Renewables Spurred by Natural Gas Development?
Renewables are part of the energy revolution in the US made possible by shale gas but you wouldn’t know it given some of the sector’s stupid friends.
Two reasonable sounding arguments against shale gas here in the UK/EU are a fear that cheaper natural gas makes investments in efficiency and renewables uncompetitive. That was the argument proposed by both Craig Bennett of Friends of the Earth and Tom Burke of E3G on Sky News and BBC News Channel on July 28 during the few minutes we were allowed together.
Is it a reasonable argument? As usual, the US provides some answers. European Greens like Craig and Tom don’t quite get that the US energy transformation (energiewende) is not only about gas. It’s about several systemic disruptions across energy. The shale revolution isn’t the only game in town anymore and disruptions are breaking out in efficiency, wind and solar.
Shale Gas, Renewables and Efficiency – The Triple Revolution
It sounds perfectly reasonable to people to say that surely we can just be more efficient. The answer is two yesses. Yes, we can, but also, yes, we already are. A core assumption is that modern life is inevitably energy intense, but here’s an interesting fact via BP World Energy Statistics. Convert energy use from all sources (oil, gas, coal, nuclear and renewable) to Trillion Barrels of Oil Equivalent (TBOE) and peak energy was 228.2 in 2005, compared to 223.9 in 2000. The figure of 200 TBOE in 2013 shows an encouraging drop both this century and from the pre-recession peak of 2005.
But, most interesting of all, is how the UK uses roughly the same amount of energy today than we did in 1968 when there were 8.5 million less of us watching one 19 inch black and white television in an unheated home, and walking to work for far lower average disposable income.
Trillions of Barrels of Oil Equivalent Used in UK
In short, as in most things, life is getting better by almost any measurement, but we’re far more energy efficient than most people lead themselves to believe. In the USA, the TBOE figure of 2265 is 75% more ,but population rose 63% since 1965, and there was a substantial migration to the sunbelt brought on by the development of wide scale air conditioning. In short, the richer we become, the more energy efficient we systemically become.
Returning to 2014, we see that US shale is a revolution that peacefully co-exists with a revolution in lower energy use and higher renewable penetration. From the Wall Street Journal, no sign that cheaper shale gas in generation is an enemy of either efficiency or renewables:
When customers of American Electric Power Co.started dialing back on power consumption in early 2009, company executives figured consumers and businesses were just pinching pennies because of the recession.Homes and industry are cutting energy use organically as almost everything we buy is far more efficient than the product it supersedes. Something as mundane as lighting is a good example but computers are another. The big success is in auto fuel economy which cuts carbon emissions as this from the US EPA shows:
Five years and an economic recovery later, electricity sales at the Columbus, Ohio-based power company still haven’t rebounded to the peak reached in 2008. As a result, executives have had to abandon their century-old assumption that the use of electricity tracks overall economic conditions.
“It’s a new world for us,” says Chief Executive Nick Akins.
Green World Still in Dark Eyeshades
But it’s the same old world that UK greens, and their nimby allies who see all change as negative appear to live in, even when utilities problems stem from renewables success. I’ve noted before, and mentioned to Tom Burke at the BBC, how Texas shows wind and hydrocarbons get along just fine in Texas. In the UK, the song is things can only get better, but in Texas, they are:
..turning wind into electricity is one thing; moving the energy to a profitable market is another. For years, the wind industry has been hampered by such a severe lack of transmission lines that when the wind is strong, a local power surplus forces some machines to be shut down.
Now, Texas is out to change that by conducting a vast experiment that might hold lessons for the rest of the United States. This year, a sprawling network of new high-voltage power lines was completed, tying the panhandle area and West Texas to the millions of customers around Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and Houston.This is completely counter to UK (and US) green narratives: The world hydrocarbon capital providing more gas, more wind, more efficiency and lower CO2. Quite a switch from the Energiewende example. A better question may be to ask why aren’t EU efficiency and renewable targets achieving the same success as in the US?
The project, its supporters say, is essential if states are ever to wean their reliance on fossil fuels and meet new federally mandated rules to reduce carbon emissions.
Texas Natural Gas and Renewables Electricity Generation Both Huge
Could it be that cheaper natural gas incentivizes green technology not to stagnate or disappear, but to flourish? Could it be that the integration of renewables into the electricity network is not hindered, but actually accelerated by low cost natural gas?
Incentives to replace CO2 clearly aren’t working in Germany and the UK:
Germany and the United Kingdom have 18 of the 30 most polluting energy plants in the European Union, according to a study by green NGOs, funded by the European Union.But returning again to the US both solar and gas are flourishing, albeit at US subsides far lower than UK ones.
The United States put online 102 utility-scale solar PV and concentrating solar power plants with a total capacity of 1.13 GW in the first six months of 2014, according to the latest Energy Infrastructure Updatefrom the nation’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
This represents a 5% decline from the first half of 2013, but is still 32% of new generation put online during the period. In June 11 utility-scale PV plants totalling 40 MW were commissioned, with First Wind’s 14 MW Warren PV plant in Massachusetts as the largest completed during the month.
FERC’s monthly reports do not include “behind-the-meter” residential and commercial solar, and if these were added solar would make up closer to half of new generation during the first half of 2014.
Natural gas continues to be the leading form of new electricity generation in the United States, and another 1.55 GW of gas plants were added in the first six months of 2014, making up 44% of recorded capacity.Most importantly Monday, in what may be a Khruschev speech moment for UK greens, The Guardian offered them some uncomfortable reading.
The very word sounds designed to shock, and it really can make the earth move. But there are serious reasons why fracking is likely to be part of Britain’s future. The caprice of global markets, which Vladimir Putin does much to emphasise, puts a premium on sourcing some energy at home…and if the UK is to curb emissions, then – on top of scaled-up renewables and reduced waste – we’ll need cleaner hydrocarbons to burn.The comments, and Tony Bosworth’s letter in response, show reality is slow in coming. But once it does, there’ll be more and more of it.
…green groups must be thankful to have a popular countryside crusade they can embrace – opposition to the nascent fracking industry, which the government kickstarted this week by announcing that most of the country is open for prospecting for shale gas. But it is not obvious that they are winning the race yet or even that they have backed the right horse.Editor’s Note: Nick’s piece is on the right track. Subsidies to the renewables industry put a relative handful of government officials in charge of picking winners and losers, rather than consumers making free choices. They inevitably distort markets, while making any industry dependent upon them lethargic and less likely to innovate. Renewables are doing better here in the US than in the EU precisely because we do less force-feeding of them. Natural gas is the natural ally of renewables development and, as Texas goes, so goes the nation. Unfortunately, some renewables advocates have been drawn into an “us vs. them” ideological war that ignores this reality. That’s the sort of thing stupid friends do and stupid friends are always a lot more dangerous than your enemies.
