The World’s Energy Problem and what we can do about it

Focus the Nation UC Berkeley 31 January, 2007 The Energy Problem

(1) Environmental pollution, especially greenhouse gases (Climate Change).

(2) ~ 2 billion people worldwide currently lack access to modern forms of energy.

(3) Potential for geopolitical conflict due to escalating competition for energy resources. Human Development Index vs. Energy consumption CO2 emissions of selected countries Free markets fail if there is a “Commons Problem”: • Water and air pollution • International fishing • Climate change

A combination of incentives, fiscal polices, and regulations are needed.

A world-wide price on carbon must be established with a stabilized, minimum price that increases (slowly - to allow for adjustment) to $30-50/ ton. A dual strategy is needed to solve the energy problem:

1) Maximize energy efficiency and decrease energy use. This part of the solution will remain the lowest hanging fruit for the next few decades.

2) Develop new sources of carbon neutral energy The supply-side of the Energy Problem

• Oil, Unconventional Oil • Coal (carbon sequestration?) • Gas Base-load • Fission, fusion generation • Geothermal

• Wind Energy storage and/or • Solar photovoltaic, efficient electricity solar thermal transmission is needed before transient sources • Bio-mass >30% of baseload HELIOSHELIOSHELIOSLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 3,800 employees, ~$520 M / year budget

11 employees were awarded the , (9 did their Nobel work at the Lab.) (Over 55 NobelBerkeley Laureates either trained or had significantLab collaborations 200- at LBNL) acre site Today: ~ 3% of the members of National Academy of Sciences, 18 in the National AcademyUC of Engineering,Berkeley 2 in the Institute of MedicineCampus Helios at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and UC Berkeley Cellulose-degrading Cellulose Plants microbes Engineered photosynthetic microbes Methanol and plants Ethanol Hydrogen Artificial Hydrocarbons Photosynthesis PV Electricity Electrochemistry Temp/water Rad/water temp/water limitation limitation limitation Solar thermal Solar photovoltaic

• Reduction of costs by a factor of ~ 3 is needed for roof-top deployment without subsidy. • A new class of solar PV cells at ~ 1/10th current cost is needed for wide-spread deployment.

~ 0.2 – 0.3% of the non-arable land in the world would be need to generate current electricity needs (~ 4 TW) with solar electricity generation at 20% efficiency. High Efficiency Solar Cells and solar concentrators Multi-material PV can be >50% efficient. Reel-to-reel mass production of solar cells using new materials and/or nano-technology? Energy Storage • Large scale for storage of renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar PV. • Small scale for isolated (off-grid) villages, communities, buildings, homes, automobiles, laptop computers, …. Energy Storage • Large scale for storage of transient sources of energy. • Small scale for isolated (off-grid) villages, communities, buildings, homes, automobiles, laptop computers, …. 300 W/kg may soon be possible! Distributed storage capacity potential

• In North America, there are 257.8 million vehicles 59.7%, are passenger cars 40.3% are commercial vehicles. ⇒ ~ 100 M automobiles.

• Assume 50% market penetration and 20 kWh storage per electric vehicle.

• (50 x 106 cars)(20kWh) = 109 kWh = 1 TWh

• Total current average electricity power in US ~ 1 TW. Fatal Flaw in Polyethylene Oxide Hybrid solution:* use a co-block polymer that self-organizes into

PEO (dark bands)

Polystyrene (light bands)

* Nitash Balsara, Materials Science Division, LBNL; UC Berkeley professor A lithium – metal battery material with a dry, block copolymer separator shows promise. (Nitash Balsara) Latest results ~ 1000 deep discharge cycles and no 100 nm sign of degradation. 300W hr / kg initial target Bio-fuel production Frequently asked questions:

How can there be enough arable land to grow energy and food? Frequently asked questions:

Current agriculture practice is not sustainable … the water tables are decreasing due to heavy irrigation and becoming polluted due to heavy fertilizer use. Also, the cost of food is rapidly increasing and causing hardship among poor people.

Won’t growing crops for energy make this problem worse? "The battle to feed all of humanity is over... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

Prof. Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Biologist The Population Bomb (1968) World Production of Grain (1961 – 2004)

The Population Bomb goes to press

1960: 2005: Population = 3 B Population = 6.5 B

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Feedstock grasses (Miscanthus) is a largely unimproved crop. Non-fertilized, non-irrigated test field at U. Illinois yielded 15x more ethanol / acre than corn. 50 M acres of energy crops plus agricultural wastes (wheat straw, corn stover, wood residues, urban waste, animal manure, etc. ) can produce half to all of current US consumption of gasoline. Advantages of perennial plants such as grasses: • No tillage for ~ 10 years after first planting • Long-lived roots establish symbiotic interactions with bacteria to acquire nitrogen and mineral nutrients. • Some perennials withdraw a substantial fraction of mineral nutrients from above-ground portions of the plant before harvest. • Perennials have lower fertilizer runoff than annuals. (Switchgrass has ~ 1/8 nitrogen runoff and 1/100 the soil erosion of corn.) Source: DOE Report “Breaking the Biological Barriers to Cellulosic Ethanol” June, 2006 Frequently asked questions:

If these grasses are so much better than corn or even sugar cane, why aren’t they being grown today? Current and projected production costs of ethanol Courtesy Steve Koonin, BP Chief Scientist 4 3.75 3.5 2.89 3 2.79 2.48 2.5 Base case 2 10 year 1.5 plausible 1.14 1.20 1.03 technology 1 0.90 0.84 0.91 stretch 0.5 ethanol production cost ($/gallon) ethanol production 0 EU Brazilian US US Switch- US Corn Sugar Sugar Corn grass Stover Source: BP Analysis, Beet Cane NREL, CERES, NCGA

Conventional Ligno-cellulosic Fermentation Fermentation Joint Bio-Energy Institute (JBEI) LBNL, Sandia, LLNL, UC Berkeley, Stanford, UC Davis $25M / year for 5 years Energy Biosciences Institute $50M/ year for 10 years

Univ. California, Berkeley Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Univ. Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Termites have many specialized microbes that efficiently digest lignocellulosic material Cellulases Fermentation Hemicellulases Glucose, pathways fructose, sucrose

H2 & Mono- & CO2 oligomers

Acetate

Fermentation pathways Production of artemisinin in bacteria Jay Keasling

Identify the atoB HMGStHMGR MK PMK MPD idi isp A ADS biosynthesis A-CoA AA-CoA Mev Mev-PP IPP DMAPP pathways in HMG-CoA Mev-P A. annua OPP FPP Amor Man first learned to fly by imitating nature HELIOSHELIOSHELIOS Is it possible to engineer an artificial photo-synthetic system?

O2 CO2

H2 E.O. Lawrence introduced the idea of “team science”

Ernest Lawrence, Robert Serber, Luis Alverez, Edwin McMillian, Robert Oppenheimer, Robert R. Wilson, …(Glenn Seaborg not shown) Bell Laboratories (Murray Hill, NJ)

15 scientists who worked at AT&T Bell laboratories received Nobel Prizes. Nobel Prize Members at hired in 1977-78

Douglas Osheroff Me (at 32)

Dan Tsui Horst Stormer Bob Laughlin 25

Bardeen

Materials Science Brattain Theoretical and experimental physics - Electronic structure of semiconductors - Electronic surface states - p-n junctions

Shockley Common denominators of the best run research laboratories during their “golden eras”

• Individual genius was nurtured, especially in their early careers; individuals were encouraged to quickly form teams to rapidly exploit ideas. • The scientific direction was guided by collective wisdom and “managed” by top scientists with intimate, expert knowledge. • Bold approaches were encouraged; some failure was expected, but there was an emphasis on recognizing failure quickly, and moving on to other opportunities. “On December 10, 1950, William Faulkner, the Nobel Laureate in Literature, spoke at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, … I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.’ With these virtues, the world can and will prevail over this great energy challenge.”

Steven Chu (USA) and José Goldemberg (Brazil) Co-Chair’s Preface “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future” Released October 22, 2007

Co-chairs: Jose Goldemberg, Brazil , USA EarthriseEarth Risefrom Apollo 8 (December 24, 1968 )

There are solutions to the energy/climate change problem:

“We believe that aggressive support of energy science and technology, coupled with incentives that accelerate the development and deployment of innovative solutions, can transform the entire landscape of energy demand and supply …"

What the world does in the coming decade will have enormous consequences that will last for centuries; it is imperative that we begin without further delay.”

Partitioning of Electrical Energy by 2050? • Coal 25 - 50%? •Natural gas 15 - 25%? • Fission 10 - 25%? • Wind 10%? • Solar PV or thermal 5 - 25%? • Geothermal, ocean energy ? Transportation fuel: Oil, unconventional oil, GTL, CTL Biomass, plug-in hybrids, all- electric Displace 10 - 50% of fossil fuel? Emissions Trajectories for atmospheric

CO2 concentration ceilings

2007

Source: Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Summary for Policy Makers, February 2007. Positive feedback: melting reflective ice and snow is replaced by absorbing dark oceans.

September melt, September melt, 1979 2002

The data from different instruments: • Multi-channel microwave radiometer (Nimbus 7 satellite) • Microwave imagers attached to the Defense Meteorological Satellite Programs. Research, Development & Delivery

Institute for OneWorld Health

Amyris Cost Biotechnologies 20¢ /cure Keasling Laboratory Norman Borlaug, 1970 (for development of disease-resistant, high yield wheat)

“Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger … If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things". Predicted Antarctica surface temperature (Celsius) averaged over the years 2000 - 2050 Larsen B Ice Shelf

Jan. 1, 2002 Feb. 17

(Drew Shindell, Gavin Schmidt, NASA) Feb. 23 March 5 Energy demand vs. GDP per capita

Can we convert Giga-joules/year to a more understandable unit of energy & wealth? A human needs to ingest 2,400 Calories/day = 3.7 GJ/year. 370 GJ / per capita / year is equivalent to having 100 energy “servants”. The average person in China has ~12 servants / person.

The tradition of E.O. Lawrence continues …

COBE: Cosmic Background Explorer 2006 (LBNL & UCB) and John Mather (Goddard)

Dark Energy (LBNL and UCB) (2006 Run Run Shaw Prize, Fretinelli Prize) Enhanced Geothermal System (water is injected into the ground) Wind sites in the US Advantages of High Voltage DC over AC transmission: (cost less if > 500 miles)

• Two conductors vs. 3 or 4 for AC. • Radiative and dielectric losses are much less. • Capacitance losses (Energy used to polarize the capacitance of the cable and surrounding environment) • Long distance DC grid system will make a more robust grid system. • ~ 60 M hectares (12 M acres) used for agriculture • ~ 5 M hectares used for sugar cane production • ~ 2.5 million hectares for ethanol Plug-in hybrids will require improved batteries capable of ~ 3,000 deep-discharge cycles

Li-metal can be potentially 4x better in energy density and peak power

For a Gaussian distribution:

1 σ = 68 % confidence level 2 σ = 95.4% confidence level 3 σ = 99.7% confidence level

Modest but stable fiscal incentives were essential to stimulate long term development of power generation from wind

3 MW capacity deployed and 5 MW generators in design (126 m diameter rotors). Can a free-market economy address the energy/water/climate change problem?

Question: How many free-market economists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: None. If it needed changing, free- market forces would have taken care of it. The greatest energy savings are in buildings. 2 times improvements can pay back in ≤ 6 years. The National Association of Home Builders is lobbying against even setting national energy efficiency targets.

“You can build a very energy-efficient home,” says Bill Killmer, a lobbyist for the National Association of Home Builders. “But who's going to be able to able to afford that home?”

Wall Street Journal Article, November 8, 2007 •Negative feedback amplifier H.S. Black (1927) •Maximum signaling rate with a given bandwidth, analysis of feedback stability H. Nyquist (1920’s, 1932) •Minimum thermal noise J.B. Johnson (1928) •Information theory Claude Shannon (1948) •Spectral analysis, Fast Fourier Transforms J.W. Tukey (1949, 1965)