Barack Obama’s 80% carbon reduction goal

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at
the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington, Tuesday,
July 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Barack Obama is calling for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions over then next 40 years. That amounts to a 2% per year reduction each year. What I want to do here is explore what that requires for energy production.

Currently we get 85% of our energy from fossil fuels. Breaking down fossil fuel use we get:

    * Petroleum:       47%
    * Coal                 27%
    * Natural Gas     26%

I have a plan for reducing fossil fuel use. My plan calls for a 90% reduction in coal use, a39% decrease in petroleum use, and a 49% increase in natural gas use over the next 20 years.

In summary, over 20 years we need to:

    * Cut oil consumption by 5.8 million barrels per day
    * Close 90% of coal-fired power plants
    * Increase use of natural gas by 2% per year

To achieve this reduction in carbon emissions, we will need to increase our percentage of energy from renewable energy. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that we will need to increase our energy production by 0.7% per year to meet the demands of our growing economy. Increasing natural gas consumption will provide an annual increase of 0.44% per year. We also have to replace 2% of our fossil fuel production with renewable energy for a total of 2.26% of annual energy production per year.

Currently we consume the equivalent of 19,343 billion KWh of total energy in this country (if you convert all the petroleum and natural gas to its electric energy equivalent using 2006 data). That means we need to produce 437 billion KWh of new energy each year. That is equivalent to 50 Giga Watts (GW) of new electric production capacity.

Let’s put this into perspective. This is equivalent to:

    * Building 50 new nuclear plants each year.
    * Building 40,000 3 Mega Watt (MW) wind generators each year.
    * Installing 150 GW of solar cells.

(I am assuming that wind production is 40% or max capacity and that solar cells produce power for 8 hours per day at rated capacity.)

Let’s look at the cost of the three alternatives:

    * Nuclear - $5 billion per plant (1 GW) = $250 billion per year
    * Wind - $7.5 billion per 1 GW rated capacity = $375 billion per year
    * Solar - $10.5 billion per 1 GW rated capacity = $525 billion per year

(All of the above costs have been adjusted to 24 hour production equivalents)

At the end of 2007, total worldwide wind powered installed electric production capacity was 94 GW. Annual world-wide production of wind systems is currently about 20 GW capacity (2007).  (I don’t think this number is adjusted for the effective capacity of 40%)

We need 50 GW of new capacity each year. This will require almost 40 times the 2007 total world productive capacity for solar cells, or 2.5 to 6 times the world productive capacity for wind systems (depending on effective capacity), or building 50 new nuclear plants each year.

I think it is clear that we will need to make use of all sources of renewable power. Each source has its advantages and disadvantages. I don’t have geothermal on my list, but that could also be a contributor. Bio-fuels may also add to the renewable pie.

What is clear is that we are going to need to drastically increase our capacity to produce renewable energy. It is also going to be expensive. We might be able to get by with a smaller increase in new renewable capacity if we can become more efficient with energy. For example, the technology for plug-in hybrid cars may increase the efficiency of driving. Substituting electricity for gasoline may require less energy because electric motors are more efficient than gasoline engines.  Maybe we could get away with annual increases in renewable energy capacity of 30 GW per year. It is still going to be very expensive. It will be expensive to retool our auto industry to produce these new fuel-efficient cars. Billions of dollars of investment required.

Barack Obama is against nuclear power, which could be an important part of the mix of new non-carbon energy sources. He has proposed $15 billion per year to invest in renewable energy. It is more likely that we will need 20 times that number. How is he going to fund this development? Part of this money could come from the off-shore oil production which Barack is against. We are also going to need more oil for the next 40 years. Does he think we can just buy it from our friends in the Middle East? What does that cost do to our balance of payments? What will that large transfer of wealth do to our economy?

I like Barack’s goal of reducing carbon emissions. A goal alone is not enough. What is missing is the plan and means to actually accomplish the task.