17. Healing (Part 11). The Only Solution.
This installment, originally posted on October 10, 2021, has been my “pinned” installment. I chose to highlight it because I want to provoke my colleagues for whom such absolute statements make them contrarian, or at least to make them think.
It was a sermon given from the pulpit at the time, so, again, I didn’t learn much from writing it. I did learn that electricity prices vary more than tenfold from state to state, and at least one factor in raising prices has been public opposition to nuclear power. A good bar bet for you (particularly when hanging out with beer-drinking energy nerds) is to ask, “Which state has the lowest carbon footprint for electricity generation?” I’ll footnote the answer1 in case you want to play along.
Key passage:
The overall message is that we have to understand the trade-offs objectively if we’re going to make a rational decision. So it’s essential to examine the problem we’re looking to solve and understand the choices we’re making. In this case, to do nothing while hoping for technological salvation is a choice. To pin our future on the rain dance of decarbonization is a choice. To embrace nuclear energy because it will demonstrably solve the problem is also a choice. It can be effective..
The most important takeaway is that choices have consequences, even if it’s the choice to do nothing or too little. The climate doesn’t care—it’s a consequence, not a player.
I’d appreciate your help getting the message out, and if I can attract enough new paid subscribers, I’ll distribute some collectible swag accordingly. Yes, Substack tracks that sort of thing. Here’s a link to make it easy:
Let’s reiterate what the problem is and how possible solutions are constrained. Stated concisely:
The increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, attributable to human extraction and combustion of geologic carbon over 350 years of industrialization, threatens to destabilize Earth’s climates.
Let’s now summarize our progress to a plausible solution.
To solve this problem, we must reduce the quantity of already-emitted carbon dioxide, not simply reduce the rate of its increase by “decarbonization”.
Removing carbon dioxide from the air using any direct engineering approach is prohibitively expensive, even if only the energy cost is included.
Photosynthesis is the only process that creates economic value from carbon dioxide because it uses (free) sunlight as its energy source.
Increasing Earth’s capacity for photosynthesis is a serious geoengineering challenge. The most direct approach is to produce irrigation water from ocean water—Earth has enough of both land and water so that any system can scale.
The energy required for the process must also come from carbon-free sources. Our only plausible choice is nuclear energy, and we need to hit a cost target of less than $300 per acre-foot of irrigation water.
Now, we know the only technological solution to the primary factor involved in modifying Earth’s climates, rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is a rifle shot at a clear target. [Naturally, the word “only” will challenge other technologists to conceive of alternative solutions. This provocation is intentional. But if you’re rising to the bait, remember the problem’s constraints: You can only use current, proven technologies that can scale globally. And show your work—Don’t just toss out an unsupported idea. I’ve thought about this a lot and expect you to do the same!]
I firmly believe we can solve the techno-economic problem of producing low-cost irrigation water from the ocean. Furthermore, we can use that water in concert with Nature to suck carbon dioxide out of the air by increasing terrestrial photosynthesis. Once proven regionally, the solution can scale globally to stabilize our atmosphere.
To be entirely clear, I’m not suggesting that humanity should abandon other avenues for reducing emissions—it will take time for us to stabilize the atmosphere, and such efforts can buy time if they can scale quickly. However, we can’t expect them to constitute a solution without implementing technologies that reverse past emissions.
To recap, the solution must:
Use carbon-free (nuclear) energy for desalination to avoid making the problem worse and
Be profitable at $300 per acre-foot, delivered to otherwise arid land.
It helps to have a concrete use case for the technology, as well, so let’s return to Southern California:
I’ve highlighted two features. First, there’s the Carlsbad desalination plant, the largest in the Western hemisphere. Second, only about 100 miles to the east is the All-American Canal, which diverts fresh water from the Colorado River to the US side of the border, generating the green agricultural area in the middle of the desert, California’s Imperial Valley. Note how much greener the desert is on the American side of the border! [As a side note, the “lake” just to the north is “The Salton Sea”. Its water is much too salty for irrigation—it’s the remnants of a prior engineering failure caused by faulty canal construction!]
The Carlsbad plant supplies a fraction of San Diego’s drinking water. It has a faceplate capacity of 50 million gallons of drinking water daily and uses about 3.6 kWh per cubic meter. These numbers allow us to calculate the energy cost of an acre-foot of water produced by this plant—it takes 4.4 MWh per acre-foot, meaning that the process uses about four times the theoretical minimum energy. But how much did that energy cost?
If you’ve ever read your electricity bill in detail (I have, but I’m a nerd), then you’ll appreciate that this is not a straightforward question. Because electric power cannot be stored at scale or transmitted over long distances, it must be generated locally to match local demand. As a result, low-cost sources are used first (generally always-on “baseload” power) followed by higher-cost sources (“peak” power). Because electric utilities are highly regulated, they can’t pass on increased costs to consumers. Instead, they have established pricing “tiers” that reflect demand patterns. This regulation leads to market distortions, including incentives for utilities to pay consumers to avoid using their products during periods of high demand! This lack of transparency makes cost (as distinct from price) even more brutal to tease out. But it’s worth a try.
What do we know about cost? To that end, let’s examine bulk prices for industrial electricity use as a proxy for cost. These prices vary by region:
and by season:
A few observations: First, regional differences are significant: Jurisdictions like Hawaii are expensive because they are remote and lack natural power sources. Second, jurisdictions like Washington State, New York State, and Nevada are cheap, probably because of abundant baseload hydroelectric power (the Columbia River, Niagara Falls, and Hoover Dam, respectively). Third, you can start to see the importance of nuclear: Illinois gets about half of its electricity from nuclear power, while prominent shutdowns in New England and California affect costs (the Pilgrim and San Onofre decommissioning, respectively), and this translates to higher prices. Finally, the retail, industrial rate (as close as we’ll be able to get to actual cost) can vary as much as 30-fold, although normal variation is closer to twofold.
So, what does the math tell us? First, let’s use Illinois costs as a proxy for nuclear power2. Here, the rates vary from about $0.04 to about $0.08 per kWh. This translates to an energy cost of $178 to $355 per acre-foot of water. Nuclear, as baseload, will undoubtedly come in at the lower end of this range. So, at least from an energy-cost perspective, nuclear desalination can be breakeven or profitable today.
Of course, labor, maintenance, transmission, and financing will drive costs up. But, many design factors will drive down costs (a la Henry Ford) in a purpose-built system, and I’ll go into them in the next installment. The bottom line: There is a business case for nuclear desalination.
Some may recoil from these facts and retreat into denial or false hope. For most of my lifetime, anti-nuclear activists have peddled nuclear energy as an environmental horror show, so such a visceral response is understandable. Take a deep breath, and understand that this induced emotional response is nearly as non-scientific as the analogs that lead some to deny global warming—this is a crisis, and we need to keep calm. The overall message is that we have to understand the trade-offs objectively if we’re going to make a rational decision. So, it’s essential to examine the problem we’re looking to solve and understand our choices. In this case, to do nothing while hoping for technological salvation is a choice. To pin our future on the rain dance of decarbonization is a choice. It is also a choice to embrace nuclear energy because it will demonstrably solve the problem. It can be effective.
Before the “what-abouts” start, realize that we don’t have time to look for a “better” solution because modern civilization requires energy. There is no perfect solution; the laws of thermodynamics constrain us, and we can’t wish or legislate our way out of them.
If you thought “California”, you’re wrong. It’s not even in the top ten. The greenest state for electricity generation is South Dakota, thanks to wind. Three states in the top ten, Illinois, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, get more than half of their electricity from nuclear. Massachusetts is 45th of 51.
Approximately half of the electric power in Illinois comes from nuclear.