The Climate Race
Is there energy to slow climate change?
If global warming's worst effects are to be averted, new energy sources must be developed on a massive scale. But there will be winners and losers in that process. Sarah Gardner and Sam Eaton take us to two locales with stakes in America's energy future.
eSolar executive Dale Rogers and one of the "power towers" at eSolar's facility in Lancaster, Calif. (Sarah Gardner / Marketplace)
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Judy Bonds, a West Virginia coal miner's daughter, is an outspoken advocate for wind power.
Lorelei Scarbro points to Coal River Mountain, where she would like to see wind turbines, but which could be mined for coal.
Klaus Lackner, a Columbia University geophysicist.
CORRECTION: This story as broadcast misstated the proportion of the nation's electricity that is generated by burning coal. It is 45 percent. The script has been corrected.
TEXT OF STORY
KAI RYSSDAL: Much as it has on the international level, the domestic debate over what to do about global warming came to a political fork in the road today. The Senate Environment Committee is discussing that chamber's climate change bill. They're in their third day of hearings. But they may not get much further.
Today, Republicans on the panel said they're considering boycotting more meetings. They want an analysis of the costs of the bill from the Environmental Protection Agency. The head of the EPA says that could take a month. By then it'll almost be time for Copenhagen -- a big U.N. meeting on global warming is set for early December. Hopes are fading for a comprehensive agreement at that meeting.
But like it or not, there are economic, political, and human problems that come with living on a warmer planet. That's the backdrop for our series, "The Climate Race." Today, sustainability reporters Sam Eaton and Sarah Gardner explain what it's going to take to break us of our greenhouse-gas habit.
Sarah, doesn't sound like it's going to be easy.
SARAH: Well, that's right, Kai. In fact, this is the part where you start to get a little overwhelmed. Because scientists are telling us in order to escape the worst effects of global warming, it's going to take a huge transformation in how we make power. Some say the world needs to convert around 80 percent of the energy we now get from fossil fuels to cleaner alternatives.
SAM: Right, and the scale of this is daunting. One engineer actually did the math. And he found that getting to even a quarter of that goal would require installing a wind turbine every five minutes for the next 25 years.
SARAH: And that's pretty hard to imagine. But at the same time, many scientists and engineers are telling us this is doable. We already have the technical know-how. We just basically need a World War II-style mobilization to make it happen.
SAM: Right. But instead of tanks and artillery shells, this time it means retooling factories to churn out those wind turbines I mentioned -- and also components for nuclear power plants, solar panels....
SARAH: Yeah, and some big investors are already buying into the idea. Google, for example, is putting money into a solar thermal plant about an hour's drive north of Los Angeles.
[Outside sounds.]
ROGERS: Right now we're between the two fields, this is field one to our right....
SARAH: So, Sam, this solar plant is run by a start-up company called eSolar. Now this is not solar panels on rooftops. This is acres and acres of mirrors focusing the sun's energy to make steam. It's pretty elementary technology, actually. I mean, the Chinese supposedly were using mirrors back in 700 BC to ignite firewood.
SAM: But instead of firewood, you're heating up water.
SARAH: Or oil or molten salt ... different companies are trying out different things. eSolar's using water. One of eSolar's executives, Dale Rogers, showed me around:
[sound from mirror field]
DALE ROGERS: For this particular site we have almost 24,000 mirrors. We have two full fields, two towers, two receivers....
SARAH: So, Sam, imagine this: You've got row upon row of solar mirrors out in the desert, and they're all reflecting the sun's rays onto a 200-foot tower. The top of that tower is filled with water. Think of it like a big solar boiler. You can see this thing a mile away, it's so bright.
Now, the water in that boiler is heated by all that energy reflecting off those mirrors. It gets to over 800 degrees Fahrenheit. The steam created then drives a standard steam generator that makes electricity.
Here's Rogers again:
ROGERS: Our goal is to be competitive with natural gas-type systems in the near term. In the longer term, we'd like to be competitive with coal.
SARAH: In fact, some advocates of solar thermal say we could power pretty much the entire United States if we fill an area in the Southwest, an area about the size of New Jersey, with these mirrors and receiver towers. We have the know-how to do that today.
SAM: Right, but technology is only half the battle. This stuff costs a lot of money. And you need the political will to drive that kind of transformation.
I spent some time in coal country, in the hills of West Virginia. And I can tell you that for many people there energy isn't just about technology, it's a way of life.
Here, listen to Bill Raney. He's the president the state's coal association:
BILL RANEY: The good Lord put more coal in the ground in America than any other country in the world. And we need to treat it as an asset just as it is on any company's balance sheet.
SARAH: So, Sam, I can only imagine that in a place like West Virginia all this talk of a green energy revolution falls a little flat.
SAM: To say the least. But there is a growing number of people who want to move away from coal.
Judy Bonds is one of them. She's a coal miner's daughter. Her family's lived in the same valley for 10 generations. But she's become an outspoken advocate for wind power. And that doesn't always go over well in the middle of coal country.
Here she is:
JUDY BONDS: We have been called un-American. We have been called communists. I personally have been attacked, and there are threats of attacks because of the fact that we want to bring in wind farms, and the coal industry considers that a threat to their bottom line, to their reign.
SAM: Bonds heads a citizens' action group called Coal River Mountain Watch. They're fighting to stop a coal mine slated for one of the last untouched mountains in the area. They want to put hundreds of wind turbines on the top of the mountain.
And this is the reason I went to West Virginia. Because the battle they're waging over the future of this one mountain shows just how hard it is to compete against an entrenched industry like coal.
Here's Raney again:
RANEY: We make bituminous coal here. And we make electricity. And we send that electricity to D.C. and to Chicago and to Atlanta and all over the Midwest and the East. And our people are very proud of what they do.
SAM: Problem is, all that coal Raney is talking about is also the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions here in the U.S.
Another advocate of wind, Lorelei Scarbro, told me the future of Coal River Mountain -- either as a wind farm or a coal mine -- represents the larger choice we face as a nation.
LORELEI SCARBRO: One is clean energy that will last forever, and the other is dirty energy that is finite and will some day run out.
SARAH: So I have to ask, Sam, who's winning the fight? I mean, does wind even have a chance here?
SAM: Well, actually the potential for tapping wind power on some of these ridges is tremendous. But coal by far is our cheapest form of energy today. Although a lot of people would argue that the only reason that price is so low is because none of the external costs are accounted for.
SARAH: External costs meaning the carbon dioxide that comes from burning coal.
SAM: Right. And those are costs that some in the coal industry don't acknowledge.
Here's Don Blankenship. He's the CEO of Massey Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the world. And it's got the permits to mine Coal River Mountain. We talked in his office near the Kentucky border:
DON BLANKENSHIP: There is no global warming. We went through the population fear. We went through the killer bee fear. It's just the next phase -- it will go away.
SAM: And if it doesn't, and if legislation passes and coal emissions are taxed and regulated, what then?
BLANKENSHIP: Teach your children to speak Chinese, because if we're going to play around with windmills and solar panels, we'll fall behind.
SARAH: It doesn't sound like he's a big fan of renewable energy.
SAM: Not exactly. And he's even against capturing and storing carbon emissions underground. That's the technology that could essentially keep his industry in business if carbon is regulated in this country. Blankenship says it makes American coal producers uncompetitive. And he says without coal West Virginia's economy wouldn't exist.
And he does have a point. In many parts of the state, it's pretty much the only game in town.
But Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch says that's nothing to celebrate. Here she is again:
BONDS: Listen, they're saying coal is West Virginia's economy, it's our prosperity. Well, excuse me, where is the prosperity? We've been mining coal for over 110 years and we're the poorest state in the nation.
SAM: Still, for better or worse coal has been at the heart of West Virginia's economy for more than a century, and it's still very much at the heart of the U.S. energy mix.
SARAH: Right, it accounts for 45 percent of the electricity we make in this country.
SAM: And that gives you a sense of the scale of change that would have to happen to replace that coal with clean energy. Any way you look at it, this is going to be a long-term process, with many bumps along the road.
And there's the rub.
Klaus Lackner -- he's a geophysicist at Columbia University -- says even if we mount that World War II effort you mentioned earlier, there's still plenty of coal and oil to tempt us if things get tough.
KLAUS LACKNER: The giant pool of fossil carbon we still have is 90 percent or more of what we started with. We have just scratched the surface of that. And this will not end in our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes. So as a result, it sits there and it says, We're cheap, we're easy, and just use it up.
SARAH: Which is why a lot of scientists who at one time wouldn't even discuss the idea of adapting to a changing climate now see it as a necessity.
And we'll talk about that tomorrow, including how one major U.S. city is already planning for the worst.
Comments
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From Brooklyn, MI, 11/02/2009
Stop dreaming, wind turbines will NEVER replace coal fired electric generating plants. Wind is not and never will be dependable enough to replace base generation from coal plants or nuclear plants. Wind generation will be helpful as will solar, but it never will be will used as a base load generation.
11/01/2009
Running big powerlines across the country, so that power in Ohio can be used in New York City--until there is a blackout like the one a few years ago, remember that?--leads to a waste of the electricity produced.
It would be better to make the power where its needed, and reduce the shipping distance. But, that means the power companies would have to be smaller...make less money...and have less political power. But it would also mean terrorists could do less damage, but apparently no Republican will point this out. Its no longer their bogeyman to pull out of the closet.
The "London fog" was really the smoke of coal power during the Victorian Era. Sequestering is a technology that does not exist--and may never, because the energy needed to do it creates a cost that overcomes the savings of not using oil.
Efficiency could help America become a manufacturing power again--if we are willing to do make things again, rather than become a finance giant selling below prime mortgages to suckers. Smaller wind and solar plants, powering only local areas, can do the rest.
From Honolulu, HI, 10/30/2009
If we would like to think and want the U.S to continue to be the most advanced nation, some forward thinking will help.
Fossil fuels (coal, gas and crude oil) maybe the most abundant and cheap source of energy we have now. There will be a huge price we have to pay soon for continuing using this source of energy. And we’ll deplete all of it soon or later and have to face alternative sources anyway. So why don’t we get an early start building a foundation for alternative energy sources instead of waiting to disaster to happen?
Theorical physicist Michio Kaku mentioned about the possible types if civilizations in his book Hyperspace:
Type I – this civilization harnesses the energy output of an “entire planet”.
Type II – this civilization harnesses the energy output of a star, and generates about 10 billion times the energy output of a Type I civilization.
Type III – this civilization harnesses the energy output of a galaxy, or about 10 billion time the energy output of a Type II civilization.
And where are we now? We are only type ZERO civilization who still depends its energy from dead plants living millions of years ago.
Time to move forward, shall we?
From Chicago, IL, 10/30/2009
The negative externalities of energy production go far beyond carbon dioxide emissions. As reported on "Living on Earth", the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council estimated that external costs from energy production in the United States in the calendar year 2005 cost 120 billion dollars, EXCLUDING any costs resulting from climate change.
http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=09-P13-00043#feature2
From philadelphia, PA, 10/30/2009
Mr. Don Blankenship,the CEO of Massey Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the world, must be a very old man who does not know what happen out side his house.
When SAM asked him: if legislation passes and coal emissions are taxed and regulated, what then?
Mr. BLANKENSHIP's answer is to Teach children to speak Chinese, because if we're going to play around with windmills and solar panels, we'll fall behind.
He is so near sighted, does not know China has developed a mess of Solar/wind power stations, and use cars burning nature gas. In some areas, China is much more developed than US. China's high speed train system is the most advanced in the world.
There may be a lot of Americans like Mr. BLANKENSHIP, still think US is the most advanced country in the world. It is because of this kind of thinking, US has been marching at the same spot for a few years, while other countries are moving forward.
Wake up, Americans.
From Cranesville, WV, 10/30/2009
Crappy story. I heard it on Marketplace. The whole thing had an undertone of disdain for West Virginians concerned for the destruction done by coal, and implications of the inevitability of coal in our future.
From Round Rock, TX, 10/30/2009
Including *all* the external costs of each energy source is justice, fair, right, practical, and stimulating for the economy.
Coal should include the costs of asthma in porportion to it's contribution, cancers, etc., in porportion, and of course the big one -- a set-aside to pay for its contribution to likely climate change. Economic damages from climate change include loss of expensive coastal real estate in many locations, increased hurricane damages, and perhaps largest of all would be the costs of lasting shifts in rainfall patterns and the losses in agriculture and in increased food costs.
All of these can be estimated, and then a rate per ton assessed at the level of power plants and other users depending on the total emissions, and the revenue put into a massive Coal Damages Trust.
Monies from the trust can then be disbursed on an ongoing basis, as better and better computer modeling pinpoints more exact costs per ton of coal consumed in various power plants.
Having a more exact true cost of coal, we can then assess it's economic viability, which will depend on the method in which it is used.
We should do this with all power sources, including oil, nuclear, wind, solar and hydro.
The point is to get better pricing -- to have users of a source of energy pay the cost of their energy, instead of having you and I subsidize their energy costs.
Free market, pay your own way, no more subsidies.
From Lexington, KY, 10/30/2009
Glad to see Marketplace looking at this issue. As others have mentioned, the externalities of coal are far beyond just carbon emissions. And carbon capture won't magically make coal clean, as long as we're blowing up mountains and creating lakes of coal ash waste and slurry.
As much as I hate Don Blankenship, I always like to see him get press coverage, because the more people realize what an ignorant blowhard he is the better. He and his ilk are dooming Appalachia to a dismal future as they actively campaign to keep green jobs out.
From Granite Falls, MN, 10/30/2009
Good piece but I was disappointed in the discussion of the externalities of coal. Just carbon emissions? What's the ecological footprint of blowing the top off a mountain and dumping it into the valley? Of millions of gallons of toxic sludge bursting through a dike and crashing into your kids' school? The conclusion was "coal is just too easy." I argue it only seems easy because we hide from the whole story.
From Atlanta, GA, 10/30/2009
The green revloution is a nice dream, but most people don't know what they are talking about. Coal is much more energy dense than the wind power it will replace, so you end up with enormous wind farms. And don't forget, you can't store wind. Geothermal heat pumps have significantly higher intial capital equipment cost (+$10,000!), as do most green technologies. The net present value just isn't there. I wish it were, but it isn't unless you put a huge cost on CO2 emissions.
Written by a mechanical engineer, who built his own ground source heat pump from parts.
From Honolulu, HI, 10/30/2009
We don’t need more people like DON BLANKENSHIP. He’s just full of ignorance and out to make a buck for himself. For Don to say there’s no global warming is like for tobacco execs to say there’s no cancer related to smoking. Do they really think people are that stupid?
“ Teach your children to speak Chinese, because if we're going to play around with windmills and solar panels, we'll fall behind.” What? Are you kidding me Don? Welcome to the 21st century for those who think this way. I can’t wait for these old farts to retire so the next generation can appreciate and manage this planet little better.
If we are going loose some jobs and kill some companies to adapt green and renewable energy, so be it. The new economy will create new jobs and new companies, far more better ones. Who wants to work as a dirt digger unless that’s all you know how to make a living? Now that’s falling behind China for real.
From Morgantown, WV, 10/29/2009
Several important points were omitted from this story. First and most importantly as a lifelong West Virginian, Coal River Mountain isn't just "slated" to be mined, blasting has already begun and will continue unless we pressure officials to intervene. We have very little time to stop the blasting in order to save this site for permanent, clean energy use. Call your elected officials, write letters, tell everyone you can! Also, it seems odd that I should have to point this out, but carbon dioxide is not the only "external" cost of mountain-top removal mining. We are not solely concerned with global warming, folks. Poisoned drinking water, buried streams, devastated ecosystems, toxic sludge and slurry, damaged homes and property, and human lives are also some "external" costs of MTR. There is a reason that in many parts of WV coal is the only game in town; this isn't coincidence: union busters like Don Blankenship monopolize the area and local industry, limit the rights of coal miners, and ruin the local community for other businesses. Who wants to start a business not related to the coal industry in a town ravaged by mountain-top removal mining? Don Blankenship and those who dominate the coal industry are apathetic to the effects on the environment, their workers, and the surrounding communities. They talk as if they're doing everyone a service by monopolizing the industry, keeping wages and benefits low, refusing their workers basic rights, and limiting job choices to a toss-up between "bad" and "worse." West Virginians need jobs that provide a living wage, workers rights on the job, safe and healthy communities AND jobs that will continue to provide these benefits. Blankenship and Raney are here to protect what's theirs while it lasts: when company benefits no longer outweigh the costs, they will pack up and leave ghost towns in their wake.
People like Judy Bonds and Lorelei Scarbro need all the support we can give. These are the people who truly care about WV workers and our future.
From Hilton Head, SC, 10/29/2009
Mountaintop Removal mining is evil. this mining on steroids creates new environmentalist everyday as the word spreads about people of Blankenships fiber. It does'nt say much good about the intelligence of West Virginians that would believe anything that comes out of a non union coal operators mouth. Mountaintop Removal mining is drawing bad attention to the coal industry. Its got to end. Use your brain not your pocketbook.
From Long Island CIty, NY, 10/29/2009
I totally agree that energy efficiency is key. And there is a simple, cheap (pays for itself quickly) and incredibly efficient source of energy available to homeowners and businesses right now: geothermal (otherwise known as ground source) heat pumps. The U.S. EPA estimates they use 25-50% less electricity to heat or cool a house than conventional heating and cooling systems (Reference: http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12660). Multiply that by the number of new buildings built and that becomes an astounding amount of energy savings. This form of geothermal energy is available everywhere, not just in geologically active areas. This kind of small-scale technology could truly revolutionize our energy consumption. But most people I talk to have never even heard of geothermal heat pumps. Perhaps, ultimately, the problem is one of energy education.
From Cincinnati, OH, 10/29/2009
Good reporting by conventional standards, but you made two really important mistakes, probably because the facts defy commonly accepted mythology. First, coal does not produce half of our electricity. It came close, and may have popped over half a couple of times for a month or so, but in 2009 it produces 43% of U.S. electricity.
Second, it is not the cheapest electric resource. Energy efficiency is much cheaper. In 2008 U.S. utilities spent $3.1 billion on efficiency programs, not including Federal appliance standards, building codes or enlightened private spending. This spending saved over $10 billion. The potential to triple this spending and savings is simple - just raise all states to the level of the best ones. Doing that will set us on a path to solving global warming. Raising efficiency levels less than twice that level will allow the U.S. to end coal in 20 years for less money than we presently pay for electricity.
Efficiency is not the only resource which is cheaper than coal, depending on your perspective. New coal plants are more expensive than new nuclear plants were in the 1980's. It is now impossible for a utility to build a new coal plant without risking the death spiral - when rate increases cause conservation resulting in a failure to increase revenues. New coal plants are incapable of producing electricity as cheap as electricity from new commercial scale wind turbines in good locations. They are twice as expensive as a technology group called Combined Heat and Power, which uses the waste heat from industrial processes to generate power, and can be fueled with coal or natural gas or any other heat source.
Coal is more expensive than solar power if you are more than five hundred feet from an existing power line. Coal is more expensive than solar power if you need power at peak air conditioning times and your coal plant is operating at full throttle.
Efficiency is so cheap that the savings can be used to pay for some wind and solar power, and perhaps some other resources such as hydropower from existing dams, and geothermal and ocean current power and more innovative sources. We already have what we need to solve global warming, except the ability to conduct a civil public dialogue which really addresses the issues seriously. Thank you for this story, but I sincerely hope you follow it up with better ones.
The statistical evidence for my statements about coal's market share will be found on the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration website monthly reports on electricity.
The evidence for my statements about energy efficiency is best presented at ACEEE.org in many of their reports which can be searched. There are many other less accessible references such as the regulatory agencies in most of the states running these efficiency programs and the beneficiaries of these programs who save billions of dollars every year as a result of cumulative utility efficiency program activity over the last three or four decades.
From Long Island City, NY, 10/29/2009
No one seems to want to discuss it (why?), but what about the "quiet energy revolution" that would come about if we stopped being so enthralled by the idea of big energy? If we put in ground source heat pumps everytime we broke ground for a new building, put in solar panels or inert-gas filled heat-trapping windowpanes everytime we installed windows in a building and put up windmills everytime we raised the roof on a building, for every building built from now on, imagine what a change we could make! I haven't "done the numbers," but it doesn't take an economist to see the huge positive impact that would have on greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention freeing the individual consumer from dependency on giant utility companies -- and without all the gut wrenching changes and potentially awful environmental impacts that massive windfarms, solar farms, or nuclear power plants would have. So why is no one talking about this?!
From Los Angeles, CA, 10/29/2009
Incredible. You interview Don Blankenship for a story on America's energy resources and make absolutely no mention of Blankenship's union busting, the horrific safety record of his various mining operations, and the environmental degradation Blankenship's mountaintop removal coal mining has wrought upon the state; environmental degradation that has directly affected the health and safety of West Virginia's children.
The coal industry in West Verginia is kept alive by massive state and federal subsidies and a willingness on the part of state and federal officials to always side with mine owner-operators and against the welfare of the general public; paticularly when the issues are environmental degradation, the effects of that degradation on the health of West Virginians, and the labor practices of West Virginia's coal mine owner/operators. You left all of these out of your story. There are numerous books available on these topics. A good one to start with is Michael Shnayerson's 'Coal River' (FSG 2008).
Don Blankenship is a truly loathesome indivdual who should be villified at every possible opportunity by all who care about a decent standard of living. As it is for Mr. Blankenship, is the bottom line Marketplace's only concern? It appears so.
From Morgantown, WV, 10/29/2009
Thank you for this story. As a West Virginian, I very much appreciated your coverage. Mountaintop Removal is a serious issue that impacts the lives of all Americans, whether they realize it or not, and it doesn't get the national attention it deserves. Thank you for this story. Both http://ilovemountains.org/ and http://climategroundzero.org/ are excellent sources of info and news on MTR.
From Boone, NC, 10/29/2009
Sam, Kai, and Sara,
Great story, but there are a couple things we need to get straight. First, coal does not provide "more than half our electricity" and it hasn't since 2003 according to the Energy Information Administration. In the first half of this year it produced 45%. That's not nitpicking because the percentage has been dropping steadily for 25 years - a very important point in peoples' perception of the future role of coal and carbon capture technology. Also, while existing coal plants provide cheap electricity for now, many proposed new coal-fired power plants will produce electricity at far higher cost - at a rate that, depending on coal prices, may well be higher than wind power, even if we don't account for future carbon emissions costs or externalized costs.
From Orlando, FL, 10/29/2009
Wow, I didn't realize coal exec were so uncaring & callous as to blast away mountains instead of allowing wind farms. I also didnt realize they were global warming deniers and a touch racist. Lets move to alternative energy now! I also learned about this type of mining called mountaintop removal here: ilovemountains.org- everyone should check it out!
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