WIREC Presentation March 5, 2008

byMichael Totten

Chief Advisor, Climate, Water & Ecosystem ServicesConservation Internationalmtotten@conservation.org

GLOBAL BIOFUELISHNESS??

1 billion gallons/day

Amory Lovins

Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols

San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsom

Source: Amy Raskin and Saurin Shah, The Emergence of Hybrid Vehicles, Ending Oil’s Stranglehold on Transportation and the Economy, June 2006, AllianceBernstein, www.calcars.org/alliance-bernstein-hybrids-june06.pdf . Siting Feng An, Pew Center for Global Change and WRI Capital Markets Research.

“T]he book’s powerful summary…argues persuasively that by 2035 we can be entirely independent of imported oil and that ‘it will cost less to displace all of the oil that the United States now uses than it will cost to buy that oil.’”

— Robert C.McFarlane (National Security Advisor to President Reagan), Wall Street Journal, 20 Dec. 2004

Eliminating USA Oil dependency

www.oilendgame.org/

$70 to $280 billion per year net savings (@ $25 to $100 per bbl)

Dept. of Defense sponsored, peer-reviewed technical report, preface by former Secretary of State George Schulz, intro by ex-Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart

Fuel Efficiency Impact on USA Land Requirements for Biofuel Production

<20 mpg >100 mpg

PHEV

U.S. Biofuel Subsidies per ton CO2

Source: Doug Koplow, BIOFUELS - AT WHAT COST ?, Government support for ethanol and biodiesel in the United States : 2007 Update, One of a series of reports addressing subsidies for biofuels in selected OECD countries, The Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Geneva, Switzerland, www.earthtracks.org/

Ethanol

Biodiesel

Low Estimate

High Estimate

$300

$240

($600)

($700)

Efficiency -$11

$65

$12

$-

$10

$20

$30

$40

$50

$60

$70

per b

arre

l cos

t

biodiesel truck efficiency

Cost Comparison Biodiesel vs Truck Efficiency

Amory B. Lovins et al., Winning the Oil End-Game, 2005, www.oilendgame.com/

Money-saving, Oil-reducing, land-conserving

6.4 mpg -- 17 billion gallons

265 million acresTexas + Kansas +

Oklahoma

Land required if Switching from Fossil Diesel to BioDiesel from

Soy Plantations

For all Class 8 trucks in USA

6.4 mpg -- 17 billion gallons

13 mpg – 7.6 billion gallons

19 mpg – 5 billion gallons

If Efficiency instead of biodiesel

265 80 million acres

Connecting the 980 GW Utility Gridand

The 2,700 GW of Battery Capacity in Plug-In Vehicles

PNL 2006 Analysis SummaryPHEVs w/ Current Grid Capacity

Source: Michael Kintner-Meyer, Kevin Schneider, Robert Pratt, Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on Electric Utilities and Regional U.S. Power Grids, Part 1: Technical Analysis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 01/07, www.pnl.gov/.

ENERGY POTENTIALU.S. existing electricity infrastructure has sufficient available capacity to fuel 84% of the nation’s cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs (198 million),

73% of the light duty fleet (about 217 million vehicles) for a daily drive of 33 miles on average

ENERGY & NATIONAL SECURITY POTENTIALA shift from gasoline to PHEVs could reduce gasoline consumption by 85 billion gallons per year, which is equivalent to 52% of U.S. oil imports (6.5 million barrels per day).

OIL MONETARY SAVINGS POTENTIAL~$240 billion per year in gas pump savings

AVOIDED EMISSIONS POTENTIAL (emissions ratio of electric to gas vehicle)

27% decline GHG emissions, 100% urban CO, 99% urban VOC, 90% urban NOx, 40% urban PM10, 80% SOx; BUT, 18% higher national PM10 & doubling of SOxnationwide (from higher coal generation).

Corn ethanol

Cellulosic ethanol

Wind-w/storage turbine spacing

Wind turbines ground footprint

Solar-w/storage

Mark Z. Jacobson, Wind Versus Biofuels for Addressing Climate, Health, and Energy, Atmosphere/Energy Program, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, March 5, 2007, http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/E85vWindSol

Area to Power 100% of U.S. Onroad Vehicles?

COMPARISON OF LAND NEEDED TO POWER VEHICLES

Solar-storage and Wind-storage refer to battery storage of these intermittent renewableresources in plug-in electric driven vehicles, CAES or other storage technologies

Figures of MeritGreat Plains

1,200,000 mi2

100% U.S. electricity400,000 wind turbines

Platform footprint6 mi2

Large Wyoming Strip Mine>6 mi2

Total Wind farm area 37,500 mi2

Available for farming and prairie restoration

34,000 mi2

CO2 U.S. electricity sector40%

The three sub-regions of the Great Plains are: Northern Great Plains = Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota; Central Great Plains = Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas; Southern Great Plains = Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis 1998, USDA 1997 Census of Agriculture)

Although agriculture controls about 70% of Great Plains land area, it contributes less than 10% of the Gross Regional Product.

Wind farms could enable one of the greatest economic booms in American history for Great Plains rural communities, while also enabling one of world’s largest restorations of native prairie ecosystems

How?

$0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $250

windpower farm

non-wind farm

US Farm Revenues per hectare

govt. subsidy $0 $60windpower royalty $200 $0farm commodity revenues $50 $64

windpower farm non-wind farm

Williams, Robert, Nuclear and Alternative Energy Supply Options for an Environmentally Constrained World, April 9, 2001, http://www.nci.org/

Wind Royalties – Sustainable source of Rural Farm and Ranch Income

Crop revenue Govt. subsidy

Wind profits

1) Restoring the deep-rooting, native prairie grasslands that absorb and store soil carbon and stop soil erosion (hence generating a potential revenue stream from selling CO2 mitigation credits in the emerging global carbon trading market);

Potential Synergisms

2) Re-introducing free-ranging bison into these prairie grasslands --which naturally co-evolved together for millennia -- generating a potential revenue stream from marketing high-value organic, free-range beef.

Two additional potential revenue streams in Great Plains:

Also More Resilient to Climate-triggered

Droughts

In the USA, cities and residences cover 140 million acres.

Every kWh of current U.S. energy requirements can be met simply by applying PV to 7% of this area—on roofs, parking lots, along highway walls, on sides of buildings, and in other dual-use scenarios. We wouldn’t have to appropriate a single acre of new land to make PV our primary energy source!

1% of land area receives 300 TWy(TeraWatt-years) of solar energy.At 20% conversion efficiency Solar PV systems would yield 60 TWy – 400% more than 2005 total global energy use.

NanoSolar roll-printing process of Copper-Indium-Gallium-diSelenide (CIGS) solar cells in Calif.

Using PV to supply all US electricity and all US energy requires only 0.4% and 1.2% of US land area, respectively.

US military bases and Farm Set-Aside Land are each about 1% of US land area now.

UniSolar Roll-to-roll triple-junction amorphous Sillicon deposition plant of 30 MW annual

Hypoxia Dead Zones due to Agriculture fertilizer run-off

Using Wastewater Pollutants as Feedstock for Biofuel Production through Algae Systems

CO2

ATS

Biodiesel

Fermenter(Clostridium butylicumC. Pasteurianum, etc.)

C6H12O6 C4H9OH + CO2 + …

Biobutanol

EthanolAcetone

Lactic AcidAcetic Acid

Oil

ALGALBIOMASS

SolventExtraction

Nutrient Rich Water(Sewage, polluted river water)

+ atmospheric CO2(or power plant stack gases)

Clean waterLower N P P, higher O2 + pH

Less CO2 in atmosphere

Distillation

Transesterification

OrganicFertilizer

Source: Walter Adey, Director, Marine Systems, Smithsonian Institute, email: ADEYW@si.edu ph: 202 633-0923

Algae butanolbiodiesel

Corn (ethanol)

Soy (biodiesel)

Estimated Biofuel Production(gallons per acre per year)

1520

500

----

2000

----

100

Biofuel Production from ATS Biomass(50 tons per acre per year, dry)

+

Source: Walter Adey, Director, Marine Systems, Smithsonian Institute, email: ADEYW@si.edu ph: 202 633-0923

Small Land footprintOnly Wastewater as Feedstock

Butanol, Biodiesel and Clean Water Outputs

Source: Walter Adey, Director, Marine Systems, Smithsonian Institute, email: ADEYW@si.edu ph: 202 633-0923

By 2100, an additional 1700 million ha of land may be required for agriculture.

When combined with the 800 million ha of additional land needed to support the medium growth bioenergy scenarios, this will greatly increase threats to intact ecosystems and biodiversity-rich habitats.

Food, Fuel, SpeciesTradeoffs?