Tom Power - November 14, 2005
Coal as a Post-Petroleum Transition Fuel
KUFM/KGPR
T. M. Power
Coal as a Post-Petroleum Transition Fuel
Governor Schweitzer’s proposal to turn coal into gasoline and diesel fuel can be seen as part of a strategy to ease us into a post-petroleum era made necessary by the increasingly costly and precarious character of our dependence on foreign oil. While many dream of substituting renewable wind and solar energy for petroleum and natural gas, back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that those two renewable resources can only contribute modestly to feeding our energy appetites. A resource much larger is needed to replace the ever-growing flow of foreign oil that fuels our lifestyle and economy. Coal, which is found in three-quarters of the American states, is obviously one domestic energy resource that might be used as we wean ourselves from foreign oil. Montana’s massive coal resources could obviously contribute to that.
But, as many have pointed out, coal liquefaction has its own problems. It requires huge amounts of water and produces a broad range of air pollutants. It also requires a lot of electricity, the generation of which creates its own serious environmental problems.
Coal energy, however extracted, also directly produces huge amounts climate changing greenhouse gasses and still more when those synthetic liquid fuels are burned in our cars. In addition, while the industrialization of rural ranchlands in Eastern Montana will be greeted by some as a godsend to the region, others will oppose it for destroying a much-admired way of life.
The push to coal as a transition fuel for a post-petroleum era, however, may well be a backwards strategy that focuses on the most costly and environmentally damaging approach available. Talking about finding a substitute fuel to replace petroleum ignores entirely why we consume so much energy. I am not talking here about our consumption patterns or our desire for convenient personal mobility. I am talking about the efficiency with which we use that energy. The focus on finding a new energy source assumes that we can pursue our individual and collective goals only by using as much or more energy as we already do. But that is not the case. Over the last quarter-century we have dramatically increased the economic value we produce per unit of energy consumed. But we have just begun to mine the energy we collectively waste daily.
Developing a coal-based economy will cost hundreds of billions of dollars at an enormous environmental cost. If a fraction of that cost were invested not in the 1930s-era German and South African technology that has captured the imagination of Governor Schweitzer, but in energy-saving technologies that are currently available, we could end our dependence on foreign oil, reduce the environmental costs of using that energy, and save a lot of money and resources at the same time.
Most of the imported petroleum goes to fuel our vehicle fleets. While small strides are being made in developing more efficient engines using hybrid technologies and improved diesels, the primary sources of improvement in vehicle energy efficiency will come in reducing the weight, aerodynamic drag, and rolling resistance of our vehicles. Technologies are available to do all three, which, when combined with improved hybrid engines, can cut to a third or a quarter the fuel needed for any given automotive carrying capacity or safety standard. Carbon fiber composites reduce weight while increasing safety. Streamlining the under-carriage as well as the body of the vehicle significantly reduces aerodynamic drag. New tires, bearings, and transmissions reduce rolling resistance. And hybrid technology eliminates the energy wasted in idling, accelerating, and breaking. Similar technologies are available for the rest of our transportation system including airplanes and large trucks.
Natural gas is a more attractive transition fuel than coal, if we can stretch out the existing natural gas supply. Improving the efficiency of energy use within our homes, offices, and factories can allow us to free up natural gas that is now being wasted. Reductions in the daily and seasonal peak demands for electricity can also save large amounts of natural gas because inefficient natural gas-fired generators often serve those peaks. The natural gas that is saved would then be available for higher valued uses such as the production of hydrogen for use in vehicles.
But hydrogen from natural gas is not likely to be the primary new energy form to which we turn. Alcohol fuels derived from biomass are likely to play a much larger role. The crop used for this alcohol fuel production is not likely to be either corn or other grains. It is far more likely to come from high cellulose and woody plants grown for this purpose on lands that are not appropriate for food crops. Perennial grasses such as deep-rooted switch grass and quick-growing scrub willows and poplars are the more likely feedstocks for alcohol fuels. Those fuel crops would not have to compete with food crops for land and the net energy yield is likely to be far higher.
Of course other renewable energy technologies, wind and solar, for instance, can also contribute significantly.
The solution to the problems associated with our growing consumption of foreign oil is not to jump from one fossil fuel and its environmental problems to another, making a bad situation worse. The solution is to focus the massive investments that otherwise would be made in wringing synthetic fuels from coal on improving the efficiency of the technologies that use that energy. In addition we can turn to an energy source that is more compatible with our rural landscapes and the agricultural ways of life they support by efficiently producing alcohol fuels from appropriate new crops.
That strategy is a far better solution than the grimy industrialization of the rural West.
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