Shell Presentation on Climate and Energy by 2070

Subtitle: Hydrogen and Ammonia - Both Are Disasters

A Vice-president and Chief Scientist-Chemical Engineering, from Shell made a speech on Tuesday evening, October 1, 2019 in Sugar Land, Texas, at which I am glad I attended and took a few notes.   Dr. Joseph Powell, PhD in Chemical Engineering, was the speaker.  The event was the

combined AIChE South Texas Section and Southwest Process Technology Conference dinner meeting at the Marriott Hotel conference center.   

Dr. Powell spoke on the need for changing the world's energy system to a carbon neutral basis to avoid catastrophic climate change.  His proposed solutions covered a range of paths, but most notably using water, or methane, CH4, to create either 1) a hydrogen energy system, or 2) an ammonia, NH3, energy system.   Solar and wind renewable energy systems were to play a big part in the basic energy input, with hydrogen or ammonia as the energy carriers.   The time-frame was a transition period of 50 years, and carbon neutrality achieved by the year 2070.   With a veiled swipe at the Green New Deal proposal, he mentioned that changing the world's huge energy infrastructure could not be done in a short period, but would require several decades.   I agree with that last statement based on my 40 years experience in the industry, the sheer size and scope of the energy infrastructure would require decades to transform. 

The presentation, as he said, was based on the Shell Sky Scenarios developed and published by Shell over the past few decades.  ( see link to Shell Sky Scenarios.)

I cringed when I heard this presentation, and more than once.   This article describes what I believe I heard, and why such things caused me to shake my head in total dismay.   In short, hydrogen is incredibly dangerous and should never be placed in general, widespread use due to the inevitable fires, explosions, and human deaths.   Ammonia is equally toxic.    The economic impact of a radical transition to hydrogen would be catastrophic to 90 percent of the world's population.  

Dr. Powell began with a brief introduction of his experience, with a BS in chemical engineering in 1978, when the US had gasoline shortages such that gasoline sales were allowed only on alternate days.   A car owner could buy gas based on the last digit of the license plate, odd numbers on odd-numbered days, and even numbers on the even-numbered days.  I recall those days vividly, as my BS in chemical engineering was awarded just one year earlier, in 1977.   

Dr. Powell obtained his PhD in chemical engineering a few years later (1984), and worked in various assignments at Shell for the past 30 years.  Part of that appears to be looking far into the future, and evaluating various processes to meet energy demands.  It is instructive, although he made no mention of this, that Shell's energy reserves are natural gas, to a significant extent.   Shell has notably failed to discover significant oil reserves, however.   So, it makes sense that Shell's Sky Scenarios would focus on processes that convert natural gas to usable transportation fuels.   He did mention at one point Shell's gas-to-diesel process plant, PERL, in Qatar.   The PERL plant takes an otherwise worthless natural gas pocket located deep in the Middle East, and produces diesel fuel that can be transported by ship or pipeline.  

Dr. Powell also mentioned that, in 1978, the world's climate scientists sounded the alarm over imminent global cooling.   That, too, is a vivid memory, since the bitterly cold winters of 1977, 1978, and 1979 were at the end of a 35-year cooling trend (since 1945).  (SLB has several articles on the Abilene Effect, and the unprecedented consecutive 3 years  of abnormally cold winters   see link.)  The climate scientists were very wrong then, as almost everyone knows by now.   

One can only wonder why those climate scientists are to be believed now, when they were so spectacularly wrong in 1980 about global cooling and an imminent ice age.  Few of the same scientists are alive today, but the discipline has quite a few people sounding an equally shrill alarm over global warming. 

The final bit of introductory material discussed the opinion polls, which he said showed a large minority (I think 30-40 percent?) believe that climate change is real and is a crisis.  Another minority view (perhaps another 40 percent?) held no position for or against, and a small minority hold the view that there is zero cause for alarm.    He said that the opinion of stakeholders led Shell to develop the future scenarios.    That was not shareholders he mentioned, but stakeholders.   He did not define exactly who he meant by stakeholders. 

As an aside, oil companies such as Shell, BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil (collectively known as Big Oil), and the national oil companies from many nations, have been the targets of many organizations for many decades.    I have met many of the Big Oil opponents, and found that they fervently believe in things like the car with a 200 mile-per-gallon carburetor, magic portable batteries that let an affordable car run for 1000 miles on one charge, and recharge in 5 minutes, solar panels that work around the clock, and wind turbines that produce free electricity.   Many of these same people advocate vigorously for nuclear power plants, even the tiny ones that would be buried in a vault in every neighborhood to produce electricity for very near free, just a small metering charge.   To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "It's not that (these people) don't know anything, but what they know just isn't so."

The reality is, yes, some cars obtain 200 miles per gallon.  Much more than that, in fact.  But, they can never be sold in commercial use because they will never meet the automotive safety standards.   Those are highly specialized "cars" with very little weight, tiny engines, very high-pressure or solid tires, and run at slow speed on an incredibly smooth surface.   We now do have batteries that would allow 1000 miles range, but the cost is still very high.  Recharging in a short time is possible, but will be very expensive.   Solar panels of course would not work around the clock, unless they are in orbit.   Wind turbines are getting better, but 3 cents per kWh for the electricity is about the best we have at this time.  

Returning to Dr. Powell's presentation, he described several process paths for a carbon-neutral energy system by the year 2070.  They were, as best I can recall, gas to methanol, gas to hydrogen via carbon black process, water to hydrogen via electrolysis, gas to hydrogen via steam-methane-reforming with CO2 capture, and natural gas to ammonia. 

The hydrogen would be transported to the end user, where cars with fuel cells would fill up and drive away for their normal use.   He mentioned one detailed study that Shell performed, with solar panels in north Texas providing energy to produce hydrogen that would be sent to New York City for use in fuel-cell vehicles.   It was not clear to me if the solar panels would make electricity for water electrolysis (produces hydrogen), or supply electricity for hydrogen production via the carbon black process.   He did mention that excess carbon black could be permanently stored in abandoned coal mines.   As an aside, that does not seem sustainable to me, since there are such a limited number of abandoned coal mines in the world.   If we truly are about to run out of oil (and gas), surely we are equally certain to run out of space in the coal mines.  

The mix of energy providers in year 2070 also seems very implausible, with nuclear power almost quadrupling from today, solar PV providing a bit more than 30 percent of all energy, and wind providing a bit more than 10 percent of all energy.   

Nuclear power is going to shrink, and fall to almost zero within 20 years as it is completely lost in the competitive market, not to mention the growing awareness of the dangers of meltdown disasters.  (Update 10/4/2019:  Shell's proposal would have 1,800 nuclear power plants built between year 2020 and 2070, with one large 1,000 MWe output plant started up every 10 days for the next 50 years.   Clearly, that is never going to happen.  see link for SLB articles on the many insurmountable disadvantages of nuclear power  - end update) 

Solar has a distinct disadvantage compared to wind, because even in the best locations, solar can only produce at approximately 25 percent of the installed capacity.   The Sun's path across the sky dictates this outcome.  However, wind does not care where the Sun is, and wind turbine generators are already producing at an annual rate of 50 percent (some at 60 percent) of nameplate capacity.  The result of this is that any storage system for solar must be at least twice as large, require more capital to install, and have more losses on charging and discharging.  Solar PV will never, ever, win out over wind on a global basis.   

For some illustrative numbers, a 4,000 MW solar power plant that produces at 25 percent of nameplate would produce only 24,000 MWh in a 24 hour period.  But, for the 6 hours per day that it does operate, and using 100 percent output as a simplification, the plant would send one-fourth of the output to the grid (6,000 MWh), and three-fourths (18,000 MWh) to a storage system (presumably batteries).  The storage system would then discharge for 18 hours each day, returning approximately 80 percent of the stored electricity back to the grid.  

Wind turbines that operate at 60 percent of nameplate would have a similar analysis, 1,667 MW at 60 percent gives 24,000 MWh in a 24 hour period.   Only 40 percent need be stored, with 9,600 MWh stored.  

Conclusion

Shell's Sky Scenario is entirely implausible for many reasons, and is extremely unsafe due to the reliance on hydrogen as an energy carrier.  The system is also woefully too costly, with reliance on very expensive nuclear plants, and solar PV systems with twice the storage requirements compared to wind turbine generators.  

There is zero need to reduce any CO2 emissions in any event, since any measured  warming in the past 100 years is almost entirely due to natural forces, increased human population growth, and increased energy consumption.  Natural droughts since 1960, El Nino events since 1960, urban heat effect from more dense cities, increased fuel and electricity per capita, decreased cloud cover due to more sunspots, and cleaner air with fewer aerosols due to air pollution laws, all are responsible for "global warming."  But, CO2 is innocent.  (see link to SLB article on A Skeptic's View of Climate Science - It's BS)

Roger E. Sowell

Houston, Texas
copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here, here,  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Solar Eclipse and California Grid 8-21-2017

The California grid (CAISO) managed quite well during and after the partial solar eclipse of 21 August, 2017.   Here in California, the eclipse reached approximately 70 to 75 percent of totality.   The skies did turn a slight bit less bright, but not much.   There were considerable clouds early in the morning that broke into partly cloudy to clear skies by noon. 

The impact on the state's solar PV generating plants was, as expected, fairly severe.   The prediction was for approximately 6-7 MW to decrease as the sun dimmed, then 7-8 MW increase as the sun brightened.  The graphs below show the results.  

Fast-acting natural gas plants, almost all combined cycle plants, responded nicely and kept the grid healthy.  

Figure 1.   CAISO Renewables Output of 8/21/2017

Figure 2   CAISO Grid Demand and Total Renewables for 8/21/2017

Figure 3  CAISO Total Demand v Net Demand on Eclipse Day 8-21-2017

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Solar in California Sets Record - Again

Subtitle: 9700 MW on March 28, 2017

Setting new records for grid-scale solar output is becoming routine in California, with what appears to be the current record set last Tuesday (March 28) at approximately 11:15 a.m..  The chart shows a screenshot of CAISO's webpage with solar output by hour in the gold color.  The red arrow shows a peak of approximately 9700 MW.  This is the combined output of solar PV and solar thermal, of which solar thermal is approximately 500 MW.  

New solar plants are being added to the grid each year.  

UPDATE 4/22/2017:  Another record was set yesterday with combined grid-scale solar at 9,854 MW at 1300 hours.   -- end update

UPDATE 5/20/2017:  Yet another solar record was set yesterday at 9,880 MW at 12:00 hours. -- end update.

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Ninth Anniversary of SLB - Musings

Today, 3/16/2017, marks the ninth anniversary of SLB.  Just a short article to mark the occasion. 

The world has certainly changed, in many areas, in the past nine years.   The Obama administration came and went, with all the changes (some good, some not so good) that that brought.  The Trump administration is now in charge, and the results are necessarily not yet in.   The US EPA is certainly in for some changes, as is the US State Department.  Climate change is no longer high on the list of either agency, because the underlying science is too shaky to bet trillions of dollars.  

Nuclear power plants in the US are shutting down and have shut down, almost all for reasons related to economics: their high operating costs and inability to compete.  Natural gas abundance is high and price is low.  More importantly, renewable power from wind turbines is at an all-time low break-even price (4.3 cents per kWh), and solar from PV is not far behind.  Both wind and solar will become even less expensive in the very near future.   The first offshore wind power facility in the US started up just a few months ago.  Future installations will be much more economic.   

 Coal power plants are shutting down in record numbers, primarily because the de-facto environmental exemption they enjoyed for decades was finally brought to an end - Obama did that.   It will be quite interesting to see if President Trump reverses Obama on this, and allows coal plants to keep running.  In any event, the US has only a few years of economically-producible coal in the ground, as SLB articles showed.   Approximately 15-20 years of coal are available at current prices.  

Hawaii, the state, has announced plans to have 100 percent renewable energy within a very few years, which makes great sense for them.  Their conventionally-fired power plants yield a consumer price upwards of 25 cents per kWh.  Renewables with storage can certainly beat that.   Kudos to my Hawaiian associates. 

Grid-scale storage in the mainland US is already a reality, and growing less expensive each year.   Southern California has many MW of battery storage in service, with another 20 MW/80MWh battery under contract from Tesla.  

Climate change science has come under greater and greater scrutiny as the much predicted warming has simply not occurred over the past 20 years.   Some panicked scientists once again change their calculation methods in an attempt to show a warming where none exists.  This refers to the adjusting of sea surface temperature data to try to show a warming trend in the combined air-ocean data.   Meanwhile, the pristine areas where USCRN sites exist show no warming, instead a cooling occurred from 2005 until the 2015-16 El Niño made a temporary warming blip in the data.    The sunspots have virtually disappeared since January 2017, though, which is very early in the sunspot cycle for such to happen.  It will be quite interesting to watch the cooling that is inevitable.   More importantly, it will be quite fun to watch the main-stream climate scientists try to talk (and write) their way out of the box they find themselves in.  

There has been a bit of activity in lawsuits to hold ExxonMobil accountable for some securities violation, in which it is alleged that Exxon knew decades ago that their primary products, petroleum and natural gas, would cause the planet to warm rapidly from the CO2 released in their consumption.   All this is predicated on there actually being a warming that occurred due to CO2 increase from 300 to 400 ppm, parts per million.   SLB has several articles that show the measured warming from 1900 to 1998 is due to at least seven other causes, none of which is CO2.  (increased housing and population density in cities, increased energy use per capita, decreased air pollution, increased local humidity from human activity, changed temperature site conditions from rural to urban, long-term drought, and buildings that create wind-shadows.)

As to water, especially here in the desert Southwest and West, the six-year drought has ended with a big flurry of winter storms - after the El Niño has passed.   The big rains from El Niño fell north of California last year, leaving California mostly dry.  The rains and snow came this year, to the surprise of NOAA scientists.   The present situation in California is a monster snowpack that is ready to melt, and reservoirs full to the brim throughout the state.   Clearly, the state water managers must release huge amounts of precious water into the rivers and the ocean to make room for the meltwater.   Farmers are furious.    I have contended here on SLB that more reservoirs are simply not in the future for California, because more water leads to more population.   California elites want a smaller population, not more people.

My best to all who read SLB, and please remember that every comment is moderated by me.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here 

California Grid and 40 Pct Renewable Energy - All Is Well

Subtitle:  Grid Not Collapsed - No Blackouts

Today 3/26/2016, the California grid is having a banner day with Solar energy, and the percentage of renewables on the grid is far above 30 percent.    Data in MW is shown below.  Data is from http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx    see link 

Hour .....  Renewables .......Total Grid .....  Renewable Percent.........Solar .......... Wind

Noon         9814  MW              22,593                    43.4                            7188            735
1230          9930                      22,525                    44.0                            7315           719
1300          9846                      22,496                    43.8                            7309           640
1330          9758                      22,436                    43.5                            7310           534   
1400          9746                      22,453                    43.4                            7308           529
1430          9674                      22,557                    42.9                            7309           452
1500          9640                      22,747                    42.4                            7292           439
1530          9494                      22,858                    41.5                            7210           379
1600          9200                      23,143                    39.7                            6949           350


The reason for this post is to refute some nonsense published earlier this week, in which a former Commissioner on the California Energy Commission (who should know better) declared that California would never exceed 18 percent of grid power from renewable energy.  see link.    In 2014, per California Energy Commission, renewable energy amounted to 25 percent of all electricity sold in the state, and that does not include another 10 percent (approximately) from large hydroelectric generators.  

One could perhaps argue the semantics, of what is a renewable, or what time frame constitutes the evaluation period.  California has excluded large hydroelectric from the renewable definition, but small hydro counts.  The forms of renewable that count these days are solar (both PV and thermal), wind, geothermal, small hydro, biomass, and biogas.   Only the solar and wind are variable, as the others are remarkably constant.  

This post is also to refute what some so-called "experts" write over and over, that electric grids are too fragile to handle solar and wind energy when those exceed 30 percent of grid demand.   Clearly, that is simply false.   Solar, alone, is contributing more than 30 percent today in California, as at noon it was 31.8 percent, and at 1230 hours it was 32.5 percent.   Wind was small, at just over 3 percent, so the total at those two moments was a bit more than 35 percent.    It should be noted, and clearly, that the grid is operating quite well.  No reports of problems.  The CAISO, the grid operator, has issued no Flex Alerts, or warnings of any kind.  

Note that, in California, the highest renewable percentages tend to occur on weekends when demand is low, on sunny days when solar output is highest, and windy days when wind turbines are at highest output.   The end of March, the month of April, and part of May are the periods with the most wind.  However, the most solar energy occurs later in the year, in late June.  

Post will be updated as the day progresses.   Wind is expected to pick up as there is a wind storm predicted today along the California - Arizona border. 

Earlier posts on this topic include:

Wind-energy-increasing-in-us  see link
Gone-with-wind-nuclear-bye-bye  see link

UPDATE 1 - 4/17/2016:   Wind was stronger on Friday, 4/15/2016, along with fairly strong sunshine, providing a bit more than 11,000 MW during the noon hours.  This was a bit more than 44 percent of total electricity on the grid for several hours.  But, such a condition would have provided a bit more than 50 percent of the grid had this happened on a weekend with its reduced electrical demand.   As before, there were absolutely zero grid-based problems reported, no Flex-Alerts, no requests to curtail electricity use.  --- end update 1. 
Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved. 

Ivanpah Solar Plant Capacity Improving

Subtitle:  Solar Capacity Factor Much Better than Nuclear

The Ivanpah solar power plant is in the news and on at least a few blogs, as the annual output has not quite reached the contract minimums.  The California Public Utility Commission, CPUC, extended more time, up to one year, for the plant owner to continue the start-up and fine-tuning of operations.  see link to WSJ article. 

Ivanpah Solar Plant, California
credit: US DOE

What is interesting is the type of comments, and the tone, from some commenters on the blogs.   Using WattsUpWithThat (WUWT) as one example, the tone and comments there deride solar power and call for the shut down of Ivanpah Solar.  Their reasons are quite interesting, given the pro-nuclear bias of many, if not most, of the commenters.  see link

The Ivanpah solar plant has not yet produced the output as required under the Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) that were made with those utilities that purchase the power.   It is notable that the plant is a first-of-a-kind for that technology and size, using thousands of heliostats (adjustable mirrors) to reflect sunshine from the desert floor onto three elevated solar boilers to produce steam.  The steam then runs conventional power plants (one per tower) that use unconventional, air-cooled condensers.   Per the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Invapah Solar produced 45 and 68 percent of required output in 2014 and 2015, respectively.  The plant started up in January, 2014 so those years mark the first two years of operation. 

US Nuclear Reactors - Average Capacity Factor

What is most interesting is the comparison to capacity factor of the US nuclear power plants in their early years.  Capacity factor in this context is the actual annual output of a plant divided by the design output and expressed as a percentage.   Thus, Invanpah Solar had a 45 percent capacity factor in 2014, and 68 percent in 2015, the first year and second year of operation.   Per the Nuclear Energy Institute, see link, the US nuclear reactors had 56 percent capacity factor in 1980, and only 66 percent capacity factor a decade later in 1990.   The US nuclear reactors finally hit 80 percent after another decade (approximately 1999), and leveled out at just over 90 percent from 2001.   In 1980, there were just over 50 nuclear reactors, with at least 10 reactors that had been running for at least a decade.   By 1990, there were just over 100 reactors running but still had only 66 percent capacity factor.   Clearly, the solar thermal plant at 68 percent in its second year is performing better than the entire US nuclear plant fleet did at 66 percent after 20 years operation. 

The double standard is quite obvious, with nuclear plants cheered, even though their capacity factors were dismal for more than two decades.    The solar thermal power plant is somehow different because it has not yet made full capacity after only two full years of operation.    It is a very good thing that the CPUC has sensible people making the decisions, and not the nuclear cheerleaders and solar nay-sayers that comment on WUWT. 

Another area of derision by the WUWT commenters is the Invanpah Solar's financing via a federal Loan Guarantee.  A federal loan guarantee also exists for new nuclear plants, which the WUWT commenters claim is ok for nuclear,  but bad for solar.   Their argument seems to be that the loan guarantee is only in play if the plant defaults, but if it succeeds there is no cost to the government.    Why that is bad for solar but good for nuclear is a complete mystery. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved. 

California Renewables Not Crashing the Grid

Subtitle: Renewable Wind and Solar Reach 31 Percent - Grid Fine

From time to time, actually quite commonly, certain anti-renewable activists write that the electrical power grid will cease to function, or will incur outrageous costs to operate, if "unreliable" renewable energy sources exceed a given threshold.   Typically, they agonize over the 30 percent level of wind combined with solar power.  Yet, as the chart at right shows, the California grid manages quite well with wind and solar at more than 30 percent.  A recent day (Christmas day 12/25/2015) was sunny and breezy with the result that for several hours that day, wind and solar combined for 30 to 31 percent of the total supply to the state's grid.  The data is from CAISO's website, see link.  ("Other Ren"-ewables is the category that includes small hydroelectric, geothermal, bio-gas, and bio-mass sources of electrical production).  

CAISO is the California Independent System Operator, who operates the main transmission system for electricity in California.   It's a big grid, reaching from the Oregon border all the way to Mexico, and powers the country's most populous state with a bit more than 38 million people.   The grid demand (today's information) was a low of 21,000 MW at about 3 a.m., and peaked at just more than 30,000 MW at 6 p.m.  The grid reaches a summer maximum of approximately 50,000 MW.   The grid is currently supplied by a mix of generation technologies, nuclear (two reactors that provide 2,100 MW - when they are running), natural gas (a combination of steam plants, combined-cycle plants, plus a few peaking gas turbines), hydroelectric (from in-state dams), and imported power from other states (a mix of coal-based power from Utah, nuclear from Arizona, hydroelectric from Hoover Dam in Nevada/Arizona border, and wind energy from northern states), and finally the renewable energy sources.  These include wind turbines, solar both PV and thermal, geothermal, bio-gas, bio-mass, and small hydroelectric.   It is notable that for California, only the wind and solar are intermittent while the other renewables are remarkably steady in output.  

Therefore, it is quite obvious that California, despite being completely backwards in many ways, has managed to integrate wind and solar power into the grid at the 30 percent penetration level with few, if any, adverse effects.   

It is notable that other grid operators, particularly the German grid, seem to have troubles with their renewables and their grid.   Perhaps that is a function of the wind turbines, or the grid design, or other issues.   However, to make blanket statements that renewables ruin a grid is simply not true.  

In fact, the California grid will soon have more of both wind and solar energy as inputs as new projects continue to be built and are placed in operation.   I suspect that part of the California success is not having too much nuclear power on the grid, with its unyielding requirement to run at baseload (flat out at all times), whereas California has much more tolerant gas-fired power plants to slowly increase and decrease their output as the demand requires.  

This is, indeed, the model for future electrical grids: (see link). As coal as baseload plants are retired (due to environmental costs and old age) and coal availability wanes, and nuclear plants are closed due to old age and bad economics, the future grids will be supplied by both natural gas and the economic form of renewables.  In the US, the renewables will be wind for the most part, and solar only in the sunniest parts of the far West and Southwest (California, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Nevada).  However, on-shore wind turbines are being built rapidly through the country's center section from Texas to North Dakota (the great wind corridor), and the first off-shore wind turbines are now under construction.  

The evidence is clear: wind and solar do not crash the grid.  Not at 30 percent, and not in California.   As the wise-cracking pundits might say, Your Mileage May Vary.   While not everything that starts in California is worth exporting to the world, in this case there is likely an exception.   The lesson is pretty clear: get rid of the coal and nuclear plants, install natural gas power plants, and install wind and solar.   Grid-scale storage is in the works, too.

Update 1:  Note that California policy makers, in their vast "wisdom," have established a renewables target of 33 percent averaged over a one-year period, to be accomplished by 2020.   The California Public Utility Commission has this to say about it (The RPS or Renewable Portfolio Standards) on their website:

"The RPS program requires investor-owned utilities (IOUs), electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to increase procurement from eligible renewable energy resources to 33% of total procurement by 2020."  

This has several implications, one of which is that renewable resources are greater during some parts of the year, and less in other parts.  (Sun is stronger and shines longer in the summer, wind blows strongest typically in April-May).   Therefore, to achieve a 33 percent overall target, on many days in the year, more than 33 percent renewables must be achieved.  

Note, though, that the total renewables in the RPS program includes the smaller renewables in the chart above, the 8 percent "Other Ren."  That would mean, for that day, the total renewables reached 39 percent during those few mid-day hours from about 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.   Therefore, even 39 percent is not enough, for that is not the daily average, merely the hourly average.    At mid-day times, renewables will reach approximately 50 percent or even more, for the state's annual average to achieve 33 percent.  

Let's hope Germany, and the other countries with grids that are struggling, are paying close attention.    -- end update 1.

Roger E. Sowell, Esq. 
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2015 all rights reserved

Energy Supply in Post-Coal America

Subtitle: What Will Replace Coal in 20 Years

(Note, see Update below)
One of the several themes on SLB is energy supply, as at times articles on the Grand Game appear in which various aspects of US national and international energy are discussed.   As time permits, I conduct personal research into those various aspects.  In general, energy supply is categorized as coal, natural gas, petroleum, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, wave, river and ocean currents, and bio-fuels such as ethanol, bio-gas, and bio-diesel.  There are a few others, too, such as municipal solid waste (MSW), waste fuel as cogeneration feed, waste treatment plant sludge conversion to methane, ocean thermal electric conversion (OTEC), and direct osmosis using fresh river water and the saline gradient into ocean water.  (Update: and algae-to-oil as another bio-fuel.  )

Many of these have several variations, so that the 20 categories listed above easily have 50 or more distinct types.  Each has advantages, disadvantages, environmental impacts, economics, resource and land-use requirements, grid impacts, and other aspects.  As an example of different grid-scale electric generating power plants, a recent study (cited in several SLB articles) by the California Energy Commission in 2009 lists 21 different technologies including baseload, peaking, and intermittent sources. ( see link. ) 

An earlier article on SLB (May, 2014) had the following, with respect to the world running out of coal in the 50 to 60 year time-frame:  (see link to "Coal Exhaustion Looms - Renewable Energy to the Rescue")

". . . coal, that mainstay of electric power generation world-wide, is in shorter supply than I had remembered.  In fact, several reputable sources now state that world reserves of coal will be exhausted in roughly 60 to 70 years - and that is if no increase in current consumption occurs.  Yet, growing economies in several countries are increasing their coal consumption year-over-year.  China and India are on that list.   It is entirely conceivable that coal will run out in less than 50 to 60 years."  

That statement is a bit vague on what reserves of coal are included, it should be improved by stating the "world economic recoverable reserves" of coal will be exhausted in roughly 60 to 70 years.  

However, the US coal domestic supply and demand picture is quite a bit gloomier: the coal will run out in approximately 20 years.  (see link to USGS' 2009 National Coal Resource Assessment Overview) That is, by 2035, every coal-fired power plant in the US will be out of fuel.  With coal-fired power plants providing approximately 40 percent of the US electricity today, see pie-chart at right, and only 20 years in which to identify and build replacement power supplies, perhaps it is no wonder that the current federal administration is pushing coal to the sidelines and assisting renewables.  The USGS shows economical recoverable reserves to be a bit more than 28 billion tons in 2009, and 1.1 billion tons annual production.  Today, six years later, the reserves are at approximately 21 billion tons, and production has declined to just under 1 billion tons per year, leaving 21 divided by 1 for approximately 20 years of coal remaining.  

Replacing the domestic coal-power can be via several alternatives: importing coal from overseas, increasing construction of natural gas-fired plants, building 200 nuclear plants, or increasing renewable production.  Of course, a crash program to reduce electricity use would also play a role, but not a very large role.   Any increased efficiencies would be offset by increased economic growth.   Another possibility is by in-situ coal gasification, gas collection, cleanup, and distribution to power plants. 

Importing Coal

Other countries are also running out of coal and are importing coal to run their power plants.  India, China, Korea, and Japan are a few examples.   Importing coal requires port and rail infrastructure to unload the ships, store the coal on shore, then load the coal into rail cars for delivery to the power plants.  A major concern is security of energy supply with coal ships shuttling over the oceans.  

Build Natural Gas Power Plants

The US has abundant natural gas due to advances in precision directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing in gas-bearing rock formations.  Gas price is low at approximately $4 per million Btu.  Combined cycle gas turbine power plants are very efficient at approximately 60 percent, and use very little water for cooling compared to coal and especially compared to nuclear plants.  CCGT can also be built rapidly and are mature technology with predictable startup dates and finished costs.   CCGT plants also have desirable operating characteristics of load-following or baseload operation.  

Build 200 Nuclear Plants

Another option to replace coal power is to build approximately 200 nuclear power plants using the Pressurized Water Reactor design at 1,000 MW each.  However, with the plants running at less than 100 percent, it is likely that at least 220 nuclear plants would be required.   But, getting 220 nuclear plants through the regulatory approval process, licenses to construct issued, and building the plants so that all start up within the 20 year deadline is essentially impossible.  Recent experience in the US with the Vogtle and Sumner nuclear plant expansions indicates that a new reactor requires 8 to 10 years to construct.  

Finding locations for the plants, and finding adequate cooling water for that many plants would also be essentially impossible.  Nuclear plants consume approximately 4 times as much water per kWh generated compared to a CCGT plant described above  (see link to "Nuclear plants use far more fresh water than other power plants").  

In addition, if the country were to "go nuclear" to replace coal, it is necessary to replace the existing fleet of approximately 100 aging, operating nuclear plants as they will (almost) all be beyond their service lives of 40 to 60 year with the passage of another 20 years time.  Therefore, the build requirement is then 320 new PWR nuclear power plants.  

Finally, the price impact on consumers, whether residential, commercial, or industrial would be catastrophic from building that many nuclear power plants, as described in some detail (see link) in "Preposterous Power Pricing."      Replacing coal power with nuclear power is simply not an option. 

In-Situ Coal Gasification

 A potential option, but one that has not shown any hope of economic practicality, is to convert the residual coal left in the existing mines into a viable form of synthesis-gas that can be brought to the surface and burned in power plants.  The basis for this is that approximately one-half of a coal deposit remains in the ground after all the economically mine-able coal is produced.   That figure varies from mine to mine.  The concept is not new and has been the subject of some research over the decades.    Even if gasification can be accomplished, a substantial hurdle exists to convey the low-Btu synthesis gas via pipeline to the power plants.   New power plants would be required, or substantial modification to existing plants to accommodate the heating characteristics of the synthesis-gas.  

Increase Renewables With Storage

After exhausting the other avenues as impractical or hopelessly expensive (other than building CCGT plants), what is left is the renewable energy systems.  Noting that 15 of the 20 generating technologies listed above are renewable, there is substantial opportunity for competition between technologies.   It is very likely that solar will be deployed where the resource is adequate, and some form of storage will accompany the solar plants.  

Wind, however, will likely be the major player in replacing coal, along with CCGT.  Wind plants require some form of storage to make the energy reliable.  Off-shore wind systems can use the submerged spheres hydroelectric technology.  There is plenty of wind offshore, with the US' Minerals and Mining Service estimating in 2009 that 900 GigaWatts of energy can be economically produced offshore the US coasts.  Half of that is along the Atlantic seaboard.  (900 GWatts is almost 10 times the installed capacity of all the nuclear power plants in the US) 

Conclusion

Unless some way to produce more coal from existing mines is discovered in the very near future, the US is headed to a fundamental change in the way the electric power grids are supplied.   Coal, which has powered much of the country for more than 100 years, is about to run out.  It appears that the current presidential administration is not emphasizing this fact, but has chosen the theme of Climate Change and Man-Made Global Warming due to Carbon Pollution as the vehicle to phase out coal-power and encourage renewable energy systems.  

The most likely outcome will be a combination of natural gas-fired CCGT plants with wind turbines both onshore and offshore, and suitable ocean-based storage, to meet the electricity demands.   It is little wonder, then, that Congress continues to renew the small incentives and subsidies for renewable energy systems.   The time has come for the power in the sunshine, and the wind, to step up and be counted.   

Meanwhile, the age of the nuclear power plant is essentially over.  As described in many Truth About Nuclear Power articles on SLB and in many other places, the nuclear plants are far too expensive, take far too long to build, and have unacceptable risks of radiation releases, meltdowns, and catastrophic health hazards and environmental destruction.

The next 20 years will indeed be interesting to observe.  The Grand Game in the US, as it relates to the electrical power grid, will be a fine subject to watch as all this plays out.  

UPDATE: 1 -  Extending the 20 year deadline:  Some calculations show that we have a bit more than 20 years, perhaps 40 years, if two things occur.  One, no more coal-fired power plants are built and we simply retire aging plants as scheduled over the next 20 years.   Approximately one-half of all the coal-fired plants would normally be retired and shut down in a 20-year period, given a 40 year normal service life.   That, alone, will extend the life-time of the coal reserves as less coal is produced each year.   Two, in addition to not building new plants and retiring aging plants on schedule, a reasonable fraction of the remaining least-efficient plants are shut down and their output replaced as discussed above: CCGT plants and wind with storage. 

That, then, is the key parameter to watch:  No new coal-fired plants to be built in the next 20 years, and aging existing plants are retired on-schedule or a bit earlier.  -- end update 1 )

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2015 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

  

The View from a Process Engineer

Subtitle: Seven Steps to Good Evaluation
by Roger Sowell [1]

This article delves into the world of one of the most practical of all engineering disciplines: the chemical process engineer.   I hope to explain how we process engineers do at least some of the things we do, and why.  The examples shown here may have applicability to those who read and write on subjects such as climate change, nuclear power, renewable energy, water shortages, and many others.   All of the just-mentioned subjects are found on SLB.  (see notes and references below)

First, what is a chemical process engineer?  As I am one (as well as being an attorney at law), I can say that it is a person with a degree in chemical engineering who practices his or her engineering skills in process plants.   Process plants encompass quite a variety of industrial plants, such as petroleum refineries, natural gas plants, petrochemical plants, basic chemical plants, air separation plants, synthetic fiber plants, agricultural chemical plants, agricultural or crops processing plants (i.e. corn refineries that produce ethanol), synthetic fertilizer plants, soaps and detergents plants, adhesives plants, and many more.  My own career to date has given me first-hand experience in many of those categories, including petroleum refineries (of four types), natural gas plants, petrochemical plants (of many types), basic chemical plants, and air separation plants. 

The process engineer (leaving off the word 'chemical') typically addresses a problem or considers a new idea via a seven-step process.  These are, in order, 
1) is it physically possible, 
2) can it be made safe, 
3) can it operate reliably over time, 
4) can environmental impacts be mitigated, including post-operating life cleanup, 
5) can it make a profit, 
6) can it compete for scarce capital resources, and 
7) is it the best among the available alternatives.

Each of these steps is discussed below.   It is important, to a process engineer, to take the steps in order and not skip any steps.  

Physically Possible

This step may appear unnecessary, even ridiculous, but it is amazing (to me) how many people (typically non-engineers) who believe in and then advocate for processes or an article (meaning a thing) that violates one or more of the laws of physics.  Consistency with the laws of physics is the meaning in this context of "physically possible."   One sometimes hears, for example, that "everything is possible."  That is just not true.    There are many, many laws of physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics, that are immutable.  As I mention in my speeches, no one has ever found a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  I encourage the students and practicing engineers at my lectures to notify me at once if and when they encounter a Second Law violation, because I want to congratulate them, and be the one that notifies the Nobel Prize committee on their behalf.    Once a potential idea, or problem solution, is examined and found not to violate any physical laws, and only then, does the process engineer move on to the next step. 

Can It Be Made Safe

Safety in a process plant is not only required by law, it is critical to success.  Success may be defined in many ways, but in this context it is sufficient to have success mean long-term profitability.   This ties in somewhat to the next step, reliable operation.  An unsafe plant typically has unexpected production disruptions, perhaps explosions and fires, process areas that will not function, injured or killed employees, and a host of other undesirable outcomes.   

The process engineer examines the potential idea and evaluates the safety aspects.  There may be, for example, high temperatures, high pressures, corrosive or abrasive materials, toxic gases or vapors, and unstable chemicals that could violently expand, explode, or spontaneously ignite.  Other dangers could include very low temperatures, a tendency to solidify and block the flow, or emissions of dangerous radiation.  This is only a partial listing of the many and varied dangers that exist in a process plant.  There may be design or operating decisions that can eliminate the safety concerns, or mitigate them sufficiently to move on to the next step.   If the safety concerns cannot be overcome, the process engineer stops the evaluation. 


Reliable Operation Over Time

A process plant must operate reliably over time to be useful and profitable.  The question is how to define "reliable."   Process engineers usually define reliability by a percentage of time that a plant operates.  Operating ninety percent of the time is a typically acceptable reliability.  A process plant typically must be shut down at intervals to allow equipment to be repaired, cleaned, or have other services performed.   Plants that operate with frequent but unplanned shutdowns have a low reliability and will suffer a reduced profitability.  Profits are decreased as production decreases, from increased cost of repairs, and sometimes from re-processing unsuitable production.   A process can have multiple negative impacts where unreliable operations combine with unsafe conditions, as above.  Only where an idea can be designed and operated with sufficient reliability does the process engineer move to the next step. 

Environmental Impacts Mitigated    

A modern process plant must meet certain environmental requirements as defined in a multitude of laws.  An idea for a new process must be evaluated for environmental impacts.  There are at least three ways to eliminate or mitigate environmental impacts, including capturing and properly disposing the pollutants, dispersing the pollutants so that any toxicity is reduced or eliminated, and designing the process so that the pollutants are not produced at all.  This last means is sometimes known as "green chemistry."  

The process engineer examines the various regulated pollutants and evaluates the available means to meet the emissions requirements.   The concept of Best Available Control Technology, or BACT, is common in the environmental world.   As examples of "capture and dispose", toxic dusts may be captured in a filtering system, gaseous pollutants may be physically absorbed or chemically converted to benign chemicals, and liquids that have objectionable acidity or alkalinity (low or high pH) can be neutralized.  

Dispersing pollutants is generally a last resort, but such systems are occasionally allowed.  Examples include saline brine from desalination plants where the saline brine is introduced gradually and at multiple points into the ocean, treated water from a waste-treatment plant is also introduced slowly and over a wide area into a body of water (the Pacific Ocean receives treated water from a large waste treatment plant on the coast near Los Angeles, California), and tall smokestacks are required to allow the wind to disperse emissions. 

Environmental impacts must include mitigating any impacts when a process plant is shutdown after its viable life expires.  The US history is replete with hundreds of petroleum refineries and various chemical plants that have shut down permanently.  Many of those sites required extensive and costly mitigation to clean the soil.  Other process plants may have toxic areas that require special remediation.  

Only where the process engineer can determine acceptable ways to design and operate a plant that meets all the environmental requirements does the next step occur.     

Operate Profitably

The goal of (almost) every process plant is to make a profit, and a process engineer evaluates each idea with that in mind.  Where the idea is physically possible, can be made adequately safe and reliable, and meets environmental requirements, the process engineer examines the potential profitability.  This almost always includes an evaluation of capital costs, operating costs, and expected revenues.    Importantly, an idea that requires a lengthy construction period will also incur substantial financing costs.  

Many economic aspects of a new idea will be evaluated, including considering various sizes to take advantage of economy of scale, possibly modularized construction, competing technologies (if any exist), fees or royalties, plant location with respect to feedstocks and markets, plus many more.  It may be possible to improve profit for plants that have high electrical power requirements when they can be located near sources of low-cost electricity, such as hydroelectric dams.   

A key aspect is the cost to achieve improved reliability, especially long-term reliability due to corrosion.  Process engineers understand that corrosion is a function of the material chosen for the various pipes and equipment (note, there are also many other aspects that impact corrosion).  It may be possible to build a plant that does not corrode, if one had unlimited money and constructed the plant with titanium.  At the other extreme, one could build a plant of carbon steel and replace the various equipment and pipes just before the corrosion renders them unsafe and unreliable. 

The process engineer evaluates all the above, and many others, to determine the likely profitability of the new idea.   Several measures of profitability are usually calculated, with one of the most commonly used being the simple payout time.  A process engineer simply divides the capital cost by the annual net income (revenues minus operating costs) to obtain the number of years that would be required to pay off the capital cost.  For example, a new idea that would cost $10 million to install, and has $2 million per year net income would have a 5 year payout.   

Only where the simple payout time is sufficiently small, perhaps 2 or 3 years, does the process engineer move on to more sophisticated calculations of profitability. 

Compete for Scarce Capital Resources

Next, a new idea is evaluated against other potential ideas or projects.  It is common that only a finite capital budget exists, but the combined cost of the numerous ideas greatly exceeds the capital available.  The process engineer then must evaluate the various new ideas and select those for implementation.   The selection criteria and process may be complicated and require careful evaluation from many people in the organization.  

One criterion that a process engineer uses is the simple payout time from above.   Projects with shorter payout times almost always win over those with longer payout times.   


Best Among the Available Alternatives

The final step taken by the process engineer may appear to be identical, or similar, to the Compete for Scarce Capital Resources step just above.   However, in this context, the process engineer considers the overall wisdom of proceeding with the new idea.  Even if the new idea could be built according to all the above criteria (physically possible, safe, reliable, environmentally adequate, profitable, and more profitable than competing ideas), the process engineer considers whether the new idea should be built.   

There may be compelling reasons one might not want to build the new idea.  Perhaps the new idea consumes resources that could be used in a different way or for a different purpose.  Natural gas, for example, has been decried as a heating fuel and as a power generation fuel because it has great value as a building block for pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and synthetic fertilizer.   Coal as a resource is also limited to approximately 50 years at this time, with its primary use as power generation fuel.[2]   It might be wise to reduce coal use as a power plant fuel and use it instead as a petrochemical precursor.  

Another aspect is anticipated government regulation that would cut short the operating life of a new process plant or idea, such as occurred with mercury-based chlorine plants, plants that produced certain refrigerants, plants that produce lead-containing products, and plants that produce asbestos-containing products.   

Application to Other Areas

The above discussion shows seven steps employed by process engineers.   These steps are proven over many decades.  But, are they applicable to non-process plants?  The list at the beginning included climate change, nuclear power, renewable energy, and water shortages.   Each is discussed below.  

  -- Climate Change

In climate change, the science is so shaky, so uncertain that it scarcely deserves consideration. [3] [4] (see link and this link).   When one considers how the climate data was and still is tortured, how definitive statements of man-made climate change are made - and then revised - and then revised again and again, how modern instruments with global reach show zero warming for almost two decades, how the best "climate models" disagree with modern temperatures, it is a wonder that climate change is considered a problem in the first place.   Yet, solutions to any actual global warming, and more importantly, global cooling, can be addressed via the above seven steps.  One must, first, reliably identify whatever is a substantial factor in causing global warming - or cooling.   To date, global warming advocates believe that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing unstoppable global warming.  There is no evidence to support that belief, however.   

If, and this is a big IF, it becomes necessary to reduce carbon dioxide inputs into the atmosphere, or remove some from the atmosphere, chemical engineers already know that it is physically possible to do so.  Safety is a major concern, especially for the processes that capture carbon dioxide and store it in liquid form deep in the earth.  A leak of liquid carbon dioxide into the atmosphere could and likely would suffocate thousands, if not millions of people.   Process plants that remove carbon dioxide from furnace exhaust stacks have existed for many years, and a modern plant is now running near San Antonio, Texas.   Reliability is not a major issue for these plants.  Environmental compliance is also not an issue, other than the massive leak from storage described above.  However, the cost to build and operate is a problem at this time.   The major issue, though, is whether the great cost to build enough plants to make a difference is justified, considering the questionable science surrounding the entire climate change and human contribution to any historical warming.  

   -- Nuclear Power 

Nuclear power is a frequent topic on SLB, and creates great disagreement and acrimony between proponents and opponents.   As readers of SLB already know, my position is a nuclear opponent.  The 30-article series on the Truth About Nuclear Power shows many excellent reasons why nuclear power plants should never be built. [5] (see link)

Yet, nuclear proponents continue with their beliefs that nuclear power is safe, affordable, and desirable.   Nuclear power can be considered as two categories: proven and unproven technologies.  As proven technologies, there are boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors (BWR and PWR, respectively).  Unproven technologies include thorium, fusion, high temperature gas reactors, and small modular reactors.   

The arguments made by proponents for expansion of PWRs is that newer models are less costly and safer.  Some even argue for relaxed regulations, and abolition of lawsuits during construction.  Applying the seven steps, it is seen that the reactors are physically possible, but clearly not safe and not very reliable - especially as the plants age.  Environmental risks and damage are very great, with highly toxic nuclear waste emitting dangerous radioactivity for hundreds and thousands of years.  Costs to build have not been reduced but instead keep increasing, even though huge plants are built to achieve economy of scale.   Finally, competing technologies for producing electrical power make nuclear plants not the best choice, including natural gas and renewable energy.   

Unproven technologies barely pass the physically possible test, with fusion as yet only a theoretical but not demonstrated concept.[6]  Thorium plants also are physically possible but have major safety, reliability, cost and environmental concerns.[7]  The same is true for high temperature gas reactors [8] and small modular reactors.[9]  A major concern for thorium-based nuclear plants is the corrosion and cracking in the metallurgy that contacts the molten salt.  Every heat exchanger with tubes will eventually leak, with material at higher pressure leaking into the material with lower pressure.  The consequences of such leaks must be understood.   It is astonishing to me that a great number of nuclear proponents simply ignore this basic fact of process engineering.  

The final verdict on nuclear power is that proven technologies are vastly uneconomic, require massive government subsidies, and leave behind highly toxic wastes that endure for generations.  Unproven technologies are even worse.  

   --  Renewable Energy 

The renewable energy subject includes many technologies, solar in its various forms (photo-voltaic, concentrated solar, and solar ponds), wind both on-land and off-shore, ocean including waves, tides, sea-surface vs deep ocean temperature difference, and currents, river flow systems, pressure retarded osmosis at river mouths, [10] and bio-mass systems including land-fill methane capture, municipal solid waste burning, and water distribution pressure recapture.  Many of the above technologies require some form of energy storage and release to provide increased value to the untimely or intermittent nature of the energy source.  [11]

Physical possibility exists for all of the above renewable technologies.  Safety is adequate or can be made acceptable.  Reliability can also be made acceptable with sufficient design and investment.  Costs are rapidly declining in most technologies as experience is gained and economies of scale are captured.  Economy of scale exists for both larger individual units, and for mass production, and for single-events such as building transmission lines.    The lack of environmental impact, or very low impact, makes renewables especially attractive.  The eternal nature of the motive force, the sun, the wind, ocean waves, tides, and currents, and the essentially eternal production of municipal solid waste also make renewables especially attractive.  As installed costs continue to fall but costs of other forms of electric power increase, renewable energy plants become ever-more attractive.  

    -- Water Shortages

Fresh water in adequate amounts is a greater and greater concern, even though some areas experience heavy rains and floods.  Providing adequate fresh water essentially reduces to three technologies: building dams and storage reservoirs to hold and retain water during abundant years; desalinating ocean waters; and collecting then transferring excess water from areas of abundance to areas of scarcity.  Those in the water industry also promote conservation, however that has a very limited benefit.   Pumping groundwater from aquifers to the surface is also common in many areas, however the aquifers are generally not replenished as rapidly as the water is pumped out.   Yet another (unpopular) technology is simply recycling treated water from waste treatment plants.   This last has the great risk of transmitting disease via unclean water.  

Technologies exist and are therefore physically possible for each of the three technologies (dams, desalination, and water transfer).  (for water transfer, [12] see link) The technologies are safe and reliable when properly designed, built, and operated.  Certain dams have failed with harmful or even catastrophic results, but those can be minimized or eliminated with proper attention.  Environmental impacts are hotly debated, with some claiming great harm results from building dams and desalination plants.  

The major issue with fresh water is cost, and in some cases, ownership of the plants.  Water is such a vital part of life that many consider it too precious to be privatized except in very limited and controlled ways.  However, some technologies are simply very costly at this time, especially desalination via reverse osmosis, RO, the most attractive process.  A few thermal desalination technologies also exist, but are generally less economic than electrically-powered RO.  

Conclusion

The seven steps of process engineers, physically possible, safety, reliability, environmental impact, profitability, most economic choice, and wisest choice, are used to evaluate a new idea or process plant.  These steps should be used to evaluate other areas to provide a systematic and grounded conclusion.  Having a blind and irrational faith in future innovations is not a good basis for allocating resources of time, talent, and money.  Yet, a blind and irrational faith is what many people exhibit in their writings on many topics (especially climate change, and nuclear power).  

At the same time, many people have far too little understanding of the technical and economic advances in renewable energy systems, and the associated energy storage and release systems.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2015 by Roger Sowell

Notes and references:  (notes and references added 4-16-2016)

[1] Roger E. Sowell, B.S. 1977 in chemical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, has worked as a Principal Process Engineer and consultant for 40-plus years in and with more than 75 oil refineries and petrochemical plants in a dozen countries on five continents.  Clients include major and independent oil and gas companies, world-scale petrochemical companies, and basic chemical companies.  Process plant assets ranged from the $100 million range, to $10 billion and higher.  He has performed hundreds of process studies in process design, operations, optimization, and economics.   Implemented projects have a cumulative value of the low hundreds of million dollars, and cumulative benefits exceeding $1.3 billion.  He is published in Hydrocarbon Processing and CryoGas International.  He has also taught engineering students at University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at Irvine, and made dozens of public speeches.  He is also a Council Member with Gerson Lehrman Group, providing expert advice to member clients.  He is also a California attorney-at-law, in Science and Technology Law, and publishes SowellsLawBlog.   He was recently (2016) requested to defend climate skeptics in United States RICO actions.   He is a founding member of Chemical Engineers for Climate Realism, a Southern California think-tank comprised of experienced chemical engineers. 

[2] CalTech Professor David Rutledge,  "Estimating long-term world coal production with logit and probit transforms,"  International Journal of Coal Geology, 85 (2011) 23-33,  http://rutledge.caltech.edu/  -- discusses world coal deposits and economically recoverable coal. 

[3] Sowell, R.  “Warmists are Wrong, Cooling Is Coming” see link 

[4] Sowell, R.  “From Man-made Global Warmist to Skeptic – My Journey” this link.  

[5] Abbot, D. "Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable?" Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 99, No. 10, pp. 1611–1617, 2011,  see link)  also Sowell, R.  “Truth About Nuclear Power – Conclusion” (see link),  -- Abbot discusses 15 reasons that nuclear fission power is not viable in the long term.  

[6] Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LIFE,  Laser Inertial Fusion Energy.  See link, also  Sowell, R.  “Power from Nuclear Fusion”,   see link  -- Sowell's summary of the LIFE process: Fusion is proceeding in research but has so many drawbacks it is almost a tragedy.  LLNL plan to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, isolate deuterium from normal hydrogen, freeze the deuterium, make spherical pellets of the deuterium, then load the sphere into a special chamber where high-powered lasers blast simultaneously on the sphere’s surface to induce a fusion reaction at the sphere’s core.    If it were not published by a US national lab, this would be the stuff of comic books and a mad scientist. 

[7] Idaho National Laboratory, “Molten Salt Reactor,” see link  also Sowell, R.  “Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process”   see link 

[8] Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “HIGH TEMPERATURE GAS-COOLED REACTOR (HTGR) NRC RESEARCH PLAN” (2011)   see link  also Sowell, R.  “High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream,” see link

[9] World Nuclear News, 2014, “Funding for mPower Reduced,” see link also Sowell, R.  “No Benefits From Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants,” see link

[10] US utility patent 3,906,250, also  Sowell, R.  “Renewable Energy from River Mouth Osmosis,”  see link

[11] “Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2000: Conductive Polymers” see link,  also Sowell, R. “This Battery Is A Game Changer,”  this link  -- BioSolar's novel battery with halogenated polyactylene cathode is to provide double the kWh capacity, less weight, fast charging, and at one-fourth the cost of commercial batteries used in the Tesla all-electric cars.  Other uses include grid-scale electricity storage at affordable cost.  

[12]  Cohen, Lorraine Y. “Mid-west floodwaters, an ignored national resource,” see link, also   Sowell, R.  “Solution for Water in the West – NEWTAP,” see link  -- Sowell's concept for a national water transfer system, pipeline or canal, is described to economically transfer excess water from the Missouri River to Arizona's Colorado River.