Coal

                                                                                       written 21 January 2024

                                                                                   published 28 January 2024

  

            Coal is created from dead plant matter by the heat and pressure of deep geologic burial, applied over millions of years.  Depending on pressure and temperature, coal qualities and uses vary from lignite (lowest, electrical generation), through bituminous (steam propulsion), to anthracite (highest, heating).  Coal of any quality is mostly carbon, with hydrogen/carbon ratios of less than 1, and often includes sulfur, mercury, uranium, thorium, and arsenic.

            Coal has been used for thousands of years, the first developed fossil fuel.  Coal was originally gathered at the sea shore, where coastal erosion exposed seams.  As with all finite resources, the easiest coal resources were quickly depleted.  Pit mining arose to meet the increasing demand, as coal became used for residential cooking and heating.  The rise of the Industrial Revolution was powered by coal, demanding increased production with deep shaft mining.  Extraction has now expanded to the more invasive, environmentally damaging, mountain top removal.  Rather than digging a hole down to where the coal seams lie, the whole mountain top is removed, pushed into the surrounding valleys, allowing recovery of the coal using massive machines.  

            Coal is the most abundant of fossil fuels, but also the most limited, only good for external combustion industries like electric power production and steel.  These days, coal produces 34 percent of global electricity, and 28 percent of all energy.  But the low ratio of hydrogen to carbon means coal combustion generates twice as much CO₂ as natural gas combustion, per unit of energy.  

            The trace elements in coal also degrade the environment.  Sulfur dioxide emissions create hazardous air pollution particulates and sulfuric acid rain, which leaches aluminum into the environment.  Mercury is toxic, and the radioactive elements are carcinogenic.  Consequently, coal smokestack emissions cause asthma, strokes, reduced intelligence, arterial blockages, heart attacks, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, and lung cancer.  Workers breathing coal dust suffer from "black lung", killing about 1500 a year in the US.  When local residents complained about adverse health impact, very high smoke stacks were built so the contamination was more wide-spread further down wind.  The industry mantra is "the pollution solution is dilution".  

            Global coal consumption is about 9 billion tons a year, which generates 900 million tons of toxic ash, a massive waste disposal problem, expensive to handle correctly, so it often isn't.  China consumes half of all the coal used, and India and the US use another 10 percent each.  Air quality in China is appalling.  The US health care costs associated with coal are $70B annually.   

            Coal seam fires are a global problem.  These can start from spontaneous combustion underground, or be ignited by surface fires at exposed deposits.  Once ignited, a coal seam fire is difficult to extinguish.  The ground can subside and release toxic combustion gases, both problematic.  The fire can break out to the surface, causing other wild fires.  In Centralia, Pennsylvania, a fire ignited in 1962 still burns.  Coal fires in Australia and Tajikistan have been burning for thousands of years.  

            As awareness of the climate crisis has grown, focus on the problems of coal have increased.  "Clean coal" is mostly a political fiction.  While there are technologies that can capture the CO₂ from the stack, they are so expensive and energy intensive that the process is uneconomical in the face of declining renewable costs.  The rapidly expanding climate crisis is forcing a decline in coal consumption, which peaked in 2008 at 30 percent of overall energy production.  US coal consumption is down 10 percent from 2008, and coal plants are being repurposed.  

            But the industry refuses to accept that their assets are now "stranded", and their investment headed toward bankruptcy, if we want a habitable planet.  In the face of reduced domestic demand, they try to increase exports to Asia, which still burns a lot of coal.  However, less than 10 percent of domestic coal is shipped from western North American ports and those communities vigorously oppose allowing new or expanded export of coal through them, not only for global environmental concerns, but because the shipping process itself is dirty and toxic to the local area.  A few years ago, plans were filed to ship unit trains of coal from Wyoming, through Mendocino county, for export from Eureka, but that plan failed.  

            A technological society needs energy, but we can no longer mindlessly kill people and the planet to achieve that goal.  It's time to change our thinking.

 

 

Crude Oil

                                                                                       written 14 January 2024

                                                                                   published 21 January 2024

 

            Crude oil, or petroleum, now supplies about 1/3 of all the energy on the planet.    A complex and versatile organic material, oil consists of different length chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms, ranging from pentane (5 carbon atoms) to asphalt (35 carbon atoms), with hydrogen/carbon ratios between 2.1 and 2.4.  Of the 100 million barrels consumed each day, 1/7 becomes asphalt or is used as feedstock for over 6,000 other kinds of materials and chemicals, and the rest is burned for transportation and heating.  Combustion releases carbon dioxide, an atmospheric pollutant, now pushing the climate crisis to the point of rapid exponential change.

            Petroleum has been used for thousands of years, for medicinal or ceremonial purposes, as waterproofing material, or as flammable weapons of war.  The first industrial uses began in the mid 1800's, as distilled kerosene displaced whale oil for lighting.  In the 1900's, the rise of internal combustion motive power, in all the various forms, became the primary use for oil.

            Compared to coal, the previous dominant fossil fuel, oil has more energy density, and is much easier to store, ship, and utilize.  With abundant domestic oil reserves, US oil production grew rapidly, giving the US control of the expanding global oil market throughout most of the 1900's, especially after WW2.

            Early oil resources were relatively shallow, and were accessed by simple techniques, such as just punching a hole in the right place, and controlling the flow that gushed out.  As these first resources depleted, better drilling techniques accessed deeper reserves, and improved pumps brought oil to the surface.  Oil geology advanced, and the entire planet was surveyed for oil reserves.  By the 1960's, discovery of new reserves peaked and declined.  

            In 1972, domestic US oil production peaked, and the US, almost bankrupt from the war in Vietnam, cut the dollar loose from gold.  This ended a period of post war global economic stability.  The US lost control of the oil market, replaced by OPEC, dominated by Russia and Saudi Arabia with their vast oil reserves, and the price of oil tripled, initiating a decade of extreme inflation.  Eventually, the global economy stabilized, Saudi Arabia agreed to make all oil purchases in US dollars, and the international oil companies became more powerful.  With annual revenues of $6 trillion, 14 companies, out of 200, now control half the industry.  

            This has brought out the worst in corporate capitalism.  Massive foreign investment in one section of an economy causing the rest of the economy to suffer.  Add in the total lack of concern for the adverse environmental impact of oil production, and you find wastelands wherever oil development occurs, and the physical health of people living near oil development deteriorates.  Nothing gets in the way of increased profits. 

            As major reserves continued to reach peak production and decline over time, the industry pushed development into more difficult and expensive areas, such as the north slope of Alaska and the deep ocean.  In addition, oil recovery techniques improved.  Once the first pressure of a new reserve declines, constant pumping is required, raising costs.  A secondary recovery method is to pump water into the reserve, which raises costs further, but floats the last bit of oil to the surface to be recovered.  Saudi Arabia state owned oil reserves are secret, with unknown quantities left.  However, they have been pumping massive amounts of water into their fields for over 20 years.  

            Tertiary recovery methods include developing tar sands, and fracking.  Tar sand recovery is more like mining: very expensive, very water intensive, with massive environmental impact.  Fracking harvests thin layers of oil trapped within rock layers: also expensive, with a large environmental impact.  Despite this, fracking now produces 1/2 of US oil.  However, the produced oil is light, which can't be refined into diesel fuel, explaining why diesel prices are so high. Since 2005, fracking has lost billions, while depleting the most promising fields, and polluting the ground water in the areas being developed. 

            The global resource is finite.  Global production of conventional oil peaked in 2005, contributing to the financial crash a few years later.  Global production from all sources peaked in 2018, but the impact has been masked by the economic decline from the COVID pandemic.  

            The climate is rapidly getting worse, and oil, a significant cause, gets more expensive as supplies tighten.  It's time for a change, if we want to survive much longer.

 

Natural Gas

                                                                                         written 7 January 2024

                                                                                   published 14 January 2024

 

            Natural gas, named originally to distinguish itself from "rock gas" formulated from coal, is mostly methane, CH₄.  With four hydrogen atoms for each carbon atom, natural gas has the highest hydrogen to carbon ratio of all fossil fuels, and has been billed as a "cleaner" energy source for decades.  Globally, natural gas produces 23% of all the electricity and is 24% of all energy sources in total.

            Being gas at room temperature and pressure, it is more difficult to store and ship than the other two fossil fuels: crude oil and coal.  When the natural gas sources are relatively close to where it is consumed, pipelines are used.  The US has over 3 million miles of high-pressure line, operating at as much as 100 times atmospheric pressure.  

            Over time, age and gas flow erodes the pipes, causing local disasters, such as PG&E's 2010 San Bruno explosion and fire.  In 2015, the Southern California Gas underground natural gas storage near Los Angeles blew out, producing the largest methane leak in US history. 

            Global natural gas consumption is expanding.  China, and others, are shifting away from domestic coal and expanding gas imports.  The recent invasion of Ukraine resulted in sanctions against Russian natural gas imported into the EU, further stimulating overseas natural gas shipping.  Increasing demand raises prices.  A few years ago, PG&E announced that they will no longer expand their domestic natural gas system, in part because global gas prices are fluctuating too much. 

            To make overseas shipping possible, the gas is liquified.  Liquified natural gas (LNG) is cooled to -163°C, taking only 1/600 of the volume, but requiring about 10% more energy to cool it, and further energy to reformulate back to gas at the consumer end.  LNG facilities only make financial sense if they operate for 30 years.

            The climate crisis comes from increased atmospheric heating, resulting from changing chemistry in the atmosphere.  Because some chemicals, such as carbon dioxide, are relatively transparent to light, but absorb heat radiated back from the surface of the Earth, they are called greenhouse gases (GHG).  As with all fossil fuels, natural gas combustion produces carbon dioxide as a by-product.  Because this carbon was sequestered millions of years ago, it adds to the current atmospheric carbon dioxide problem.  

            Natural gas is even worse as a greenhouse gas than just the carbon dioxide addition, because methane is over 80 time more potent a GHG than carbon dioxide.  Even though methane breaks down in the atmosphere within a decade, becoming carbon dioxide, it has massive short-term impact.  With the climate crisis entering into an explosive expansion phase, this becomes increasingly problematic.

            All natural gas systems leak methane into the atmosphere.  Since it is colorless and odorless (the smell of natural gas is added), leaks throughout the industry are numerous and generally unnoticed.  As LNG is shipped, some heats back to gas and is vented to the air.  

            The global economy adds 38 billion tons of CO₂ each year, and 135 million tons of methane, of which 15% comes from natural gas production.  The heating impact from methane is equal to another 11 billion tons of CO₂ each year.

            Beginning in 2005, US production of natural gas leaped.  As conventional oil depleted and production began to taper off, producers were forced to expand into more expensive unconventional oil resources, mostly deep ocean and fracking, to meet global demand.  Fracked wells now account for 1/2 of the oil and 2/3 of the natural gas produced in the US.

            Fracking is a type of tertiary recovery method, required where fossil fuel reserves are thinly located in rock, like marbling in beef.  Consequently, fracking is very energy intensive, using high pressure to crack open the rock, injecting sand to keep it open, and then pumping out the thin layer of oil and gas.  Because the resources are very dispersed, production from a fracked well begins to deplete rapidly, declining about 50% in just the first year, so new wells have to be drilled continually.  This means the cost of oil and gas has to remain high enough to keep production profitable, and the most economical areas are already being depleted.

            Natural gas is expensive, and the prices will continue to rise.  Combustion adds to the atmospheric CO₂problem, and methane leaks are powerfully worse.  However, the push is on to move past natural gas, if we want a habitable planet for our descendants.

Nuclear (Yet Again)

                                                                                   written 31 December 2023

                                                                                     published 7 January 2024

 

            At COP28, the latest United Nations Climate gathering, nuclear power received more attention.  Saudi Arabia committed to developing nuclear electrical generation.  China is constructing 21 large nuclear reactors.  Some people believe a massive nuclear build out will avert the climate crisis.  The 436 reactors now operating produce about 10 percent of the global electricity.  It would take 10,000 additional reactors to completely decarbonize the global economy.

            It is true that an operating reactor produces no greenhouse gases (GHG), but when the whole life cycle of a reactor is analyzed, including construction and fuel enrichment, a standard 1,000MW reactor releases GHG comparable to a natural gas power plant.  Even that evaluation is incomplete, as it excludes complete decommissioning of a large nuclear plant (never been done), and long-term storage of high level nuclear waste (not yet done even after 70 years). 

            Nuclear corporations were blackmailed into business.  After the atomic destruction in Japan, the US government wanted a happy face for the atom, so Atoms For Peace promoted "power too cheap to meter".  The electrical industry was told to develop nuclear power, or the government would do it, putting them out of business.  This was a bluff, but nobody knew it then.   

            Economically, nuclear power is a bust.  Reactors are large, expensive, and centralized, making construction more an art than manufacturing.  Costs consistently comes in over budget and behind schedule, making nuclear power more expensive than solar or wind, even including storage.  Even operating an existing nuclear reactor is more costly than building renewable projects.  While solar, wind, and battery costs are dropping every year, nuclear costs keep increasing.  Small modular reactors (SMR), heralded as the salvation of the nuclear industry, suffer the same cost problems, plus a lack of customers.  The only SMR project in the US was just canceled due to cost overruns. 

            Uranium is a finite commodity, and used inefficiently.  A reactor core contains tons of highly processed enriched uranium.  After a few years, when only 5 percent of the uranium has been consumed, the core must be replaced.  When fission byproducts build up, performance degrades to the point of economic inefficacy.  Millions of tons of highly radioactive "spent" fuel are stored at reactor sites.  The best uranium deposits have already been developed, leaving only poorer quality ore.  Most low level enriched uranium comes from Russia.   

            But the real economic costs come when a reactor breaks.  Designed to last for 40 years, decisions were made in the beginning with incomplete information, with multiple units built on those designs in order to make nuclear construction seem profitable.  So far, the worst US designed reactor failures were the 40 year old units at Fukushima, in 2011.  Complete cleanup cost estimates are over $1T.  Actual repairs have yet to begin, because radioactivity is too high for even robots to function for very long, let alone humans.

            The only reactors still operating in California are the 40 year old pair at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo.  Heavy radioactivity embrittles metal, making it more prone to shock failure.  Several earthquake faults have been identified near the site, including one right through the plant.  PG&E has done embrittlement tests, but refuses to release the results to the public, claiming "proprietary rights".  The Diablo Canyon reactors were recently granted a 5-year extension, with no changes required to the existing, aging equipment. 

            A reactor failure due to a seismic event could affect a large area of central California, from LA to San Francisco and inland to Nevada, depending on which way the wind blows.  But PG&E would not be liable for any damages beyond $13B, due to the Price Anderson Act, a sweet heart deal the US made when the nuclear industry began.  Every liability insurance policy written has an exclusion for nuclear damages.  This all helps the nuclear industry seem profitable.  

            Nuclear power highlights a fundamental capitalist problem: the conflict between safety and profits.  Each reactor is so powerful, that any accident can become catastrophic faster than humans can react.  It is so expensive, that the incentive is enormous to cut costs to be more profitable.  Add in limited corporate financial liability, and you get a recipe for disaster.

            Fukushima shows the "small probability, high impact" nature of a failed nuclear reactor.  The economics of even a properly operating reactor fail basic capitalist reasoning.  To leave a habitable planet for our descendants, we have to do better.