Cost Assessment of Sustainable Energy Systems

What are the costs and environmental impact of nuclear energy? The answer differs depending on who gives it. Does any research exist that is free from vested interests? According to many experts, the report “Cost Assessment of Sustainable Energy Systems” that has been produced as part of the EU’s 6th Framework Program is such a report. (Download Cost Assessment of Sustainable Energy Systems.)

The cost of new energy production has previously been estimated by various institutes but for the 6th Framework Program these institutes made a joint application for research support. Most of the 26 participants from 20 nations are associated with universities in Europe but institutes in Brazil, India and China were also included. On the Swedish side, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) is a participant. This collaboration has included in its calculations the “private costs” (i.e. monetary costs) and external environmental costs. In the report, Figure 3.1 Life Cycle Costs gives the current costs and the costs in 10 years time and in 2030. Before the figure, tables are also given with costs.

Let us first note that wood chips are absolutely the cheapest form of al energy forms but that its environmental cost is greater than for nuclear energy. In terms of investment, nuclear is more expensive than other energy forms but its environmental impact is very small, including the impacts of mining. Windpower has the same small environmental impact but, per kilowatthour, it is more expensive to build. It requires subsidies.

When considering windpower and solar energy these are energy flows that we cannot control. In the 1800s it was acceptable to have un-regulated windpower and in 1820 there were 1713 windmills on on the island of Öland in Sweden. They had time to wait for the wind to come to then mill their grain. Today we have two holes in the wall that require electricity even when the wind is not blowing. We can regulate some proportion of windpower with hydroelectricity but if we take away nuclear energy and replace it with windpower then there is insufficient regulatory power. The precondition for an ability to invest in windpower is that baseload electricity production exists. In Demark, this is generated using coal, in Poland coal is used, in Germany it is coal and in Sweden it is nuclear energy. Should Denmark, Poland and Germany shut down their coal-fired electricity generation and Sweden shut down its nuclear power? The answer is that a fossil-free Europe requires nuclear energy and a fossil-free Sweden requires nuclear energy.

Is nuclear power dead? The reality is that 5 new reactors have been brought on line this year and that 60 are under construction according to the IAEA in Vienna. Here is the link that reports this..

(English will come)

Vad är kärnkraftens kostnader och miljöpåverkan? Svaret blir olika b eroende på vem som svarar. Finns det någon undersökning som är fri från intressen? Enligt många experter är rapporten Cost Assessment of Sustainable Energy Systems, som gjort inom EU:s 6:te ramprogram en sådan rapport, (nu rätt rapport) Cost Assessment of Sustainable Energy Systems

Kostnader för ny energiproduktion har tidigare beräknats av olika institut men inför det sjätte ramprogrammet gick dessa institut in med en gemensam ansökan. Flerparten av de 26 deltagarna från 20 länder är associerade till universitet i Europa men också Brasilien, Indien och Kina. Från svens sida deltog Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Man har tagit hänsyn till privata kostnader, dvs kostnader i kronor, och externa miljökostnader. I rapporten livscykelkostnader figur 3.1 finns kostnaderna nu, om 10 år och 2030. Innan figuren finns också tabeller med kostnader.

Låt oss först notera att pellets är det absolut billigaste men miljökostnaden är större än för kärnkraften. Kärnkraften är investeringsmässigt dyrare än en del andra energislag, men miljöpåverkan är mycket liten, gruvdriften är inkluderad. Vad det gäller vindkraften har den samma lilla miljöpåverkan som kärnkraften, men per kilowattimma är den dyrare att bygga. Det krävs subventioner.

Vad det gäller vindkraft och solenergi så är det frågan om flödande energi som vi inte kan kontrollera. På 1800-talet gick det bra att ha icke reglerad vindkraft och år 1820 fanns det 1713 väderkvarnar på Öland. Man hade tid att vänta på vinden och mala säden just då. Idag har vi två hål i väggen som kräver att det finns ström även då det inte blåser. Vi kan reglera en del vindkraft med vattenkraft, men om vi tar bort kärnkraften och ersätter den med vindkraft då finns det inte tillräckligt med reglerkraft. Förutsättningen för att vi skall kunna satsa på vindkraft är att det finns en basproduktion av el. I Danmark är det kol, i Polen är det kol, i Tyskland är det kol, i Sverige är det kärnkraft. Skall Danmark stänga sin kolkraft, skall Polen stänga sin kolkraft, skall Tyskland stänga sin kolkraft, skall Sverige stänga sim kärnkraft. Svaret blir att ett fossilfritt Europa behöver kärnkraft och ett fossilfritt Sverige behöver kärnkraft.

Är kärnkraften död? Verkligheten är att 5 nya reaktorer har tagits i drift i år i världen och att 60 är under konstruktion enligt IAEA i Wien. Här finns länken som nämner detta.

Valet i Sverige och Peak Oil / The election in Sweden and Peak Oil

(English below)

De närmaste veckorna kommer valet i Sverige att analyserats nationellt och internationellt. Den humanistiska analysen kommer att koncentrera sig på det faktum att Sverige liksom många andra länder i Europa nu har ett främlingsfientligt parti i riksdagen. Vi alla från höger till vänster som har en annan humanistisk åsikt är naturligtvis förtvivlade och det betryggande är att vi utgör 94 procent av befolkningen.

Det är också lätt att konstatera att Peak Oil inte fick någon betydelse för valutgången, men då framtidens politik formas är det ingen tvekan om att Peak Oil måste finnas med i diskussionen. Med framtidens politik menar jag inte bara de närmaste 4 åren utan de närmaste 10 till 20 åren. Under de gångna fyra åren har Peak Oil påverkat den globala verkligheten. Det prismaximum på olja som vi upplevde 2008 har Peak Oil som en av de bakomliggande faktorerna.

Det som bokförs som olja har flera komponenter, men ungefär 72 utav 85 miljoner fat olja om dagen är råolja, den vätska som vi historiskt alltid betraktat som riktig olja. Faktum är att den globala råoljeproduktionen nådde sitt maximum, 2005 och att vi nu har en svagt lutande nedförsbacke. Tunga oljor, oljesand, naturligt flytande gas och etanol gör att vi under de senaste åren trots det haft en ökad volym av flytande bränslen. Jämfört med råolja har vi produkter som kräver en annan industriell bearbetning och det driver upp priset.

Det finns en internationell konsensus om att produktionen av råolja kommer att minska de närmaste 10 till 20 åren och varje regering bör planera framtiden utifrån denna verklighet. Den miljöbelastning som utvinning av oljesand medför bör inte accepteras och det medför att framtidens transportsystem kräver alternativ till olja, och ur ett längre perspektiv är det nödvändigt att satsa på ökad användning av elektricitet då det gäller transporter. Sedan 1970 har oljeanvändningen inom den svenska transportsektorn nästan ökat med 100 procent och den trenden måste brytas på ett sätt så att vår ekonomi inte skadas och brytpunkten bör komma under de närmaste fyra åren. Det betyder att Peak Oil måste komma in då framtidens politik formas.

The election in Sweden and Peak Oil

In the coming weeks the election in Sweden will be analysed nationally and internationally. The humanitarian analysis will focus on the fact that Sweden, like many other nations in Europe, now has an anti-immigrant party in parliament. All of us from the right to the left of the political spectrum who have a different humanitarian viewpoint are, naturally, disturbed by this. The comforting fact is that we make up 96% of the population.

It is also easy to assert that Peak Oil had no impact on the election result. However, there is no doubt that Peak Oil will shape future political debate. By future I mean not only the next 4 years but the coming 10 to 20 years. During the past 4 years Peak Oil has influenced global reality. Peak Oil was one of the factors that lay behind the price maximum for oil we experienced in 2008.

That which is counted to as “oil” has many components, but of the 85 million barrels of oil produced per day 72 are crude oil, that fluid that we have, historically, regarded as real oil. The fact is that global crude oil production reached its maximum in 2005 and we are now on a gently sloping decline. In contrast, heavy oils, oil sands, natural gas liquids and ethanol mean that, over the past few years we have had an increased volume of liquid fuels. Compared with crude oil these products require more intensive processing during production and that drives up the price.

There is an international consensus that the production of crude oil will decline during the coming 10 to 20 years. Every government should plan for the future on the basis of this reality. The environmental impact that extraction of oil from oilsands involves should be seen as unacceptable. That means that future transport systems require alternatives to oil. From a longer perspective it is necessary to invest in increased use of electricity for transport. Since 1970 oil use within the Swedish transport sector has grown by nearly 100% and that trend must be reversed in a way that does not damage our economy. The turning point must come during the next four years. That means that Peak Oil must be included when future policy is created.

BIO-TOPICAL: GOA

For the past three years the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm has had a Master degree program that focuses on resources. The theme in the first year was “Beyond Oil – Shanghai“. The course began with a lecture on Peak Oil and the scheme was the same last year and the year before when they studied Los Angeles. Now they are starting a new course with a slightly different focus, “the global welfare equation”, but the first item on the schedule is still a lecture on Peak Oil.

Today (Friday) I will meet the new Master degree students and the theme for this year’s course is “Biotopical: Goa”. Here are a few lines from the course description:

The world’s population is predicted to grow to 9 billion. This will mainly occur on Asia’s coast and river delta landscapes. These geographies possess an intrinsic conflict whereby they are fertile, biodiverse regions and, therefore, attract increasing human populations that threaten these conditions. Must bio-diversity be pitted against density? Can urbanization find another way to interpret this current dualism of nature and culture? Must human needs and urban growth occur in opposition to biological diversity? Can biological processes themselves give us clues to other ways to view innovation and maybe even one that includes urban development?

Kungliga Konsthögskolan I Stockholm har under två år haft ett masterprogram som fokuserar sig på resurser och första året var temat “Beyond Oil – Shanghai“. Kursen inleddes med ett föredrag om Peak Oil och schemat var det samma förra året då man studerade Los Angeles. Nu startar man en ny kurs med lite annorlunda fokus, men först på schemat står fortfarande ett föredrag om Peak Oil, men nu med fokus på ”den globala välfärds ekvationen”.

Idag möter jag de nya masterstudenterna och årets tema är Bio-topical: Goa. Här är några rader från programbladet:

Världens befolkning förutspås växa till 9 miljarder. E n ökning som i första hand kommer att ske i Asiens kust- och deltalandskap. D essa geografier har den inneboende motsättningen av att vara fruktsamma miljöer för alla varelser och därmed attrahera en befolkningsmängd som hotar just dessa gynnsamma förutsättningar. Bio-diversitet ställs mot densitet? Skulle urbanisering kunna omfatta ett annat sätt att tolka den gängse dualismen av natur och kultur? Står mänskliga behov och urban tillväxt nödvändigtvis i polaritet med biologisk mångfald? Kan biologiska processer i sig ge oss ledtrådar till andra sätt att se på innovation och en inkluderande urban utveckling?

Coal and Oil: The Dark Monarchs of Global Energy: Understanding Supply and Extraction Patterns and their Importance for Future Production

My student Mikael Höök has now made his thesis public by using a nail and hammer and this ”nailing” is an old tradition at Uppsala University, Sweden. The thesis “Coal and Oil: The Dark Monarchs of Global Energy: Understanding Supply and Extraction Patterns and their Importance for Future Production” can be downloaded from Uppsala University (go to download). You can read the articles in the thesis by downloading the “Athors version“ of the listed publications.

The public defense of the thesis will be on September 24th at 9 AM at Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala. This is the third thesis about Peak Oil related subjects from Uppsala Global Energy Systems.

Abstract:

The formation of modern society has been dominated by coal and oil, and together these two fossil fuels account for nearly two thirds of all primary energy used by mankind. This makes future production a key question for future social development and this thesis attempts to answer whether it is possible to rely on an assumption of ever increasing production of coal and oil. Both coal and oil are finite resources, created over long time scales by geological processes. It is thus impossible to extract more fossil fuels than geologically available. In other words, there are limits to growth imposed by nature.

The concept of depletion and exhaustion of recoverable resources is a fundamental question for the future extraction of coal and oil. Historical experience shows that peaking is a well established phenomenon in production of various natural resources. Coal and oil are no exceptions, and historical data shows that easily exploitable resources are exhausted while more challenging deposits are left for the future.

For oil, depletion can also be tied directly to the physical laws governing fluid flows in reservoirs. Understanding and predicting behaviour of individual fields, in particularly giant fields, are essential for understanding future production. Based on comprehensive databases with reserve and production data for hundreds of oilfields, typical patterns were found. Alternatively, depletion can manifest itself indirectly through various mechanisms. This has been studied for coal.

Over 60% of the global crude oil production is derived from only around 330 giant oilfields, where many of them are becoming increasingly mature. The annual decline in existing oil production has been determined to be around 6% and it is unrealistic that this will be offset by new field developments, additional discoveries or unconventional oil. This implies that the peak of the oil age is here.

For coal a similar picture emerges, where 90% of the global coal production originates from only 6 countries. Some of them, such as the USA show signs of increasing maturity and exhaustion of the recoverable amounts. However, there is a greater uncertainty about the recoverable reserves and coal production may yield a global maximum somewhere between 2030 and 2060.

This analysis shows that the global production peaks of both oil and coal can be expected comparatively soon. This has significant consequences for the global energy supply and society, economy and environment. The results of this thesis indicate that these challenges should not be taken lightly.

Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis

Ten days ago there was an article in the Guardian where they wrote that Peak Oil has been on the government’s agenda although it does not want to discuss it. Yesterday an article was published in Spiegel Online International where they assert that the Ge rman government also has Peak Oil on its agenda, Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis.

Earlier this year there came a report from the American military and if you put this together with the fact that organizations within the OECD have been in contact with me to discuss this issue we have a clear signal that 10 years of work has begun to leave its mark.

Personally I can only give one piece of advice – you who want to plan a future 10 years in advance must nu have Peak Oil on your agenda.

För 10 dagar sedan fanns det en artikel i the Guardian där man skrev om att Peak Oil fanns på regeringens agenda fastän man inte ville diskutera det. Igår kom en artikel i Spiegel online International där man hävdar att även den tyska regeringen har Peak Oil på agendan: Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis.

Tidigare i år kom det en rapport från den amerikanska armen och om man lägger ihop detta med det faktum att Organisationer inom OECD har varit i kontakt med mig och diskuterat denna problematik har vi nu en klar signal på att 10 års arbete nu börjar ge avtryck.

Personligen kan jag bara ge ett råd, ni som vill planera en framtid 10 år från nu måste ha Peak Oil med på agendan.

Hubbert’s Peak, The Coal Question, and Climate Change

Professor David Rutledge from Caltech, USA, will on September 2 give the following seminar:

Hubbert’s Peak, The Coal Question, and Climate Change

When: September 2, time: 14:00, where: Ångströmlaboratoriet, Uppsala universitet, room 80127

Abstract: An accurate estimate of the long-term production of oil, gas, and coal would be helpful for the ongoing policy discussion on alternatives to fossil fuels and climate change. It takes a long time to develop energy infrastructure, and this means it matters whether we have burned 20% of our oil, gas, and coal, or 40%. In modeling future temperature and sea-level rise, the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the most important factor. The time frame for the climate response is much longer than the time frame for burning fossil fuels, and this means that the total amount burned is more important than the burn rate. Long-term oil, gas, and coal production are traditionally estimated by government geological surveys from measurements of oil and gas reservoirs and coal seams, together with an allowance for future discoveries of oil and gas. We will see that where these estimates can be tested, they tend to be too high, and that more accurate estimates can be made by curve fits to the production history.

You can call 070 425 0604 if you like to have details.