Power Hungry (2 page)

—
Washington Times

“Bryce uses copious facts and research to make a compelling case that renewable sources have their place in our energy future but they aren't the viable panacea we're led to believe.”

—
Library Journal

“[A] terrific buy for anyone with a strong interest in the nation's energy supply. ... A full 54 pages devoted to references illustrate the comprehensive research Bryce has done, as well as the quality of his sources. He is at his best destroying many of the myths regarding
renewable energy, providing powerful mathematical proofs that anyone can understand.... The primary theme of this book is the importance of power density. As Bryce thoroughly documents, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power provide such power density while wind, solar, and biofuels do not. You will not find a book on energy that makes this important point more strongly than this one.”

—Jay Lehr,
Heartland Institute

“
Power Hungry
provides a grand tour of our energy landscape in the best journalistic tradition of serving the public good, exposing the cant of received wisdom and using the authority and weight of good numbers to put ideas into proper perspective. Bryce's numbers provide giant shoulders upon which to stand, allowing us to see farther and better, increasing our knowledge and improving the odds for institutional wisdom. There are few things more important to the world's life, liberty, and happiness than an enhanced ability to convert abundant energy into high power at affordable cost. Robert Bryce, with buoyant bonhomie, marks the way.”

—Jon Boone,
MasterResource.org

“Robert Bryce is an energy realist. So reading him is refreshing. First, because most people when discussing matters of energy are either ill- or misinformed, naïve, liars, or have a personal stake in the policy outcomes. Second, because every time I read something by Bryce, I learn something new....
Power Hungry
[is a] laser-like dismantling of the myth that so-called green energy can displace fossil fuels anytime in the near future.”

—Sterling Burnett,
National Review Online

My daughter, Mary, has many favorite authors. One of them is Shannon Hale, a successful writer of novels for young adults. A while ago, Mary quoted Hale's writing advice: “Write what fascinates you.”
¹

Hale's advice reminds me of just how lucky I am. There is no more complex or more fascinating topic than energy. We use that word—based on the Latin
energia
—to describe a myriad of different forces, substances, and ideas. These many meanings—whether it's the chemical energy in a chunk of coal in a Chinese power plant or the kinetic energy in a baseball that's been tagged for a quick ride into the cheap seats by Bo Jackson's bat—are too numerous to be encompassed by a single word.

In addition, the scale of energy use and the complexity and importance of the energy business are unmatched by any other industry. The study of energy includes physics, geology, chemistry, engineering, metallurgy, telemetry, seismology, finance, politics, religion, biology, genetics, botany—the list goes on and on. The energy sector has captivated me since I was a child growing up in Tulsa, and no matter how much I study it, I still feel like a rank amateur. And yet, if we are to make wise choices about energy policy, it is essential for all of us—as voters, as owners and managers of businesses, and as policymakers—to understand what energy is, what power is, how they are measured, and which forms of energy and power production make the most sense environmentally and economically.

I have written this book to help people gain that understanding. I have attempted to explain the fundamentals of energy and power production in a way that will enable readers to understand the energy policy debate and make informed decisions. I believe in the relentless application of
logic to our discourse on energy, power, and the future. And so I also wrote this book in the hope that it would help to inform a more careful and reasoned approach to energy use and policy. The need for that approach became evident during the promotion of my last book,
Gusher of Lies
, which explained why the United States cannot—and will not—be “energy independent.” In the months after the book was published, I heard one question repeated more than any other: Why don't we use more renewable energy?

That question is of great interest to me because I have invested directly in renewables. I have 3,200 watts of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of my house in Austin. Although those panels provide about one-third of the electricity that my family and I consume, and provide for a slight reduction in our monthly electricity bill, the capital cost of the panels was quite high, the panels require regular cleaning, and they have not been without problems. I've only owned the panels for about five years, and the inverter, which turns the 12-volt power from the panels into 110-volt power that we can use in the house, has already failed once. Luckily, it was still under warranty. But when I'm up on the roof with a long-handled mop every month or so, swabbing those panels, I wonder if they were really worth it.

My personal experiences, as well as the many studies that have been done on both wind and solar, have led me to conclude that those energy sources will remain niche players for the foreseeable future. And yet, many Americans simply don't want to hear that. The romance of renewable energy is such that we are ignoring logic and common sense as well as hard facts and figures. We must bring more depth to the discussion, more reasoned analysis, more evidence-based decisionmaking, and less emotion and biased thinking.

In this book, I have attempted to make the mathematics as accessible as possible by including plenty of graphics and by showing my calculations in the endnotes. But let me be clear: Deconstructing the vagaries of the world's biggest industry requires digesting a lot of data. I have chewed on lots of numbers over the past few months, and you will need to gnaw on a few digits, too, if you are to truly understand the issues. If I have made errors in my calculations, or in the text, graphics, or endnotes, please forgive them. These mistakes are mine and mine alone. If
you do find an error, please let me know so that I can correct it in the next edition.

Readers will likely notice that this book contains a number of references to books and articles by Vaclav Smil. I make no apology for that. Smil, who has published about thirty books, has spent most of his long career focusing on energy, and in a sector where cant and hyperbole often dominate, his work stands out for its erudition and clarity. I also make frequent references to the work of Jesse Ausubel. Again, I make no apology. Ausubel is among the foremost energy thinkers in the United States, and his work has helped to shape my approach to energy issues. When I met Ausubel for the first time in Manhattan in September 2008, I asked him to name his favorite authors on energy-related topics. He named Smil and then added, “I am not very interested in what other people are writing. I am interested in data.” Ausubel's point resonated and I began mining energy data so that I could make my own calculations, draw my own conclusions, and create my own graphics. Too much of our energy discussion is dominated by glib pundits who do not do their own research. In addition to his savvy analytical skills, Ausubel can turn a phrase. A few months after our first meeting, he told me that “other people's data, like other people's money, can be perilous.”

Among the main data sources that I mined for this book was the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. BP publishes its data in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, which facilitates the kind of number crunching that is essential in discerning trends. Although every data source has its limitations, the BP Statistical Review has become a standard reference for the energy industry and is trusted by researchers and forecasters around the world.

I would like to thank my friend and colleague Seth Myers for helping to create the figures. Seth is a journalist with a masters degree from the University of Missouri who knows how to make graphics that tell a story.

I would also like to thank my new friend Stan Jakuba, who volunteered to educate me in energy conversions, SI, and the differences between power and energy. He was also a marvelously scrupulous reader who never tired of reading yet another draft of the manuscript—or of advising me to cut yet more words. My longtime friend Robert Elder Jr.
offered encouragement, read many drafts, and continually demanded that I make my arguments more lucid. I appreciate his assistance.

I have been extremely fortunate to have the help of my father-in-law and favorite chemist, Paul G. Rasmussen, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, who provided constructive comments on multiple drafts of the manuscript. He patiently tutored me in thermodynamics and taught me about batteries, the periodic table, and the peculiarities of the lanthanides.

I must acknowledge Michael J. Economides, Christine Economides, and Alex Economides, who have been supportive of my work at
Energy Tribune
and elsewhere, and my friend Mimi Bardagjy, who graciously and punctiliously helped me with fact-checking. My agent, Dan Green, continues to be a wonderful sounding board and friend.

In addition I would like to thank the people at PublicAffairs, including the publisher, Susan Weinberg, and editor-at-large Peter Osnos. Susan and Peter, along with Tessa Shanks, Whitney Peeling, and Clive Priddle, are real pros. My favorite person at PublicAffairs, Lisa Kaufman, has edited all four of my books with patience and keen insight. She worked me like a sled dog, but she understood how I needed to structure this book to make it more readable. I am extremely lucky to have such a skilled editor and such a dear friend.

I would also like to thank the following: Chris Cauthon, Becca Followill, John Harpole, Art Smith, John Olson, Randy Hulme, Mark Papa, Buddy Kleemeier, George Kaiser, Tad Patzek, Mark Mills, J. Paul Oxer, Bryan Shahan, Violet and Ronald Cauthon, Hans Mark, Vic Reis, Pierre-Rene Bauquis, Bertrand Barré, Jarret Adams, Patricia Marie, Joe Bryant, Porter Bennett, Swadesh Mahajan, Joe Craft, Eric Anderson, Terry Thorn, A. F. Alhajji, Fred LeGrand, Donald Sadoway, Harold Weitzner, Martin Snyder, and Bill Reinert.

Since this book is about energy, here are a few factoids that might be of interest: It was written with a MacBook Pro (equipped with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor) attached to a 30-inch Apple monitor. Together, the computer and monitor draw about 180 watts (0.24 horsepower). I use a Brother laser printer that draws about 12 watts in standby mode. The primary software programs were Microsoft Word for Mac 2004, Excel, and NoteTaker. I've bragged about NoteTaker before. It's
indispensable. During the course of writing this book, I conducted more than 200 interviews, created about 150 Excel spreadsheets, read and clipped about 500 news articles, created about 200 graphic files, and purchased and read (or skimmed) about four dozen books.

Last but not least, I must acknowledge my trophy wife, Lorin, and our trophy children, Mary, Michael, and Jacob, who were frequently ignored during the writing of this book. I have to say it in every book, so here goes: Lorin, children, I love you more than chocolate.

Austin, TX
31 January 2010

The Cardinal Mine

 

 

 

 

W
HEN PETE HAGAN hits the right seam, he can mine a dozen tons of coal in 45 seconds. Working an array of toggle switches mounted on a radio-controlled panel hanging from a dusty strap around his neck, he stands a few feet behind a snarling orange mining machine as it assaults an 8-foot-high wall of bituminous coal.

Hagan deftly toggles a switch and the massive, low-slung machine made by Joy Mining Machinery lurches a few feet forward.
¹
Sparks fly off the wall of coal as the huge rotating drum of carbide-steel claws rips in. The dark workspace boils over with dust and noise. The narrow beams from the electric lamps on our hard hats bounce around the cavern, barely piercing the surging cloud of coal dust. Within seconds the dust subsides as water hisses from jets on the mining machine, dousing the coal shooting through that voracious maw. The conveyor belt on the machine's tail slams hundreds of pounds of coal rearward through its gullet onto a “shuttle car”—a long, big-wheeled, electric-powered vehicle that ferries the coal from the mining machine to a string of conveyor belts that whisk the fuel to the surface.

The shuttle car overflows with black rocks. The vehicle's driver, sitting in a windowless cab slung on the side, snaps a silver lever, and the machine lurches into reverse and quickly vanishes around a corner in the barely lit underground labyrinth. For 20 or 30 seconds, while waiting for another shuttle car to appear, Hagan has a chance to talk.

Visitors are rare here, 600 feet below the rolling woodlands and farmland of western Kentucky. A quick interview yields the relevant facts: Hagan has been mining coal underground for thirty-six years—and he likes it. In a soft, slow drawl, he explains the various buttons and switches on the control panel for the mining machine. The brick-sized battery clamped to his belt powers the control panel for the mining machine as well as for the lamp clipped to the front of his hard hat. “This one controls the height of the rotor,” he explains, flipping a switch that sends the massive, steel-toothed rotor roaring to life. As he wipes the dust off the switches to display the labels on the panel, an empty shuttle car whooshes into view. Without a word, Hagan returns to work, turning the fury of the mining machine back on the coal seam. Within a minute, the new car is filled to overflowing, and, like the one before it, disappears to disgorge its load.