Early in December 1997, representatives of 166 countries will meet in Kyoto, Japan, to discuss the problem of global warming and to attempt to decide what we can do now to forestall catastrophe.Early in December 1997, representatives of 166 countries will meet in Kyoto, Japan, to discuss the problem of global warming and to attempt to decide what we can do now to forestall catastrophe.
Catastrophe? Not to put too fine a point on the issue, yes. The experts, their consensus captured by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, agree that global climate is warming and that human activities--notably the profligate consumption of fossil fuels for transportation, home heating, and electricity generation, as well as the clearing of forests for agriculture--are to blame. The effects seem likely to include:
How likely is all this? We can't be absolutely sure, but Thomas Karl of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC, has said, "There's a 90 to 95% chance that we're not being fooled." And we don't have to be absolutely sure, says Molly O'Meara of the Worldwatch Institute ("The Risks of Disrupting Climate," World Watch, November/December 1997). Likeliness is enough to make the risk impressive, and it behooves us to do everything we can, at Kyoto and elsewhere to forestall disaster.
The mechanism of the global warming that concerns us here is the greenhouse effect. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide to the air. Land clearing does, too, and other human activities release large amounts of methane, as well as other gases. These "greenhouse" gases all have the effect of slowing the escape of heat from the planet and allowing it to build up.
If one looks a little further into the future than the next century, the prospects look quite frightening. By 2100, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach double its preindustrial level. By the 2200s, it could be 7.6 times the preindustrial level. With draconian restrictions, it could be held to only 4 times the preindustrial level. Either way, global warming will turn out to be much worse than anyone is now predicting for the next century. On the other hand, it remains difficult to be perfectly sure of such predictions; see David Schneider, "The Rising Seas," Scientific American (March 1997), and Thomas R. Karl, Neville Nicholls, and Jonathan Gregory, "The Coming Climate," Scientific American (May 1997).
It may not look like catastrophe from the point of view of a wealthy, industrial nation such as the US. We, after all, have plenty of land, it's only low in spots, and where it is low, such as Miami, we can afford to build dikes and sea walls. Expensive, maybe. Bloody nuisance, sure. But catastrophe? Naw.
But if you ask the folks in Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nauru, and many other countries who can expect to see the rising sea wash over large portions of their national real estate, the reaction is different. They also know who to blame, for global warming so far is due largely to the activities of the developed, industrial world which burns so much fossil fuel, releasing the carbon dioxide that accounts for most of the greenhouse effect. They therefore know perfectly well whose responsibility the problem is and who should fix it.
They mean us.
And we are utterly dependent on the use of fossil fuels in large quantities. Cutting back may be a sound idea--it would indeed help to slow down global warming--but it doesn't go over well. In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro. High on the agenda was the problem of global warming, but despite widespread concern and calls for reductions in carbon dioxide releases, the US refused to consider rigid deadlines or set quotas, partly because the economic costs of cutting back on carbon dioxide might be greater--for the US--than the costs of letting the climate warm. The Conference could only agree on goals; as a result the US was obligated to stabilize greenhouse-gas emissions by the year 2000; less developed countries had even less onerous obligations.
In 1993, the Clinton Administration promised not only to stabilize greenhouse emissions, but to reduce them to the 1990 level by the end of the decade. Essential measures would include planting trees (which remove carbon dioxide from the air) and promoting energy efficiency. Unfortunately, population growth and the need to use land for growing food render this solution unlikely, and in 1996, the Administration admitted that there was no way the US could meet the goal. Emissions would be 13 percent above the 1990 level by 2000, and they would continue to rise. Other countries are no more likely to meet the 1992 goals. The global emissions chart continues to show a steady rise. Indeed, according to the Worldwatch Institute's Vital Signs 1997, worldwide carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning hit a new peak in 1996. Much of the increase came from the developing world (which is developing--meaning industrializing--just as fast as it can), but some came from the industrial countries as well.
There is thus a certain frantic air to the preparations for the Kyoto conference, whose goal will be to set binding greenhouse-gas emissions limits for the industrial nations. Britain is pushing hard, and the European Commission has called for reducing emissions 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. However, US officials have insisted that such drastic change is "unrealistic and unachievable." They have not said out loud that residents of Bangladesh, Nauru, etc., had better learn to swim, but one gets a distinct impression that the developed world does not care much about the welfare of the rest. A subpanel of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology has recommended spending $1.1 billion on research into more efficient technologies and renewable energy sources over the next six years, but our Republican Congress seems unlikely to go along.
Fortunately, it may not matter. It may prove possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even without elaborate additional efforts to do so. Department of Energy officials say existing research into fusion, fission, efficiency, and renewables could reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, even without extra research money. Two technological developments are especially promising. One, announced October 21, 1997, promises to double the fuel efficiency of automobiles. According to an Arthur D. Little Co. press release, "The U.S. Department of Energy and Arthur D. Little, in conjunction with Plug Power and the Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory, have successfully demonstrated a first-ever gasoline-powered fuel cell electric engine for the automobile.
"The new technology will allow the automotive industry to create new fleets of vehicles that can realize up to 80 mpg fuel economy with near-zero exhaust emissions. This is the first time that fuel cell electricity has been generated by hydrogen from gasoline in a module that can be placed aboard a vehicle. The innovation heralds the next generation of engines to replace the internal combustion engine." And it may be on the commercial market within a decade.
One result is that the electric car can now be freed of the weight penalty of massive battery packs. It can use the existing fuel distribution system, which is bound to make it much more acceptable to consumers, which in turn will mean greenhouse gas emissions will feel the impact fairly rapidly.
The new device can also generate hydrogen from natural gas, methane, and ethanol. It is thus versatile enough to find a great many uses, including as an in-home electricity generator.
Better yet, however, a fuel cell can of course use hydrogen from other sources. Arthur D. Little insists that "storing hydrogen, the key ingredient needed to produce the electricity that powers an on-board vehicle fuel cell, is not easily achievable in any practical or cost effective automotive system," but the greatest problem there seems to be the "Hindenburg factor," fear of hydrogen's flammability. Hydrogen can be stored in tanks as pressurized gas or as a cryogenic (super-cold) liquid; it can also be absorbed in metal powders as "metal hydrides" that release their hydrogen content on heating.
And that's really quite nice, for another technology may be about to free us from any dependence on fossil fuels at all. Electric Conversion Devices of Troy, MI, is marketing rooftop photovoltaic shingles and panels made using relatively economical amorphous silicon films instead of single-crystal silicon.
ECD seems to be finding considerable success with their product. In one recent month, they claimed "record sales of nearly $1,000,000, including $460,000 of PV shingle systems exported to the Middle East." In June 1997, President Clinton announced a "Million Roofs" Program at the UN to focus "attention on the use of PV roofing products to reduce global warming gases from fuel-fired electric generation plants."
The company also markets Ovonic nickel-metal hydride batteries for use in laptop computers, cellular phones and video cameras, and in electric cars such as the Solectria Force EV that took first place in the May 1997 American Tour de Sol race. With a range of 249 miles on a single charge, it outdistanced all other production competitors and beat the 1996 winning range, also set with the Ovonic battery.
In October 1997, an Ovonic-powered Solectria Sunrise EV traveled from Boston to New York on a single charge. "The trip, which occurred at normal highway speeds over interstate highways and in city traffic, clearly demonstrates that practical, zero-emission transportation can be achieved using today's EV technology and Ovonic batteries," said the press release.
The battery pack in the Solectria Sunrise holds a 32 kwh charge, enough to travel over 200 miles with a top speed of 75 mph. That's easily enough for commuting, and if the owner has a solar roof on his or her house as well, it uses no fossil fuels--not even in some distant electricity-generating power plant--and emits no greenhouse gases at all.
How much roof would you need? ECD's photovoltaic roof shingles and panels have a solar-to-electric efficiency a bit better than 10 percent, which is enough to get 20-30 watt-hours per day out of each square foot of roof. To produce 30 kwh per day, you'd need at least 1000 square feet. You might need as much again to meet other household needs--my own home uses just about 30 kilowatt hours per day (this covers hot water as well as lights and appliances, but not home heating). So, you would need a roof of at least 2000 square feet, and perhaps as much as 3000 square feet, to cover the electricity needs of both car and home. You would need even more to allow for cloudy days.
As noted above, the fuel-cell-powered car avoids the weight penalty of massive battery packs. Another way to roll your own car fuel would be to use the rooftop electricity to hydrolyse hydrogen from tap water and tank the hydrogen. The process loses some of the energy in the electricity, but the battery-less car should be enough lighter to make up the difference and then some.
Unfortunately, solar rooftops are not cheap. According to an ECD spokesperson, a rooftop system (including panels, wiring, and electronics) costs about $50 per square foot at present. Increasing market penetration and mass production can be expected to bring this down. Once that happens, solar roofs will be a very attractive supplement to utility power.
Utility power itself may be about to change, however. In the October 1997 issue of Technology Review, Martin I. Hoffert and Seth D. Potter ("Beam It Down," pp. 30-36) tell us that powersats are not dead. Their basic argument is that as low-altitude (not in geosynchronous orbit) communications satellites increase in number, they offer an opportunity to piggyback on them collectors for solar energy. These collectors could be only "a few hundred meters across rather than 10 kilometers" as envisioned in the 1970s (click here for background). As in the 70s, they would convert solar energy to electricity, convert the electricity to microwaves (too weak to be harmful), and beam the microwaves to "rectennas" (microwave antennae) on Earth, where it would be converted back into electricity and fed into utility grids. The microwave beams and rectennas could both, like the collectors, be smaller than once thought. If irrational public fears of microwave beams cooking cities can be allayed, then perhaps we could have plentiful "Sunsat" energy without greenhouse emissions and global warming.
So what's going to make it happen? Not the Kyoto conference, which I expect to generate many good intentions, very few commitments to real action, and even less follow-through. Not sheer desperation, either, for I do not expect us to wait until Bangladesh and Nauro are awash before changing our energy usage in a way that reduces the emission of greenhouse gases.
But how about market forces? I'm not a gung-ho capitalist who believes that the wisdom of the market is sufficient to solve all problems, but I can see things happening that will give the market a very good chance to fix this one. For one thing, the technology is developing in precisely the right direction at precisely the right time. For another, the US has decided that electric power utilities must go the way of Ma Bell. That is, those wicked monopolies must break up into wire companies, generation companies, and billing companies--you can check the status of deregulation in your state here--so that prices may climb toward the roof and a new corps of telemarketers can join those who are already badgering us unto madness.
What? You say that's not the point? Well, it wasn't with the Bell breakup either, but it's what happened (despite the claims of the Heritage Foundation; local phone rates went up, and if we now spend less on long distance, that is surely due mostly to the Internet and email). And I expect it to happen again. As it does, rising prices for conventional energy will make alternatives such as solar rooftops and powersats look more attractive, and the badgering may make some of us willing to spend a bit more just to get rid of a headache.
In fact, if some entrepreneur were to offer right now a fuel-cell-powered car with a solar-powered home hydrogen generator to provide the fuel, I'd be very interested. If our government decided that a reasonable way to meet Kyoto commitments were to subsidize such systems, I'd be even more interested. If enough of you would be too, and if the other possibilities I mention work out as well, my cutesy-poo title could turn out to be very apt: Consumption of fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouses gases could drop tremendously, and the Greenpeacers, tree-huggers, and other environmentalists would have less to complain about.
Not that the environmentalists will go away. Global warming is only the issue of the moment. There are plenty of others to worry about, and some of them are even more of a threat. But I'll save those for another time.
Dr. Thomas A. Easton is Professor of Life Sciences at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine. He has been the Analog book columnist for almost 20 years. His latest novel is Silicon Karma (Clarkston, GA: White Wolf, 1997). His latest nonfiction books are Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology, and Society (Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group, 1995, 2nd ed., 1997) and Periodic Stars: An Overview of Recent Science Fiction (San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Books, 1997).