Continuing the Review of “Apollo’s Fire”

John Rawlins has a B.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. He retired in 1995 from the Westinghouse Hanford Co. at the Hanford site in Eastern Washington. Currently, he teaches physics and astronomy at Whatcom Community College.

Part 2

In the May 2008 issue of Whatcom Watch I made some general comments about the approach and ideas in the first part of “Apollo’s Fire.” That included my response to the first part of chapter 10, entitled “An Integrated Agenda for a New Apollo Project,” which makes general and specific recommendations for a revised U.S. energy policy.

In this issue (and the July issue) I’ll state my reactions to the detailed proposals in the remainder of chapter 10. First, a couple of reminders concerning the book: the authors wrote the book in response to concerns over human-caused climate change rather than because of looming fossil fuel energy shortages, and at the time the authors conceived their recommendations they were apparently unaware of all the concerns since expressed about the feasibility, wisdom and sustainability of large-scale conversion of food crops to fuel crops (biofuels).

The authors first propose to use matching state and federal dollars to cut electricity consumption in buildings. The states would generate funds through a small electrical use tax and place that money in a Public Benefits Fund (PBF) that could only be used to finance energy efficiency retrofits. There is some successful history for this idea and it seems appropriate to me.

Next is a proposal to emulate California’s model energy efficiency program at the national scale. California has been able to reduce energy consumption with retrofits for much less funding than would have been required to pay for the (unused) energy — resulting in significant energy and dollar savings.

The next proposal is to create strong incentives to build new buildings using energy-efficient building codes. This is obviously worth pursuing regardless of whether Congress passes any major new energy legislation, since rising fossil fuel prices alone provide powerful incentives for energy efficiency in new infrastructure of all kinds.

However, the most energy savings are realized by not building a new building, and refitting an existing abandoned building instead. Communities doing peak oil strategic planning might anticipate failure of many of the big-box stores as the crisis deepens, and such abandoned buildings may represent an opportunity to deal with certain problems, such as increased homelessness.

Next is an idea to increase efficiency through using energy pricing to provide customer incentives to use less energy. One well-known (but not universally used yet) system is “real-time pricing” to shift electrical load from peak hours to nighttime – also known as time-of-day pricing.

Promotion of energy-efficient appliances also receives a boost from the authors. Government could extend the present regulations to require manufacturers to meet certain minimum efficiency standards (such as the present Energy Star standard). This could, for example, mean all appliances would have to conform to Energy Star standards.

The next idea would have dramatic impact: reward energy consuming industries that use either electricity or heat (or both) when they implement cogeneration. In cogeneration, waste heat from an industrial process can often safely heat entire neighborhoods as demonstrated in Denmark. Electrical production facilities, except for photovoltaic cells, inevitably produce tremendous quantities of waste heat that could heat buildings or assist in other essential activities such as food production.

The next proposal is to require government facilities to lead the way by purchasing the most energy efficient equipment and to retrofit buildings to make them more efficient. This is a fairly common strategy for having governments demonstrate that they take energy efficiency seriously.

Finally, there is a recommendation to expand the practice of supporting a government-run consulting service for industry in the area of energy efficiency. This would include assistance doing retrofit design as well as personnel training.

All these ideas would save energy, and in an era of ever-increasing prices due to lower supply of fossil fuels would also save money. An added benefit would be reducing carbon emissions that drive the human-induced component of the greenhouse effect. One additional idea I would contribute is to require that all outside lights be extinguished at night after some set time, with violators being spotted by satellite and heavily fined. Imagine being able to see the night sky again!

Overall grade on this section: A+ (the educator side of my brain insists on a grade).

In this section we part ways. For one thing, we will have no trouble getting off oil, because oil will be getting off us. Furthermore it will be getting off us at a faster pace than most people can imagine — perhaps as much as an 80 percent reduction (factor of five less than now) by around 2030 in the U.S. because of total collapse of world net oil exports plus continued decline of U.S. production.

Overall world production could be as little as 50 percent of present levels by 2030. World net oil exports peaked in 2006, are currently down a few percent from that level and are projected to decline from now on.

Rather than voluntary oil reductions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we therefore face mandatory oil reductions because of expected supply shortages. I think this rather amplifies the need to carry through with many of the authors’ proposals in this section. The proposals are expensive, however, and future oil shortages (accompanied by high prices) could so reduce national wealth that carrying them out might be difficult.

First, the authors list a few options for federal government-mandated oil savings. As mentioned previously, this is simply not necessary. However, from a peak oil perspective, we may want to consider requiring oil use reduction that exceeds the rate of decline of production — which would require international cooperation and extreme political will. It would likely involve mandatory oil use reduction of about 5 percent per year for the next several decades — just a bit above the expected oil production decline rate.

Colin Campbell and Richard Heinberg have been advocating such a scheme for several years, and Heinberg even wrote a book explaining how this would work. See: “The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse” (New Society Publishers, paper, 2006). The advantage of forcing consumption below production would be much lower oil prices. While this is a wonderful idea, my optimism that such an accord will ever occur is at absolute zero and I promise never to mention it again.

One proposal in this section is to move rapidly to hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars. At today’s gasoline prices, friends have told me that they would have to drive a hybrid for nearly 10 years to break even on total cost. As gasoline prices increase beyond today’s level, however, the break-even time will decrease.

The idea of a plug-in hybrid is that it would operate in the electric-only mode at low speeds for long enough distance to cover most commutes; when the battery bank gets low the car would switch to gasoline. The driver would need to “plug in” the vehicle at night to recharge the battery bank. This could result in gas mileage of around 100 miles per gallon or more for people with total commutes on the order of 20 miles.

My main question about plug-ins is: why not just omit the internal combustion engine, reduce the weight as low as possible, and drive an all-electric vehicle? For longer trips, one might keep a high-gas-mileage very small car or use a mass transit option. However, I expect that plug-in hybrids will prove quite popular in the interim period between now and nearly total exhaustion of oil production, for those who can afford them.

An idea not mentioned in this book but being considered in other countries is the following: outlaw production and use of gas guzzlers. This could and should include gas-powered toys such as snowmobiles, all-terrain and off-road vehicles, motor homes, private buses, motor boats and private hobby airplanes. This only seems fair in hard times: why should richer people be allowed to waste a precious, strategic resource like oil? One might label this the Get-Serious, Zero-Tolerance Provision.

The authors next propose to provide governmental assistance for industry during the transition period. But of course, since government-mandated oil savings are really not necessary then neither is governmental assistance to achieve them. Just let the car industry try to cope with customer demand in a world that has less fuel each passing year, and let the industry decline (as it will anyway).

The next proposal would require production of flexible-fuel vehicles, which can run on both gasoline and ethanol (or diesel and biodiesel). This idea warrants a whipping, as does continued government support of the U.S. biofuels industry. I’ve already beaten the drum on this topic at length in the last two issues of Whatcom Watch and will therefore refrain from venting still another time.

The next idea is — again — to use the leverage of big government to build the market for plug-in hybrids and other low-carbon-emission vehicles. This is a good idea, but still only a transitional one. Many governmental organizations are already moving in this direction to lead the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Finally there’s the old pitch for government research and development (and deployment) funding for new technology. The best example of this might be developing lightweight, long-lasting super-batteries capable of powering light-weight cars up to 100 miles at speeds below, say, 45 miles per hour (or whatever speed would be required to reduce crash protection requirements, which reduces weight).

This proposal seems to be coming fairly late in the game, as the race for better battery technology is now in full gear because of strong customer interest in plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars.

The next six subsections all come under the heading: “Create Real Fuel Choice by Kicking the Oil Habit.” The heading could also have read: “Do Everything Possible to Expand Use of Biofuels as Much as Possible.” All of these are terrible ideas, as previously elaborated.

The authors would do well to replace this section with one called: “Create Real Life Choices by Kicking the Car Habit.” I have a feeling kicking the car habit will happen naturally, without government intervention — cars will kick us! Many of my students today cannot afford any car, and some vow never to own one — very different than 10 years ago.

Overall grade for this section: Incomplete (or if the authors don’t revise it: F-; this will stay on the transcript and prevent graduation unless the authors re-take the course and achieve a satisfactory grade). §

Next Month: Part 3

Just let the car industry try to cope with customer demand in a world that has less fuel each passing year, and let the industry decline (as it will anyway).

The overall grade for the final section of Chapter 10 is incomplete (or if the authors don’t revise it: F-).