Posted on 04/18/2016 4:39:30 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In recent years, proponents of clean energy have taken heart in the falling prices of solar and wind power, hoping they will drive an energy revolution. But a new study co-authored by an MIT professor suggests otherwise: Technology-driven cost reductions in fossil fuels will lead us to continue using all the oil, gas, and coal we can, unless governments pass new taxes on carbon emissions.
“If we don’t adopt new policies, we’re not going to be leaving fossil fuels in the ground,” says Christopher Knittel, an energy economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “We need both a policy like a carbon tax and to put more R&D money into renewables.”
While renewable energy has made promising gains in just the last few years — the cost of solar dropped by about two-thirds from 2009 to 2014 — new drilling and extraction techniques have made fossil fuels cheaper and markedly increased the amount of oil and gas we can tap into. In the U.S. alone, oil reserves have expanded 59 percent between 2000 and 2014, and natural gas reserves have expanded 94 percent in the same time.
“You often hear, when fossil fuel prices are going up, that if we just leave the market alone we’ll wean ourselves off fossil fuels,” adds Knittel. “But the message from the data is clear: That’s not going to happen any time soon.”
This trend — in which cheaper renewables are outpaced by even cheaper fossil fuels — portends drastic climate problems, since fossil fuel use has helped produce record warm temperatures worldwide.
The study concludes that burning all available fossil fuels would raise global average temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100; burning oil shale and methane hydrates, two more potential sources of copious fossil fuels, would add another 1.5 to 6.2 degrees Fahrenheit to that.
“Such scenarios imply difficult-to-imagine change in the planet and dramatic threats to human well-being in many parts of the world,” the paper states. The authors add that “the world is likely to be awash in fossil fuels for decades and perhaps even centuries to come.”
The paper, “Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?,” is published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. The authors are Knittel, who is MIT’s William Barton Rogers Professor in Energy; Michael Greenstone, the Milton Friedman Professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago; and Thomas Covert, an assistant professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. The scholars examine costs over a time frame of five to 10 years, stating that further forecasts would be quite speculative, although the trend of cheaper fossil fuels could continue longer.
More efficient extraction
At least two technological advances have helped lower fossil fuel prices and expanded reserves: hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has unlocked abundant natural gas supplies, and the production of oil from tar sands. Canada, where this type of oil production began in 1967, did not recognize tar sands as reserves until 1999 — an energy-accounting decision that increased world oil reserves by about 10 percent.
“There are hydrocarbons that we can now take out of the ground that 10 or 20 years ago we couldn’t,” Knittel observes.
So whereas some energy analysts once thought the apparently limited amount of oil reserves would make the price of oil unfeasibly high at some point, that dynamic seems less likely now.
To see how much better firms are at extracting fossil fuels from the Earth, consider this: The probability of an exploratory oil well being successful was 20 percent in 1949 and just 16 percent in the late 1960s, but by 2007 that figure had risen to 69 percent, and today it’s around 50 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As a result of these improved oil and gas extraction techniques, we have consistently had about 50 years’ worth of accessible oil and natural gas reserves in the ground over the last 30 years, the scholars note.
All told, global consumption of fossil fuels rose significantly from 2005 through 2014: about 7.5 percent for oil, 24 percent for coal, and 20 percent for natural gas. About 65 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are derived from fossil fuels, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Of those emissions, coal generates about 45 percent, oil around 35 percent, and natural gas about 20 percent.
Renewable hope
To be sure, renewable energy has seen an impressive decline in its prices within the last decade. But looking at the “levelized” cost of energy (which accounts for its long-term production and costs), solar is still about twice as expensive as natural gas. The need to handle sharp evening increases in power consumption — what energy analysts call the “duck curve” of demand — also means power suppliers, already wary of solar power’s potential to reduce their revenues, may continue to invest in fossil fuel-based power plants.
The development of better battery technology, for storing electricity, is vital for increased use of renewables in both electricity and transportation, where electric vehicles can be plugged into the grid for charging. But the example of electric vehicles also shows how far battery technology must progress to make a large environmental impact. Currently only 12 percent of fossil fuel-based power plants are sufficiently green that electric vehicles powered by them are responsible for fewer emissions than a Toyota Prius.
Alternately, look at it this way: Currently battery costs for an electric vehicle are about $325 per kilowatt-hour (KwH). At that cost, Knittel, Greenstone, and Covert calculate, the price of oil would need to exceed $350 per barrel to make an electric vehicle cheaper to operate. But in 2015, the average price of oil was about $49 per barrel.
“It’s certainly the case that solar and wind prices have fallen dramatically and battery costs have fallen,” Knittel says. “But the price of gas is a third almost of what it used to be. It’s tough to compete against $1.50 gasoline. On the electricity side … the cheap natural gas still swamps, in a negative way, the cost of solar and even wind.”
Emphasizing the case for a carbon tax
That may change, of course. As Knittel observes, new solar techniques — such as thin-film layers that integrate solar arrays into windows — may lead to even steeper reductions in the price of renewables, especially as they could help reduce installation costs, a significant part of the solar price tag.
Still, the immediate problem of accumulating carbon emissions means some form of carbon tax is necessary, Knittel says — especially given what we now know about declining fossil fuel costs.
“Clearly we need to get out in front of climate change, and the longer we wait, the tougher it’s going to be,” Knittel emphasizes.
Knittel supports the much-discussed policy lever of a carbon tax to make up for the disparity in energy costs. That concept could take several specific forms. One compelling reason for it, from an economists’ viewpoint, is that fossil fuels impose costs on society — “externalities” — that users do not share. These include the increased health care costs that result from fossil fuel pollution, or the infrastructure costs that are likely to result from rising sea levels.
“Taxes on externalities are not inconsistent with the free-market system,” Knittel says. “In fact, they’re required to make the free-market system achieve the efficient outcome. This idea that a pure free-market economy never has taxes is wrong.”
Knittel adds: “The point of the paper is that if we don’t adopt policies, we’re not leaving fossils fuels in the ground.”
Total B.S.!!!
Like anyone is going to burn all fossil fuels, like setting the whole planet on fire. Won't happen, ever.
Over 6600 products are made from fossil fuels. Gasoline for vehicle use is but a small part of the use of fossil fuels. Think paint, road asphalt, tires, plastics, lubricating chemicals, roof tiles, etc., the list goes on and on, and most of those products are not going to be burned! So global temperatures are not going to be affected much at all by using all fossil fuels.
Total B.S. article by liberal idiots.
Fusion?
Yup, highly recommend reading Deep Hot Biosphere from Dr. Thomas Gold.
Oil is continually being produced independent of decaying plant and animal “fossil” material.
Russian and Swedish petrochemists observed oil deposits where no former forests or swamp existed.
“Fossil” fuel moniker is a scam to infer scarcity.
Institutional orthodoxy hates heretical threatening ideas and facts...
RE: “I think we will stop calling them “fossil fuel” and start calling them “earth sap” or something like that, because it is being generated internally in the earth.”
Idiots. They write that anthropogenic globull warming is a given. It is not.
Only a carbon tax can force us to use renewables that are less useful and much more expensive. Only the gubment can save us in their stupid estimation.
Another bevy of educated fools.
fossil fuels are plentiful, convenient, inexpensive, virtually inexaustable, and virtually all consumers are equipped with the equipment to use them....it will be a very long time before they are gone.
what if you used current space craft technology to eliminate all waste product by launching it into oblivion??
Also, a lot of the materials we use, from plastics to graphene, are made from hydrocarbons.
Their original is not from plants and animals.
Silly you. The hydrocarbon is the true renewable resource. It is both economical and environmentally friendly. Oil pumped from the ground is only one of its sources.
Between 15 and 20 years after the portable electric source is field tested, assuming no show-stoppers; and, after we get to a presidential re-election campaign down the road.
Thorium doesn't fission but is a precursor to one flavor of uranium which does. Thorium(232)+neutron--->Thorium (233)β--->Protactinium(233)β--->Uranium(233)
Anti-nuclear political activism reference:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1997/09/cassini-controversy
Thorium is not particularly energetic, so it would take a lot of it to make gobs of power. It is not an abundant substance. How long would supplies last? Probably not that long.
The powers that be are merely trying to lower the industrial level of the planet so that the "Haves" are more like the "Haves Not". This is easier than bringing the "Haves Not" up to the living standards of the "Haves".
Current spacecraft technology is a great way to dump waste material all over the planet. Perhaps you haven't noticed that rocketry does not enjoy a 100% success rate in launches.
No.
Tried and tested units are very safe....we put people in them and have done so for years. Experimental systems are just that and wouldn't be used for this purpose....spent fuel rods could be safely enclosed in containers and launched into oblivion....burying it in a mountainside somewhere insures that it will threaten the Earth for a thousand years.
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I watched the space program all the way from the 1960s to the present time. My brother just retired from from the Kennedy Space Center. I've watched from up close. Those "very safe" rockets blow up a lot more frequently than you think.
Man-qualified rockets cost a great deal more than the containers that are buried in the desert. Radioactive waste cannot be handled outside of those containers because it is too radioactive. A single exposed waste rod will kill a man from the distance of fifty yards. The waste would have to transported and then loaded onto the rockets in those containers. Rockets would have a hard time boosting those containers because they are large and massive.
Just one accident would poison a big chunk of our planet.
Obviously man-qualified rockets are expensive because of all the amenities required for comfort and return trip necessary when dealing with humans. Take that same, very dependable rocket and make a one way freight ship out of it and the price will plummet.
We haul this stuff on trains, trucks and whatever....please don't tell me that those forms of transportation are without risks. When a train hauling crude oil, for example, is involved in a serious derailment.....it is total disaster for a large area..The nuclear material is hauled in fairly safe containers, and there is no reason whatsoever that they could not be launched into oblivion.
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