A GRAND OVERVIEW OF ENERGY

Let me begin with a short overview of my life in energy:

• But my renewable energy life began with my father's father, Kenjiro, who in the early 1900's was in charge of building the first hydroelectric plant, at Wainiha on Kauai.  Here I am more than a century later in the powerplant, where the pipeline and much of the equipment, were still in use producing 3 MW of electricity

• When I graduated in 1962 with a degree in chemical engineering, my first job was in biomass engineering with the Hawaii sugar industry, where I spent six years on everything from helping manage a sugar factory to conducting  research at the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association.  Now, they're all gone.

• After getting my PhD in biochemical engineering, I joined the College of Engineering at the University of Hawaii:
• My first project was with the Hawaii Geothermal Project, where as a reservoir engineer, we discovered the hottest  geothermal well in the world in Puna, leading to the production of 38 MW of electricity, until the lava came this year.  We now have zero MW of geothermal power, but just last week Pacific Business News reported that 1000 MW (about the average electrical production in the state/day) could well be available.
• I initiated research on microalgae raceways utilizing carbon dioxide from powerplant emissions, to reduce global warming, while developing future renewable transport fuel.
• Further into biofuels, I led a Hawaii Natural Energy Institute study that recommended methanol as the next transportation fuel and hydrogen as a future  jetliner option.

• I then spent three years in the U.S. Senate and wrote original legislation on ocean thermal energy conversion and hydrogen.  I also helped pass the first legislation on wind energy to begin the national program, for prior to my congressional experience I was chairman of the windpower division of the American Solar Energy Society.
• I helped create the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, where the foremost efforts, both at $25 million, had to do with building an OTEC plant at the Hawaii Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority and a bio-methanol plant at one of the HC&S factories on Maui.

• I became director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, and in my 15 year leadership help bring to the University of Hawaii national centers in hydrogen (Department of Energy), seabed resources (Department of Interior) and marine bioproducts (National Science Foundation).

• I also led an international effort to remediate global climate change.
• Much of the above led to formation of what I consider to be the energy and resource future of Hawaii and World:  the Blue Revolution.

• I've given more than a 100 talks on various aspects of energy and published a hundred papers on the subject.  My SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth summarized my life in energy and environment.

The problem is how in one blog posting do I crystallize the entire field of energy in one grand overview?  Well, here goes.

Globally we have continued to increase our use of energy:

Note that:

• Oil and natural gas consumption continues to increase.
• Coal looks like it is dropping, but the reality is that there were increases in 2016 and 2017.
• Renewable energy is booming, right?  Yes and no.  It's increasing, but the when you increase by a small amount when the utilization is tiny, means almost nothing compared to increases in all the fossil fuel use.
• Nuclear fission appears to be declining.

No wonder that, with all that fossil fuel increase, global climate warming is becoming worse.  What about the Paris Agreement?  Key countries like the USA, China and India are just not cooperating.

What about Peak Oil?  Well, read this Forbes article.

The USA was at the forefront of the this doomsday prediction.  In 2007 the U.S. produced 5.1 million barrels of oil/day.  In 2015, this jumped to 9.4 MBD, and this rate continues today.  Shale oil and fracking came into prominence.  Blame me.  I was advising Senator Spark Matsunaga in the early 1980's when the U.S. Congress passed legislation to promote shale oil production.  Part of my interest was that I had just come to DC from working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where in-situ coal/shale gasification was a developing project.  In those days, global warming was not on my radar screen.

For the record, Russia produces 13% of world oil, Saudi Arabia 13% and U.S. 12%.  But that was last year.  As of last month, the USA snuck past Russia, 11.3 to 11.2 MBD, with Saudi Arabia at 10.4 MBD.

Mind you, there will still be some sort of Peak Oil, but the peak has been shifted in the U.S. half a century and more into the future:

Here is a really complicated way to graphically portray world energy use, called the Sankey diagram:

First of all, you can't read it, but if you could, you'd get lost anyway.  I will thus minimize, and try to avoid, these types of graphics in my future energy postings.

The Energy Information Agency estimates that 23% of the world electricity generation came from renewable sources in 2015.  That sounds wonderful.  However, consider that 71% of that percentage was the result of hydropower, which has reached a peak, so the solar/wind/biomass/etc other options are still developing  Consider further that 63% of energy use does not go to electricity production, and the amount of renewables for transportation and everything else not electric is virtually zero, and you can understand why the total energy used in the world is dominated by the conventional sources.

Similarly, Scientific American this year featured:

As Hawaii Aims for 100% Renewable Energy, Other States Watching Closely

When you read the article, you find out that the goal is for the year 2045, and only for electricity production.  Fully two-thirds of the energy used in Hawaii does not go towards electricity.  Current trends indicate that in 27 years very little of our air transport requirements will come from the renewables, and there are mixed reactions on how electric cars will do.

In summary, renewables have developed well for electricity production.  However, appreciate that a progressive future will be retarded by financing credibility, infrastructure and the general opposition of the fossil fuel industry.  Then, too, there is the economic reality.  While some forms of green energy cost more, there are definite breakthroughs occurring, for geothermal and wind energy enterprises now come in below the cost of even natural gas:

You need to click on that above link to truly understand what the above means.

In any case, two more points worthy of mention here:

• Fossil fuels, especially coal, use will not voluntarily be reduced unless there is a crippling environment penalty.  Global warming appears to be serious enough that there will need to be a carbon tax levied.  No matter how much you try, absorbing carbon dioxide from stack gases will be uneconomical, and attempting to suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be even more expensive.

• Federal governments will need to significantly upgrade the development of clean energy for transportation.  Hope electric cars make it, but the transition bridge will still involved fossil fuel electricity for decades to come.  We need to upgrade efforts to develop a direct methanol fuel cell and find a catalyst that can transform gasified biomass into bio-methanol.  In parallel, it is not too early to develop a hydrogen jetliner.

Next week Wednesday?  Black Energy.

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