not catastrophically.
$1 Trillion Costs to Decommissions Nuclear Facilities through 2050

IAEA, 2004 Annual Report

www.iaea.org/
Nuclear waste shipment vulnerabilities

60 million people would be

within one mile of the
100,000 truck and rail
shipments proposed to
ship waste to Yucca
Mountain

~ 40,000 metric tons of

spent fuel discharged
from U.S. commercial
nuclear reactors through
1999 is currently stored at
about 70 power plant sites
around the nation (+2,000
tons more annually)
 Nuclear waste shipment accidents?

The burning railway cars that

paralyzed Baltimore’s traffic
and bottled up the main
eastern transport and cyber-
artery of the United States in
2001, could have been
carrying spent nuclear fuel
rods.

The clean-up wouldn't take

weeks. It would take
centuries. New Department of
Energy regulations allow for
rail cars to carry lethal nuclear
fuel.

Each of the 180 rail containers

of atomic waste from Calvert
 Megadamus negavitae
7% of total global GHG emissions, rising
to 15% given potential expansion
 Fr agmented R iver B asins

Of 227 large river basins assessed, 37% are

strongly affected by fragmentation and altered
flows, 23 % are moderately affected, and 40%
WRI, Ramsar, IUCN, IWMI Water Resources E Atlas, Watersheds of the World, 2003, w
Freshwater Fish Species Threatened

% Fish species 8 times more

threatened than mammals
or birds in the USA
 21st century Hydro Damming
Threatens to Exceed Last
Century’s Damming -- Mostly in
Biodiversity Habitat
Hydro dams that are costly & ecologically damaging
can be displaced through lower cost & lower impact
Energy & Water options
Min Jiang

Ya
Dadu He
200 hydro dams planned on

lo
n
rivers running through the

g
biodiversity hotspots of

Ya
n
Sichuan and Yunnan

gtz
provinces.

e
Jiang

Li
Yet, China has other viable

Nu

t an
options, such as four times

Jian

g
)
ze

H
more wind power than hydro t

e
g

g (S
an
resources, and 50% water (Y
ng

alw
efficiency savings through a
Jia

een
drip irrigation. Sh
Jin

La
>150 MW

nc
50 to 150 MW

an
g
Jia
ng
(M
ek
on
g)
 Amazon damming
ed dams and reservoirs in Brazil’s Amazonian

ana Brava I on Tocantins

Source: Fearnside
PM. 1995.
Hydroelectric dams
in the Brazilian
Amazon as
sources of
“greenhouse”
Net E mis sio ns fro m B ra zi lia n R eserv oirs
comp are d with Comb ined Cycle Na tural
Ga s Emissio Emissio Emissio
Reser Genera ns: ns: CC ns
voir ting Km 2 /
DAM Hydro Gas Ratio
Area Capacit MW (MtCO2- (MtCO2- Hydro/
(km2) y (MW)
eq/yr) eq/yr) Gas

Tucu
24330 4240 5.7 8.60 2.22 3.87
ruí
Curu
á- 72 40 1.8 0.15 0.02 7.50
Una
Balbi
3150 250 12.6 6.91 0.12 57.58
na

Source: Patrick McCully, Tropical Hydropower is a Significant Source of Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
Interim response to the International Hydropower Association, International Rivers Network, June
DE -C ARB ONI ZE D
FO SS IL FU ELS ?
Coal externalities
worldwide range
between $160 billion
and $1.2 trillion per
year that are not
reflected in coal-fired
electricity prices
Fossil-based hydrogen future?
 Abundant Coal & abundant problems
Coal is massively
abundant in the world,
but also enormously
problematic.
In the US, more than
264,000 acres of
cropland, 135,000
acres of pasture, and
128,000 acres of forest
have been lost.
The potential cost for
cleaning up US spoiled
lands runs in the tens of
billions of dollars.

Still, coal companies are

removing entire
mountaintops to expose
the coal below. The
wastes are generally
Super-sized SUVs Driving Disasters

U.S. Perverse Tax subsidy – 50% tax break for SUVs

over 3.5 tons -- Up to $100,000 tax break!!
U.S. cars average 9.3 km per liters (22 mpg),
Military Hummer imitators <5 km/liters (<l2 mpg)
 USA Oil Consumption patterns

Source: Transportation Energy Data Book: No. 23, DOE/ORNL-6970, Oct. 2003; and EIA Annual
The random walk of world real crude-oil price, 1881–1995
Eliminating USA Oil dependency
$70 billion per year net
savings and create a
million net jobs in USA
“Perhaps the most rigorous...analysis
of what it will take to wean us from
foreign oil was tasked by the
Pentagon and carried out by…Rocky
Mountain Institute, a respected center
of hard-headed, market-based Amory Lovins
research.…
[T]he book argues persuasively that
by 2035 we can be entirely
independent of imported oil and that
‘it will cost less to displace all of the
oil that the United States now uses
than it will cost to buy that oil.’”
www.oilendgame.org/
— Robert C.McFarlane (National
Security Advisor to President Reagan),
Oil-saving & Substitution Options
www.oilendgame.org/

actual projected

@ $12/bb

@< $26/bb

Accrue cost- & tax-free CO2

$70 billion per year Net Savings

www.oilendgame.org/
Accelerated with Golden and Platinum Carrot Incentives

Winning the Oil Endgame – www.oilendgame.org/

High-performance policies needed
 Smart Growth & Less Sprawl

Collaborations: Alliance for a New Transportation Charter, Smart Growth America,

Smart Growth Network, Funders’ Network for Smart Growth & Livable Communities,
Smart Communities Network, Surface Transportation Policy Project, TDM Encyclopedia
 Green Buildings – ecologically
sustainable, economically superior,
higher occupant satisfaction

The Costs
and Financial
Benefits of
Public library – North Green
Carolina Buildings, A
Report to
California’s
Sustainable
Building Task
Force, Oct.
2003, by
Greg Kats et
$500 toal.$700
per m2 net
present
value
Oberlin
Heinz College
Foundation Ecology
Hig h-E Wi nd ow s di sp la ci ng
pip el ine s full use of super
Incidentally,
windows in the U.S. could save
the equivalent of an Alaskan
pipeline (2 million barrels of oil
per day), as well as accrue
over $10 billion per year of
savings on energy bills.

.
Dayl ight ing coul d displ ace 100
GWs
Lighting & AC to remove heat
from lights consumes half of a
commercial buildings electricity.
Daylighting can provide up to
100% of day-time lighting,
eliminating massive amount of
power plants and saving tens of
billions of dollars in utility bills.
Some daylight designs integrate
PV solar cells.
 Combined Heat & Power (CHP)

81 GW capacity in 2004 –
8% of total US generation
Other
Industrial Comm'l/Inst
Other Mfg 11%
8% 6%
Metals
5%

Food
8%
Chemicals

P O T E N T IAL 33%
W 0 2 0
M W b y 2 Refining
0,000 o + n u c l e a r
12%
a l l U S h y dr Paper
uals a v i n g s 15%
n e t s
0+ billion C O c u t s
i l l i o n t o n s 2
10 m
 Importance of Policy drivers
Since 1974, California electric use
per capita has stayed flat at 7000
kWh. Mainly through building and
appliance standards and utility
conservation programs, saving
billions of dollars.

But USA electric use has grown

50%.

If the USA had followed Calif. it

would use 1/3 less electricity,
equivalent to 10 Arctic National
Wildlife Refuges, and be saving
over $100 billion annually.
senfeld, Commissioner, California Energy Commission, 2002, ARosenfe@Energy.State.CA.U
 Efficiency -- thwarted & ignored

Could satisfy half of all new global supply, but…

Energy Assessment, Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability, UNDP, 2000]

Biodiversity-friendly climate solutions

Solar & wind & perennial biomass appear most

benign at large-scale over long term
 Climate-useful, but
Biodiversity-Unfriendly
CROPS FOR ENERGY
Semi-efficient, ambitious renewable scenario
Biofuels for US cars on no new land?
TODAY & BUSINESS NEXT DECADE &
30 AS
million
USUAL 30 million hectares
FUTURE
hectares soy switchgrass

Switchgrass 1 to 3x protein
productivity + 5 to 10 x mass
animal productivity of soybeans
oils Cellulose
protein animal
oils hydrolyzed into
feed protein
30 billion
feed
Professor Lee Lynd, Big or Little Potatoes? Role of gallons ethanol
Biomass in America’s Energy Future, Feb. 2004, http://
 Biodiversity friendly Bioenergy?
Perennial prairie grasses
 Growing America’s energy future?
A 2004 assessment by the National Energy Commission
concluded that a vigorous effort in the USA to develop
cellulosic biofuels between now and 2015 could:
 Produce the first
billion gallons at
costs approaching
those of gasoline and
diesel.

 Establish the
capacity to produce
biofuels at very
competitive pump
prices equivalent to
roughly
Nathaniel Greene et8
al.,million
Growing Energy,
 Growing America’s energy future?
Multiple benefits would accrue:

 Rural American farmers

producing these fuel
crops would see $5
billion of increased
profits per year.
 Consumers would see
future pump savings of
$20 billion per year on
fuel costs.
 Society would see CO2
emissions reduced by 6.2
billion
Nathaniel tons
Greene per
et al., year,
Growing Energy, How Biofuels Can help end America’s oil
dependence,
Fuel Efficiency Impact on USA Land
Requirements for Biofuel Production
Of the practically exploitable U.S.wind resources of moderate or
better quality, 95% are located in the sparsely populated 12 Great
Plains states, where the generation potential is three times total
U.S.electricity generation at present.
 Wi nd Royal ties – 2 nd source of
income
US Farm Revenues per hectare
Crop revenue Govt. subsidy

non-wind farm
Wind profits

windpower farm

$0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $250

windpower farm non-wind farm
govt. subsidy $0 $60
windpower royalty $200 $0
farm commodity revenues $50 $64
clear and Alternative Energy Supply Options for an Environmentally Constrained World, April 9, 2001, T
 Federal electricity subsidies
%
Federal subsidies to nuclear,
photovoltaic, solar thermal 100
electric, and wind electricity 90
technologies and to the
industries as a whole totaled: 80
70
$200 billion between 60
1947 and 1999 (in 2005 50
dollars).
40
Nuclear received 96%, while 30
solar power received less 20
than 3% and wind power less
than 1%. 10
0
Wind PV & Solar Nuclear
power Thermal power
Electric
Renewable Energy Policy Project, www.repp.org/
PV meeting US electricity - distributed
10% efficient commercial PV systems can supply all
US electricity (about 800 GW) from 2 million
hectares distributed throughout the 50 states.

Larry
Kazmers
ki,
Dispellin
g the 7
Myths of
Solar
Electricit
y, 2001,
National
Renewab
le Energy
Lab,
www.nrel
.gov
Where PV systems stand in the USA

Source: Christy Herig, Customer-Sited Photovoltaics Focusing

Photovoltaics are
on Markets that Really Shine, NREL,
www.nrel.gov/research/pv/cust-sited.html
cost-effective at today's
prices of about $6 to
$7 per watt.
Attributes of breakeven PV systems
•Compensation for
power at retail electric
rates
•Tax credits
•Financing, leasing,
and depreciation
options
•Net-metering options
and/or rate-based
incentives
•Building credits for
architectural
applications
•Willingness to pay for
clean power and
innovation PVs are cost-effective at $6 to $7
 Economics of Commercial BIPV

Reference costs of facade-cladding mate

Eiffert, P., Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Power Systems, International
Energy Agency PVPS Task 7: Photovoltaic Power Systems in the Built Environment, Jan. 2003,
Economics of Commercial BIPV
Net Present Values, Benefit-Cost
Ratios and Payback Periods for
‘Architectural’ BIPV (Thin Film,
Wall-Mounted PV) in Beijing and
Shanghai
Materi (assuming
Econo a 15%
Investment
al Tax Credit)
mic Shang
Beijing
Replac Measur hai
ed e
NPV +$18,5 +$14,2
Polish
($) BCR 86 37
ed 2.33 2.14
Stone
PBP 1 1
NPV
(yrs) +$15,3 +$11,0
Alumin ($) BCR 73 24
um 1.89 1.70
SunSlate Building- PBP
Integrated
2 2
Photovoltaics (BIPV)
(yrs)
Byrne et al, Economics of Building Integrated PV in China, July
2001, Univ. of Delaware, Center for Energy and Environmental
 Electricity Potential from BIPV

Stefan Nowak, The IEA PVPS Programme – into the second decade of International Co-operation
Using LCD manufacturing techniques
Solar PV electricity at 3 to 5 cents/kWh

Key to achieving competitive PV systems (i.e., $1 per Watt fully

installed) is to use a similar cluster production model used so
successfully in achieving breakthrough cost reductions and
extraordinary productivity gains in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
manufacturing. The result would make PV systems a highly
competitive electricity choice.
“At the price of $1.00 per peak watt for a complete and installed
system, the payback time in states like California is under 5
years. Therefore, we expect the demand for solar energy systems
Marvin S. Keshner and
to explode…. RajivaArya,
With 30 Study
yearoflifetime,
Potential Reductions
assuming Resulting
6% from Super-Large-Scale
interest, a
Manufacturing of PV Modules, National Renewable Energy Lab Report NREL/SR-520-36846, October
12 mi llion hectar es of 10% ef f. PV systems
coul d supply US total energy needs – fuel s and
el ectri ci ty
A concept called a
solution space was used
as part of the citiesPLUS
process to identify the
pathway to reach each
sustainability target.
Forging a Sustainable Energy System in Greater Vancouver: Suggested Approach and Preliminary Policy Directions for the GVRD
(July 2003), prepared by Sheltair Group, 2003, www.citiesplus.ca/