Energy Roadmap

I've been on the road a lot for work recently, and have come across a lot of construction. Aside from the normal frustrations, I noticed that whenever one road is closed for construction, a new route must be made available if local businesses are to survive. Using this idea with respect to energy, we need to think about how we want to build our road. Building a highway with cheap concrete may be easy to build, but an ever-widening road using cheap materials won't do anything about traffic in the long-run, nor will it last or provide a good drive for anyone.

Stepping away from the analogy now, the first and most important thing that needs to be done is to reduce energy use. Waste needs to be eliminated as much as possible. Everything we do needs to get more efficient. This needs to be an ongoing process, leading the energy effort and sustaining it into the future. The days of laissez faire mentalities about energy use need to end. We're all in this together, so this needs to be a call on everyone to take this seriously, educate themselves on energy basics, and take systematic actions to incorporate conservation practices into their daily lives. Once we mark the trail, it will become easier to follow every time.

Seccond, we need an integrated approach to the entire energy flow of the country. More and more, energy is bought and sold on an integraed market, so a decrease in demand of natural gas for home heating will increase the demand for it in electricity generation. Essentially what this means is that unless we have a strategy for the entire picture, there is no solution yet.

Here I do not suppose to have the answer, but I pose a potential direction to start. First, analyze current use. Second, create a vision for the end goal. Third, define clear steps to achieve that end through systematic efforts. Going back to the road analogy, we cannot use a new highway if we don't build an entrance ramp and provide intermediate detours until the final highway is built. We also will not end up at the right destination if we do not plan the highway construction properly.

First, our current energy use is supplied by five sources as broken down by the EIA, serving four sectors (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pecss_diagram.html). Petroleum, natural gas, coal, renewable energy sources, and nuclear energy serve transportation, industrial, residential/commercial buildings, and electricity generation. Transportaion is primarily provided by petroleum; industry is served primarily by petroleum and natural gas; commercial and residential buildings are served mostly by natural gas; and electricity is mostly generated with coal, with significant contributions from nuclear and natural gas. This totals about 102 quadrillion BTU's. For the sake of argument, this figure can be used for scaling purposes only now - it's not necessary to wrap your head around just how much energy is embodied in that figure. It's like counting the national debt. Even in stacks of $100 bills, it's a lot.

The end goal I see takes the following considerations into account: transportation as it currently exists is best served by dense fuels that can easily be stored and transferred. Liquid fuels and electricity meet these criteria, so that's as far as I would propose to go right now. Again, as I said before, significant efficiency improvements are NECESSARY for any change to the energy system to be sustainable. A rough target might be an energy grid reduction of 30-50% by 2050. A 1% reduction each year is aggressive, but very achievable.

Second, the new distribution of energy I envision would include liquid biofuels and traditional renewable energy as the two primary sources. Liquid biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) and electricity can power a transportation system if driving conservation and efficiency improvements are realized and public transit is incorporated as a matter of necessity in dense population areas. These same biofuels will also need to be producecd in a sufficient quantity to supply home and commercial heating systems, as well as industrial processes. Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal power (among others) should be implemented as much as possible to supply the electric grid, with additional power supplied by fuel cell cogeneration plants, which are fueled by the biofuels, most likely reformed into a chemical composition tha can be used by the cells.

Obviously, this system would rely heavily on biofuels, so this should be the primary area of public and private investment in the near future. A sustainable biofuel generation system produces a high yield of fuel per unit of energy input, with minimal or no impact on food supplies, another critical area for consideration. The first place for use of these fuels is in the transprtaion sector, with the introduction of flex-fuel vehicles, hybrids, and electric cars. All these efforts have been started and need to continue. In the electricity generation sector, early efforts need to focus on renewable energy generation and storage (because wind and solar power do not always produce electricity exactly when it is needed).

As biofuel production is increased and a distribution system is constructed supported by the transportation sector, furnaces, boilers, and other equipment that typically burn natural gas should be designed to accept biofuel inputs. This development will affect the residential, commerical, and industrial end uses. The longest term technology development that is required by this proposal is the reforming process and cogeneration process supplying electricity and heat from fuel cells. Fuel cells are the most ideal (of the currently available technologies) electricity generation systems because of their high electricity-to-heat generation ratios and the relatively large electricity demand compared to heat requirement in the country, added to by the new electricity requirement of cars and public transit developed earlier.

The next step beyond a general framework like this would be to develop numerical targets and development timelines, which I will propose in a future post.