DIABOLICAL CONSPIRACY TO SAVE THE WORLD!

Energy for the New Millennium: The Solar Imperative

Denis Hayes - Basel - 30 July 1998

Human beings have long had major impacts on their local environments. The Mesopotamian agricultural revolution converted the Fertile Crescent – the cradle of civilization – into the desert wastes of Iraq. We have long flooded river valleys and converted forests into cropland.

What is different at the dawn of the new millennium is that we now have the power to reshape not just regions or countries but the entire planet.

We are changing the global climate. We have drilled two holes through the ozone layer. Human activities have triggered a catastrophic epidemic of extinctions – conservatively estimated at 25,000 species per year.

The human population has expanded beyond the world's carrying capacity. And we have built an arsenal of powerful bombs capable of causing more destruction than an asteroid collision.

In short, our species recently has taken on the attributes of a planetary geophysical force.

Few human activities produce a wider range of impacts than our use of energy. Climate change – with its implications for agriculture, disease vectors, collapsing ecosystems, and (in the longer run) the possible collapse of the West Antarctic ice shelf – is an energy- driven phenomenon. So are acid rain, urban air pollution, hydroelectric flooding of river valleys, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Two billion people — 70 percent of the population in the developing world — still rely on fuel wood, animal dung, and kerosene for energy. These fuels can have profoundly negative consequences for economic development and the environment. In these 400 million Third World households, noxious fumes from interior fires are a serious health risk.

My job this morning is to sketch the contemporary energy issue in a global context. Others will examine these issues in greater detail. My overview will strive to provide a sense of perspective.

THE REAL ENERGY ISSUE

The world today uses commercial energy at a rate of about 12 Terawatts. (One Terawatt-Year equals about 1 billion tons of High Quality Coal, so each year we use the energy equivalent of about 12 billion tons of coal.)

Notice the term I used: "commercial energy." This consciously excludes much energy that is vital to life and civilization, but is never bought or sold. The hydrological cycle that purifies our water and grows our crops is not counted. The sunlight that drives all photosynthesis is not counted.

If the sun didn't shine, your home would be a few hundred degrees below zero when you turn on your furnace. Solar-designed buildings collect and store more of this solar energy than standard buildings, but all buildings get most of their energy from the sun.

The flow of energy from the sun is so huge that it dwarfs all commercial energy sources. Moreover, it is so dependable that we can take it for granted. The amount of sunlight is not at issue; the only real question is how well we will harness it.

Again, we currently use about 12 terawatts of commercial energy. How much energy will we need a half-century from now?

Today, the average American uses energy at a rate of about 12 kilowatts. (That's all commercial energy for all uses by all sectors of the economy, divided by all the people in the country.)

The average Swiss uses about 6 kilowatts.

But how much will we need 50 years from now?

Let's be robustly optimistic. Let's assume that within 50 years, all the buildings in the world have been replaced by new, much more efficient buildings using passive solar design and smart energy-saving devices.

Let's assume the world's transportation systems have been entirely replaced by much more efficient new systems, not dependent on gasoline.

Let's assume that the world's industries are employing super-efficient technologies that have not yet even been dreamed of, powering businesses as foreign as Microsoft or Nokia would have seemed in 1950.

If we achieve the sort of energy efficiency revolution that will be described in detail by others speakers at this conference, the average person throughout the world could be prosperous, comfortable, and productive a half century from now using about 25 percent as much energy as the average person uses wastefully in the United States today -- or roughly half as much as is used by the average Swiss.

If we accept these assumptions, the answer for the year 2050 is 3 kilowatts/person -- worldwide.

Meanwhile, what is likely to happen to population? Let's continue to be optimistic, and assume that the world's population levels out at 10 billion people. Note: This requires lowering the fertility rate down to replacement values (2.1 children per woman) for the whole world by 2025.

This means overcoming fanatical religious, cultural, nationalistic, and probably racial opposition. However, if we fail to solve the population problem – and in the long run that means reducing the human population to within the long-term carrying capacity of the planet -- we cannot hope to solve the energy problem.

OK, Let's do some simple mathematics.

Population kW/Person Total Terawatts

In this scenario, which probably errors on the side of radical optimism on all counts, we will need 30 Terawatts, worldwide 50 years from now. Where can we get it?

About two-thirds of all unrecovered oil is now in the Middle East. There has long been something approaching a consensus that world oil production will peak sometime between 2005 and 2015. Oil will be a minor contributor by 2050.

Similarly, conventional natural gas will be a minor contributor by 2050.

Much methane is stored in unconventional deposits, as "deep" gas or "tight" gas or in geopressurized brines. Such gas will be neither cheap or environmentally clean, and its problems will probably limit it to a minor role in 2050 as well.

The earth has ample coal for coal to remain a major energy source in 2050 -- but we shouldn't burn it. Thirty terawatts would require the combustion of 30 billion metric tons of coal a year, increasing atmospheric CO2 over today's base by about 3 percent per year -- enough to alarm even those who pooh pooh climate change.

Moreover, coal is even more unevenly distributed geographically than oil, so a heavy global dependence on coal era would imply political difficulties and balance-of-trade problems for much of the world.

There is nowhere near enough Uranium-235 to meet a 30 terawatt demand, so a global nuclear power strategy would require a substantial commitment to breeder reactors the far-more-abundant U-238 into Plutonium-239.

Beyond the safety problems with breeders, they produce fissionable isotopes that can be easily separated by chemical means to make bombs. This much nuclear energy would require enough plutonium to produce several million nuclear bombs per year.

As India and Pakistan recently demonstrated, and Israel and North Korea demonstrated earlier, nuclear power, sooner or later, leads to nuclear bombs. A nuclear powered world would be a terrifying world.

Hydropower now yields the thermal equivalent of 0.8 Terawatts. Ultimately, hydropower is unlikely to yield more than 1 to 1.5 Terawatt.

Harnessable wind at acceptable locations will probably grow to 1 to 1.5 TW -- the same order of magnitude as hydropower.

Incidentally, in 1997, more new wind power capacity was installed around the world than new nuclear capacity. Germany is now the world leader.

Fusion reactors will not make a significant contribution to a 30-terawatt world energy budget within 50 years -- if ever. The first generation will be deuterium-tritium reactors with many of the same problems as conventional light water reactors -- and they are likely to run into the same opposition for the same reasons: radioactive waste plutonium breeding, etc.

Moreover, it is impossible to imagine ways such awesomely complicated devices could be made economically affordable.

We chose to ignore the sun earlier in this discussion. However, in 2050 commercial solar energy will almost certainly be our brightest energy source.

26,000 TW of sunlight falls on land. If we convert 1/2 of one percent of that at 20 percent efficiency, we can harness 26 TW -- about enough to meet our optimistic projections.

It is the only source likely to be able to make a contribution of this magnitude.

Solar energy can be harness in many ways. Let me say just a few words about what I consider the most promising solar prospect – a technology to which I've devoted much of my adult life: solar photovoltaic cells.

Solar cells are an astonishingly attractive energy source. They consume no fuel; produce no pollution; generate no radioactive waste or bomb-grade materials; have long lifetimes; have no moving parts to break; require little maintenance; and produce zero carbon dioxide – the principle greenhouse gas.

But solar cells are expensive. How do we make them affordable soon enough to complete such a massive, global transition within 50 years?

The model to follow is that of the integrated circuit.

In 1961, a company named Texas Instruments began producing integrated circuits for very small, specialized applications. The private sector heaped scorn on those early efforts. Referring to an early integrated circuit, a director of Philips Electronics commented, "This thing
only replaces two transistors and three resistors and costs $100. That's just crazy!"

But the American military recognized the potential importance of small, lightweight, low-power integrated circuits. It proceeded to purchase them in such quantities that the price fell dramatically.

YEAR PRICE MILITARY %

By 1971, a substantial commercial market had been built for microelectronics; Intel introduced the first central processing unit; and the personal computer revolution was born.

Today, millions of people have more computational power sitting on their desks than NASA had available for the entire space program in the 1960s. This was possible only because the government purchased truckloads of expensive integrated circuits in the 1960s until economies of mass production began to drive their costs down.

The same basic strategy -- government procurement pulling the prices down the learning curve -- would work for solar cells (which coincidentally are made of the same semiconductor materials as computer chips).

A well-designed program to spend $6 billion on cost-effective solar cells over the next four years could make solar cells commercially viable for a significant fraction of all new electrical applications worldwide.

For pocket change – literally $1 per person on Earth – we could fundamentally alter the human prospect.

The world's governments should commit to buy $1 billion worth in 1999 at $3/watt or less; $1.5 billion worth in 2000 at $2/watt or less; $1.5 billion worth in 2001 at $1.50/watt or less; and $2 billion worth in 2002 at $1.00/watt or less.

Such a program would do for solar cells what Defense Department procurement did for integrated circuits.

When large-scale purchases lower the price of a product, the change is permanent. Unlike tax credits and other legislated loopholes, economies of mass production cannot be repealed.

Part of the beauty of this "computer chip" solar strategy is that, after a few years, no additional government action would be needed.

But this initial governmental action will require a vast outpouring of intense public support. The energy industry is fiercely competitive and incredibly powerful.

Twenty years ago, conventional fuel companies successfully crushed government programs that were aimed dramatically accelerating the solar transition. In a recent talk to an oil industry trade association, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate dismissed solar energy as the "hippie energy source." How do we overcome this opposition.

One important instrument could be Earth Day 2000. Earth Day will focus on a variety of global issues – and energy will be among the most central.

The Earth Day 2000 campaign will pioneer techniques for using the Internet as a global organizing tool. Sort of like a global SUN-21, we will also disseminate the Earth Day goals and programs through public service announcements, feature articles, religious sermons, TV specials, school curricula, concerts, plays, and every other avenue of communication to which we can gain access.

Then, on April 22 itself, more than 200 million people in 150 countries will come together in the largest peacetime event in history to demand that this millennium year be a true turning point in our stewardship of the Earth.

In the United States, we plan to stage at least 40,000 events involving at least 80 million Americans -- including the largest rally ever held in Washington, DC.

We would be gratified if Switzerland were to make a similar commitment to using Earth Day 2000 as a focal point of efforts to create a balanced, healthy, sustainable future. If you are interested, get out a pen. In just 30 seconds I will tell you how to reach our web site.

After the first Earth Day in the United States, we passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act, and established the Environmental Protection Agency. This wave of change has caused has resulted in more than $2 trillion being spent to improve the quality of the environment.

The world is entering a time of unparalleled opportunity. The East-West conflict that shaped and defined the last half-century is now over. It is possible now to dare to dream of replacing the Cold War with a Golden Age.

One can envision an attractive world in which:

- all energy is derived from renewable sources powered directly or indirectly by the sun;

- the recycling of basic metals approaches 100 percent;

- paper is routinely recycled several times before being consumed as fuel;

- a stable human population eats healthy, low-meat diets that are within the biological carrying capacity of the planet;

- information-dense, super-efficient, pollution-free technologies guide commerce, transportation, and residential living;

That is not the direction we currently are heading. But Earth Day 2000 is setting out to change all that. In about one month, you will be able to reach us at our initial "placeholder" web site at http://www.earthday.net

I hope you will join us in using Earth Day 2000 to start changing the course of human history.

ELECT YOURSELF! ACT LOCALLY - ACT GLOBALLY.

Citizens Executive Administration
of the United States of America

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)