A Hybrid is Born
November 14, 2007 |
While you were reading the New York Times on Break Through, you may have noticed the article about how the Great Lakes wolf has hybridized into a new species. The article describes how human habitat destruction, followed by protection created conditions for the Great Lakes gray wolf to cross breed with other wolves and coyotes. Based on DNA analysis the "pure" wolf has effectively become extinct.
Commentators from both the right and left have raised dire warnings about the threat of biotechnology on the human and natural condition. Consider Francis Fukuyama's assertion that the most significant threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will alter human nature and thereby move us into a "posthuman" stage of history.
These commentators engage in genetic exceptionalism suggesting that technologies that enable us to examine life at the DNA level are destine to alter nature as we know it. The irony here is that the nature we know is the product of dramatic alteration resulting from human intervention. Our current industrial technology is the greatest culprit rapidly altering ourselves and the planet at the most basic chemical level.
Biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology and the host of post-industrial innovations represent a welcome alternative this petro/carbon-centric system that is a central source of our political and ecological ills. As I have indicted previously this is not to suggest we should not remain vigilant about the implications from the diffusion of modern technologies, we must. Suggesting technology is threat to the "natural condition," however, is a distraction at a time when we need to innovate ourselves out of a set of destructive technologies that are at the center of the ecological crisis we face. The wolfe story is simply one more example of how humans have become the meaning of the earth so lets move on.
Comments
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By accessoires psp on 2009 10 06
Thanks for this good post....
By Solar Products on 2009 06 24
Emissions targets and clean tech are by no means in conflict. Both are worthy goals.
By libhomo on 2009 06 10
So right: "Targets mean nothing if we can't get there." So how do we reduce CO2 emissions from coal-fired power, cement, and steel plants? These point sources are the big contributors to the problem.
First, it is necessary to dispose of the distractions that so frequently add noise to the discussion:
A. Demand reduction (conservation, biking to work, etc.) is of course good, but it is inadequate to make more than a small difference. In the US, and especially in China and India, demand for electricity, cement, and steel will certainly increase, way more than the effect of personal demand reduction practiced by the eco-elite.
B. Alternative fuels are also good, but also inadequate, and more expensive than coal. Coal will be the fuel that civilization will run on for the next 20 years, which is all we have to solve the climate change problem.
C. Solar and wind presently account for a very tiny fraction of electricity. There is no feasible utility-scale storage, and these sources are intermittent, therefore unreliable for baseload power to keep the lights on. At percentages in excess of 20%, wind and solar in the grid make the grid unreliable.
D. IGCC and other gasification technologies are great for the coal plants to be built in the future, but what we need now is something for the existing fleet of pulverized coal plants throughout the world. We need something to capture or otherwise separate the CO2 out of the smokestack, and then do something with it so it does not go into the atmosphere. Post-combustion CCS, in more technical terms.
So, given the foregoing realities, intelligent discussion should focus on the science and engineering necessary for post-combustion CCS, and on how government policy can provide a climate for research and development to bear fruit.
Forget about the "free market" for fostering breakthroughs in pollution control. The last thing that the giant polluters want to see is a technology that solves the problem they create -- that may become Best Available Control Technology (BACT) which they will have to spend money on. Better for them if government money goes into dry hole projects like chemical capture and underground storage, which they can then point to and use to prove that the emissions reduction goal is impossible to achieve.
Waxman-Markey gives the giant polluters two ways to fade the heat: (1) it strips the EPA of jurisdiction to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act; and (2) it allows tree offsets to substitute for actual emissions reduction, for those few tons not covered by the free allowances the bill grants. This bill is without doubt a technology killer because it removes any incentive to develop something for post-combustion CCS. And what is provided in the bill for technology development will be pursuit of chemical capture and underground storage -- to proving the excuse that it is impossible to reduce emissions.
By Wilmot McCutchen on 2009 06 09
Sachs seems to bring up a good point reg. the cost of clean energy technology. Right now it's quite high. Just an example algae-based biofuels, one of the "hot" feedstock that's making a lot of noise right now, costs 10 - to - 30 times more to make than conventional biofuels. So the issue really is how do we bring that cost down and more importantly are people aware that "going green will take more time and money than most realise?
By Terrence Murray on 2009 06 08
You are very Correct ! I am glad someone is looking at the future this is exactly what the U.S.A. needs "Right Now" Once this goal has been reached never again make the mistakes to share the insights or know-how to the eastern part of the world ! Stop being to so friendly to those asian auto makers let them work hard and pay the high import fees even if their cars are made in the states...
By Jose Nevarez on 2008 12 16
I want to know where the autor, Jeffrey Feldman, buys the crack he is smoking.
By Joey BagOfDonuts on 2008 12 01
The auto industry needs more than a loan or an investment in preferred stock in the industry. It needs some compromises from the unions on the pension funds and benefits in general. The government could take over some of the pension plans, if the unions agree to reduce the benefits the plans provide.
Beyond economic relief, the auto companies need to invest in providing Compressed Natural Gas capability along with gasoline fired engines. Thus autos could be run on gasoline and also on CNG if CNG refueling stations are available. The government should then madate that gasoline distribution companies also provide CNG refueling capability. In a sense the gasoline/CNG engines would be a type of hybrid.
By rdk on 2008 11 13
Peter, excellent post. I wonder what you think of the argument that if GM, Ford or any other company is too big to fail, it's just too big. Period. That IS what we have Anti-trust laws for after all. So perhaps we should go one step beyond considering reorganization and instead consider breaking up GM, Chrysler and maybe Ford too (if they go under) into several smaller companies, as we did with the telecoms (creating all those "baby Bells"). Then, the new companies would be smaller, nimbler, and under new management. They new business environment would foster competition, and therefore innovation. And when some of the new companies inevitably fail (whoever gets to take over the Hummer division won't fare too well, after all!) they won't be so big that they'll send shock waves through our whole economy; plus, the impact of the failing companies will be offset by the ones that succeed. You'd probably have to do something to keep Japanese and European car companies from just gobbling up the profitable new "Baby GMs," but it's an idea worth mulling over...
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 11 13
CC, I certainly feel for those who are going to face layoffs if the industry was rebuilt from the ground up (i.e. restructured through bankruptcy courts), but a bailout may be little different than bankruptcy when it comes to layoffs. As Robert Reich points out in a recent post (http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/11/real-difference-between-bankruptcy-and.html) a bailout that helps auto companies pay off their creditors, investors and executives with no strings attached will do little to make these companies more competitive or help them hold on to workers. Under bankruptcy law, the shareholders, creditors and execs would all have to share in the losses. Workers would lose some too, since they'd still face layoffs, but we can expect more layoffs if creditors and shareholders aren't expected to share in the loss. So, if we DO offer a bailout, it should come with the same kind of expectations as bankruptcy reorganizations. If it doesn't, employees of the Detroit auto companies could fare even worse under a bailout than under bankruptcy court.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 11 13
Great article! I really wish I understood the corporate incompetence of the last 40 years better. Was it just complacency from a post war world where we had no competition? And how come that culture proved so resistant to change?
By Mark Teague on 2008 11 13
On another note, the dysfunctional relationship between the oil and auto industries must come to an end before the auto industry can truly move forward.
By CC on 2008 11 13
That's a wonderful piece. We can certainly make cool things that the world wants--iPhones spring to mind. Why not autos? I do feel for the tens of thousands that are going to be severely hurting should the industry be rebuilt from the ground up, though.
By CC on 2008 11 13
Well, the premise of this piece was that IF we're going to give GM, Ford, DCX a ton of cash, we'd better get something in exchange.
There's certainly a valid point to be made that if GM, Ford or any other company is too big to fail, it's just too big. Period. That IS what we have Anti-trust laws for after all. So perhaps we should be considering breaking up GM, Chrysler and maybe Ford too into several smaller companies, as we did with the telecoms (creating all those "baby Bells"). Then, the new companies would be smaller, nimbler, and under new management. They new business environment would foster competition, and therefore innovation. And when some of the new companies inevitably fail (whoever gets to take over the Hummer division won't fare too well, after all!) they won't be so big that they'll send shock waves through our whole economy; plus, the impact of the failing companies will be offset by the ones that succeed. You'd probably have to do something to keep Japanese and European car companies from just gobbling up the profitable new "Baby GMs," but it's an idea worth mulling over...
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 11 13
I totally agree with Jessee.
This is not a time for incremental anything. How many times are we going to bail out a badly managed industry that has repeatedly failed to innovate? This is the time to hold this bailout over their heads and demand immediate and monumental improvements. When standards are raised high enough for them to realize they will never meet them with standard combustible engines then they will get the point.
It's sad to say this, but if they used the capitalist excuse of "SUVs are what the public wanted" to justify selling gas-guzzling luxury liners (which was wrong in the first place or they wouldn't be going out-of-business now), then they must also understand that they should be allowed to fail. Of course, not completely falter, but allowed to be purchased and completely retooled.
By KeyboardCowboy on 2008 11 13
The premise behind all this is that GM, Ford and Chrysler are "too big to fail." Based on this, they can agree to everything you ask, screw it all up, waste all the money you give them and then, when you ask them what happened, they will just say "We're still too big to fail, give us more money" and you will (this is known as the "AIG Strategy"). Neither the management of these companies nor the UAW have any interest in being competitive with Toyota, they just want to keep taking home paychecks they can't earn at taxpayers expense.
By the way, what does "American Auto Industry" mean when all of the big Japanese automakers, plus Mercedes, build cars here?
I disagree with the whole CAFE approach, but here's an idea: offer new car purchase rebates based on the cars' mileage BUT only if the car is assembled in the US and at least, say, 50% of the components are sourced here. Phase massive rebates in over a 8 year horizon to accommodate a design and plant building cycle (design for the US companies, plant building for the rest). Then let Toyota, Nissan, and who knows: Hyundai? Tata? Tesla? run GM and Ford into the ground with better designed, more efficiently produced cars that preserve American jobs.
If GM and Ford and the UAW surprise us by making cars that are competitive, so much the better but it will depend on the performance of their cars, not on the performance of their lobbyists.
By Robert www.neolibertarian.com on 2008 11 13
With this bailout for Detroit on the table, there's a lot of talk that we'll get a "grand bargain" with automakers out of it - they'll agree to some terms, like producing more efficient vehicles, in exchange for the loans. In fact, the direct loans approved by the 2007 Energy Bill require auto companies to use the funds to retool factories that produce vehicles that get 25% better fuel economy than the average vehicle in it's class.
But the real Grand Bargain in my opinion is to bust out of this incremental improvements mentality for fuel economy. We don't need incremental improvements, we need exponential improvements in fuel economy. Here's how it could work...
It takes something like 3-7 years to design a new car, build the plants and get it rolling off the assembly line. So, rather than say we want a 4% annual improvement in fuel economy (as current CAFE standards roughly call for), which gets us to no-where near plug-in hybrid-type fuel economy, let's say this: we'll give automakers tens of billions in loans, put tens of billions more on the table for consumer credits to purchase advanced vehicles, and provide billions more for advanced vehicle R&D incentives (for batteries and lightweight vehicle materials research). In exchange, Detroit would have to support and lobby for fuel economy standards that look like this:
-2009 to 2014: improve at 4%/year to something like 30 mpg.
-2015: jump to 65 mpg
-2018: jump to 85 mpg
-2020: jump to 100 mpg
That'll provide a clear and powerful signal that we're going to radically - not incrementally - change the American automobile, re-commit to innovation, and recapture the competitive edge in automotive technology.
By Jesse Jenkins on 2008 11 12
Vikash mentioned negawatts above, something that seems to have been left out of the initial discussion about RE v Coal...Here are some suggestions which were recently sent around Mumbai.
*Switch AC on an hour after coming to work and an hour before leaving.
*Run all ACs at 24 C (3%-5% energy saving for each degree above the common 22 C practice.
*Switch off from the plug switch (5% of usage)
*Use the sleep and hibernation mode on computers (turning them off all together when not in use is an even better option)
*Replace incandescent with compact fluorescent lamps (LED saves even more energy)
So the energy providers are not unaware of this problem of power outages and they even understand the economics. The economics are that the provider loses potential revenue from these outages. The fee structure of energy tariffs in India makes these losses worse as companies pay almost double that of residential and agricultural users. The power company has begun to realize that by promoting negawatts they can increase revenue without expensive investments in infrastructure.
Now the question is why is TATA producing a massive new coal power plant instead of distributed renewable systems...Mostly because coal is the most cost-effective way to solve the energy crisis now. But will this new generation really help remove the need for the diesel generators (remember that the need for Electricity is projected to grow at ~10,000 MW per year)?
Not really, since taking into account the 25-40% T&D losses makes this really a 2400-3000 MW power plant. The infrastructure for electricity delivery is so out-dated that the entire system would have to be revamped and almost replaced, just to make the addition of generation available to the end-user. The fact remains that the last mile is non-judgmental. All energy sources are exposed to the same losses in the last mile...but the last mile doesn't have to exist. There are options to create localized privately run distributed systems which are not grid connected and thus not exposed to the last mile. The size of these units would be much smaller than those proposed above, but done in the proper way...maybe the grid could become the source of last resort.
Okay pipe dream, this option is not fully financially viable, yet with the rising costs of diesel fuel...how long will diesel be a viable alternative?
My point is that the power outages are not going to go away in the near future...The price of diesel is going to rise...a diesel based system is no longer the 'best, cheapest, most cost-effective available technology'...time for business to pull its head out of the sand.
By Timothy Fox on 2008 05 23
Close to 90% of existing power consumption is wasteful. Demand-side Management or Negawatts as they are called, holds the key to our survival and prosperity. Here are some pointers :
1. Full utilisation of daylight ( provided by a super-ultra-mega fusion power plant 93000 miles away) Why do we need all the night lights, and all the light pollution anyway?
2. Good ventilation and airflow design in neighborhoods/blocks/buildings combined with greenery and waterbodies; wholehouse fans, heat sinks combined with solar-thermal, micro-wind AND internal power and conditioning such as Yoga or other meditation which increases our comfort range of temperature can eliminate the need for room air-conditioning, water heating/cooling even with 5 star energy saver ratings.
3. Relocalization, good organisational and workflow design can curtail the need to keep many of the machines to be power-on upto 50%.
4. Renewables if properly invested in, can cheap in to meet the 10% demand.
5. Let us leave coal,hydrates,uranium ( and all the fossil-fuel needed to produce fissile material,build and run nuclear-power plants) in the ground or below the ocean, so that we do not destroy the critical resource of relative climate stability - key to our health and nutrition.
Overlooking the rigors of inculcating a new culture of power-lite, high internal energy lifestyle, will take us through endless debates to virtually nowhere.
Regards,
Vikash
By Chandra Vikash on 2008 05 01
Hi Nathan,
Thank you very much for this very well thought out and detailed response. Here are some responses.
1. Your basic assumption is that if 100+MW renewable powerplants can be built "right next to 100+MW demand", these will become cost competitive because the electricity will be transported for shorter distances, and hence grid losses will be less. This is a false assumption. In grid losses - even if you consider technical losses only - almost all the losses happen in the "last mile" stage. See this (http://www.teriin.org/pub/papers/ft33.pdf) paper that you cited in your Grist post. Look at the table on page 2. This gives a breakup of the various types of technical losses. Only the first item in the table "step-up transformers & EHV transmission system" correspond to losses incurred in long-distance transportation of electricity via high-tension electricity pylons. And guess what? This is a maximum of only 1%. The other categories of technical losses happen in the final step-down transformers and distribution stages, i.e., in the "last-mile" stage. This is just the technical losses. Commercial losses, which anyway form the bulk of the grid losses in India, obviously happen in and around population centers, i.e., in the final distribution or "last-mile" stage, not in the long-distance high-tension electricity transportation stage. In other words, for the Mundra power plant, grid losses will be negligible all the way from the plant to the outskirts of population centers. It will be in the "last-mile" from the outskirts of population centers to the actual consumers where all the grid losses will occur. So building a 100+MW power plant (whether renewable or coal) just outside a population center will, by itself, do nothing to reduce grid losses. Whatever grid losses are expected to occur with the Mundra power plant, the same losses need to be factored in for the 100+MW renewable power plants that you suggest. The only type of renewable technology that can eliminate these "last-mile" grid losses is photovoltaic cells on the roofs of buildings, etc., because only then does the "last-mile" of the grid become redundant. But obviously these are not commercially viable, and I am skeptical of the technical feasibility as well, just considering the limited availability of roof space in office buildings, etc. However way you look at it, the grid looks to be part of the electricity equation for a long time to come, and like so many other technologies, the last mile is where most of the grid problems are. Also consider this simple question: if grid losses could be eliminated simply by building power plants close population centers, why would Tata Power, the World Bank, etc,. not just build 10 400MW coal power plants near population centers rather than a single 4,000MW centralized coal power plant. Building a 400MW is certainly not an insurmountable technical challenge, and the people at Tata Power, the World Bank, etc., are not stupid (at least as far as their own companies' financial interests are concerned).
2. I agree with you 100% that that improving the grid is absolutely necessary, and both technical and commercial losses need to be stemmed. I also agree with you that unaccounted electricity used by poor families is not the biggest problem here. In my opinion, addressing the technical losses is a fairly straightforward issue - its a matter of investing in available and proven technologies. The bigger problem is the issue of commercial losses. Unfortunately, there is a general failure of governance and administration at local levels in India. There are serious problems not only with the electricity grid, but also such basic public services as delivery of household water, maintenance of roads, provision of public health services, public transport, etc. These stem from various political, social, administrative and electoral problems. In India, farmers' electoral clout is very strong (simply because such a large proportion of the population is dependent on agriculture) and so electricity for agriculture is cheap or (in some places) free, even though it is obviously counterproductive in the long term as you point out. I agree entirely with you that it these problems should be addressed. I also agree with you that all these problems make the capital costs of deliverable reliable electricity very high. Where I disagree with you is that you think that these various problems make the capital costs for power high for coal power plants only, but you appear to believe that these problems will not apply to renewable power plants. Renewable generation of electricity will not make all these problems magically disappear. There problems are pretty much independent of the mode of power generation. How do we get farmers in India to pay commercially viable rates for the electricity they use? I really don't know. Maybe political scientists and public policy gurus have some ideas. In this scenario, the logic for large-scale public subsidy for renewable power generation (as opposed to subsidy for renewable technology development, which I think makes sense) becomes even weaker than if these problems hadn't existed. Of course, if the cost of power generation through renewables becomes cheaper than coal power generation, it will be a completely different story.
3. On captive power plants, you yourself say, except for a very few that supply power to massive industrial units (such as the Jamnagar Refinery in Gujarat), the cost of electricity from these is higher than grid electricity. So doesn't it follow logically that users will be tempted to turn these off whenever grid electricity becomes more reliably available. Yes, a 2 hour power outage rather than a 4 hour outage is not going to make any captive generation capacity go away. But, at least for the back-up generators, it will indeed reduce the time of operation of the generators by 2 hours, i.e., 2 hours less of burning diesel and spewing smoke into the air. And those industrial units that use more expensive captive power 24 hours a day will be tempted to convert to back-up systems simply from a profit and price-competitiveness point of view. Also maybe industrialists who are planning new units will factor in the 2 hours extra power supply in their planning and decide not to go in for 24-hour captive generation, but rather back-up generator systems. As you say, that's an improvement. I do feel that back-up generation capacity in India will continue for a long time, at least as in insurance policy, but I think the scope does exist to reduce the time of operation of these backup generators by building new power plants and improving the electricity grid.
4. I looked at the blog post you cited (http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2008/03/tata_ultra_mega_mistake_the_if.php), which argues that it will be cost competitive to build solar thermal power plants in India rather than the Tata Ultra Mega coal power plant. The basis of the argument is that CDM or carbon credits under the Kyoto framework will make the otherwise expensive solar thermal plans as cheap as the planned coal power plant. Unfortunately, I have never studied the CDM in any detail, so I don't really understand how it operates. But at least reading the blog, I think the argument does not pass the sanity check. Per the logic in that post, the Tata Ultra Mega plant itself will be eligible for $60million a year in CDM payments, since it will be eligible for $15 per million ton of CO2 averted every year compared to a baseline of 29.7 million tons of CO2. So in the post, the CDM difference between the coal plant and solar thermal will actually be $385million rather than $445million. On a broader level, I find this whole logic to be wierd. Per reports, China opens some 3 or 4 new coal power plants every month. So if these plants have a CO2 emission rate marginally below 29.7 million tons, they will be eligible for CDM credits. So China is bound to monopolize the lion's share of CDM payments simply by virtue of the fact that it builds more power plants (of whatever type) than any other country. How many billions of $$ of CDM will the Three Gorges Dam Hydroelectric plant get? This does not seem right to me. So either the post misrepresents or oversimplifies the CDM payments system, or the whole CDM thing is an incredibly stupid mechanism. In any case, Tata Power is financially hard-nosed company. If there is clear-cut commercial case to be made for large profits by building solar thermal power plants, you bet they will do it.
5. I agree completely with you that there is great scope in India for thermal power generation. Large parts of India are very sunny. But in my opinion, subsidies for these should come from the U.S. or the E.U., not from the Indian govt. For the Indian govt., I think money should first be spent on basic public services such as education, healthcare, a basic safety net, and infrastructure development, including, yes, an improved electricity grid. Nor do I think that the World Bank, whose funds are earmarked for development projects around the world, should pay for these subsidies. But I think, more important than subsidies for building solar thermal plants in India, the U.S. should probably first invest in further developing the technology of solar thermal plants in the U.S. itself. If it becomes cheap enough, companies like Tata Power will jump on the solar thermal bandwagon on their own. It might interest you to know that solar thermal energy is widely used in India. Solar thermal water heaters are fairly common throughout India. I recall that when I was a kid, we had a solar cooker at home, which I think the govt or some agency was distributing almost for free. It made excellent chicken curry too. But it was not convenient. We had to carry it all the way to the roof of our apartment building to expose it to the sun, and it took the whole day to cook. Other traditional forms of solar thermal power - drying laundry, drying various farm products, etc. are of course in widespread usage across India.
By Sid Shome on 2008 04 26
Sid,
Thank you for your thoughtful response to my post on Grist. I thought I would respond here rather than on Grist, where I would have to keep things short.
Let me restate in more detail my conclusion about Tata Mundra: I believe it to be exceedingly unlikely that the addition of this supply will spur (a) new electricity connections or (b) meaningfully increase supply for households with unreliable electricity. I think it is also very unlikely that Tata Mundra will be the magic bullet that stems the rapid growth in captive generation in Gujurat and other states it supplies. So let me explain in more detail the alternative approach that I would suggest for overcoming the challenges of the India grid in a way that is climate friendly. In a system where many people are paying right now for expensive diesel electricity, it seems to me it actually makes it easier to insert renewables into the picture.
I'd like to delve into this question of captive generation, and as a subset of that the back-up diesel generators you mention. Sid, I have exactly the same conception of captive/backup generation as you do. You didn�t even mention the most critical aspect of it, which is keeping internet servers running no matter what, because when Indian back offices lose reliability they lose everything. And having idle factories is not so cheap either. So this is not simply the cost of people having to take the stairs, it is massive and worth the extra costs for electricity that industrial facilities shell out.
It�s important to note that many facilities do not just have backup generators, they have their own power plants. Except for the very largest, their power is more expensive than grid electricity. (Gujurat captive generation info is here: iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/3918/Biswas.pdf)
When you have power plant power + unreliable grid +end-user equipment to protect against voltage fluctuations + backup generator, you have got to factor in the cost of the whole system to get the price of delivered reliable power. If you figure power plant +unreliable grid + small captive power plant + offset power used by agricultural consumers paying far below cost of supply (because now the industrial facility isn�t using ANY grid power), the capital costs of delivered reliable power have got to be astronomical. I think that�s the cost you need to be comparing to renewables (a good comparison of Tata Mundra with concentrated solar thermal power is here: http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2008/03/tata_ultra_mega_mistake_the_if.php.)
The suggestion that 4,000 MW of Tata Mundra power will offset 4,000 MW of captive generation power doesn�t take into account how captive generation decisions get made, apart from how, while I am not an electrical engineer, adding supply to a grid is not like filling a line of buckets with a hose. If Tata Mundra reduces Gujurat�s peak power shortfall from 12% to 6%, let�s be simplistic and say that cuts power outages in half for industrial facilities. A two hour power outage rather than a four hour power outage is not going to make captive generation go away. It�s conceivable that a different level of expected plant capacity utilization will make companies switch from full captive generation to backup generators. That�s an improvement, but I would still make the bet that when you add up the capital AND generating costs for both systems, together they�re more than renewables would cost.
As for the grid � I would not take the position that India should not build capacity until the grid is improved, even though in a lot of cases that�s probably the cheapest way to deliver more power to consumers, and demonstrated attention to grid maintenance has been shown to reduce theft as well. Several people have responded to me on the question of electricity theft. The question of electricity being used for amenities by poor households who can�t afford it otherwise is a tough question. But it�s impossible to get away from the fact that in the long run, the only thing that can sustain electricity use for amenities is a functioning power system that delivers reliable power that can be put to income-generating use and which is paid for so as to allow continued supply. Lifeline tariffs for poor households are a standard feature in many power sectors and it is really not electricity use by poor people who need it but can�t afford it that is pulling down the system.
As far as technical losses, even where rural electric co-ops have taken over for state utilities and brought theft down to almost zero in rural areas, the grid still loses 15-20% in technical losses. So that might be taken as a baseline of technical losses and that�s double what it could be. If Tata Mundra power is going to 5 states as the IFC says, it is going to be going a long way on a bad grid.
The real key here that I think holds promise is the fact that if you build 100+ MW of renewable power � maybe solar thermal as is being done in the U.S. with comparable insolation levels to Gujurat - and you put it right next to 100+ MW of demand instead of way off on the coast where a mega coal plant can get the water it needs, you can probably deliver a much greater percentage of it, you can improve the grid right there at much less cost to make that supply reliable, it strikes me that if utilities take a distributed generation approach � which is exactly what captive generation is � you can not only produce the utility power cleanly, you can obviate the need for backup and captive power at the scale that it exists in India. So again, line the full system cost of Tata Mundra up with backup generators and compare that to solar thermal and see how the costs come out.
On that basis, I would bet that renewables can get close if not even. But even if it�s merely close, it strikes me that that has be what public financing should be flowing to, not to marginal efficiency gains of efficient coal over less efficient coal, or even coal over diesel generators.
By Nathan on 2008 04 24
Teryn, you are absolutely right. As you very rightly point out, the whole business of carbon credits and CDM and the whole Kyoto framework is deeply flawed. The only way to halt the rapid growth of new coal power plants in India (and even more so in China) is to develop new energy technologies that are clean and cheap. This is unlikely to happen unless there is massive investment in these new technologies. Unfortunately, many environmentalists are fixated on a different idea: how to reduce energy consumption. But energy consumption is not all bad. In many parts of the developing world where people are living in poverty, increase in energy consumption would be good (less poverty in the world is good). The real question is: how to reduce emissions even while increasing energy consumption.
On a different note, an interesting article in today's NYT on new coal power plants in Europe http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/europe/23coal.html
By Sid Shome on 2008 04 23
A flaw in Nathan's analysis is his assertion that "investing in coal generation... has the effect of spurring the construction of small-scale fossil fuel generation." As Sid points out, new electricity in any form -- whether it be from a new coal plant or efficiency gains -- should reduce the use of these backup generators.
The question is how large the cost difference is between investing in the new coal plant versus electrical infrastructure efficiency gains. AZ seems right that more analysis should be done to determine the trade-off.
If the irreliability issue is actually just one of supply and demand, as Sid says, it would seem plausible that a central station plant could address it just as effectively as investments in transmission system upgrades or in distributed generation. If the short-term cost premium for efficiency upgrades is outside the realm of Indian's economic and political feasibility, then it seems there's a good case for the plant to be built.
Nevertheless, something feels strange about having a post on our blog in support of developing an ultra-mega coal plant. I think a simple reframing of this argument would help. The larger point is that the World Bank's support of such a project illustrates 1) the CDM has serious problems, 2) massive numbers of coal plants will continue to be built without major advances in clean energy, and 3) developing nations will become sustainable to the extent that we invest in their development.
By Teryn Norris on 2008 04 23
AZ, say that you drive a 15 year old gas-guzzling, CO2 spewing SUV that is about to quit working. You're thinking of buying a replacement. Should you buy the hybrid Toyota Prius now? Or should you make temporary repairs to your SUV and wait for plug-in hybrids to become available in, say, three years? Or should somehow keep your SUV running and wait till solar-powered cars become available in, say, 15 years? We all have to make trade-offs between the long term and the short term, balancing various factors. Most reasonable people would agree that considering the expected increase in electricity demand in India, the status quo, with frequent power cuts, and proliferation of extremely dirty small-scale electricity generators, is simply unacceptable. You do the best that you can with the technology available today. Hence the coal-fired power plant. The trade-off seems eminently reasonable to me. I am sure the professionals at Tata Power, and the World Bank and other banks that are financing the project have done their own detailed quantitative trade-off analysis as well. Unfortunately, clean renewables (except hydro) have not yet reached the point of being commercially viable on a large scale. This is exactly why Breakthrough is pushing for large public investments in these relatively nascent technologies. Hopefully, such investments will indeed be made and new, cheap, clean energy technologies will be developed that will be able to hold their own in trade-off analyses with coal-fired power plants in the future. I also want to point out that it may be possible, in the future, to retrofit this and other coal power plants with carbon-capture-and-storage technology that can greatly reduce carbon emissions (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7202637.stm ). So even if the plant remains in use for a long time, emissions could potentially be reduced.
By Sid Shome on 2008 04 23
Interesting post. Essentially the argument is that large coal plants are less dirty than the alternative, which is portable diesel power generators. This is relatively convincing, except I think it misses one point. I am certainly no expert on the Indian energy sector, but it seems to me that building such a large coal plant assumes that it will be in use for a long time. Regardless of the advances in technology, which Breakthrough advises is our only way to mitigate global warming impacts, this coal plant will remain a relatively dirty form of energy production until it comes off-line. Backup diesel generators, however, have much lower fixed costs and are, if Mr. Shome is describing their intended use correctly, not meant as a permanent fixture of India's power supply portfolio. Therefore, there is a tradeoff between short term, marginally cleaner energy and long-term barriers to a clean Indian power grid. This is not to say that the trade-off isn't worth it, but some analysis would need to be done to make that determination. Just because it is cleaner than the status quo does not immediately suggest that it should be built.
By AZ on 2008 04 22