Climate Change Progress Report
Good news, bad news
A number of recent events concerning progress on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, together with the dependence of its future progress on the outcome of the US Congressional, Senatorial, and Presidential elections, motivated this post.
As a preface I apologize to subscribers for delaying publication of a post on climate event attribution. I have a number of conceptual issues to resolve first. You see, I am an admirer of Richard Feynman's goal of "achieving maximum clarity and simplicity without compromise by distortion of the truth." [1] A necessary but not sufficient condition for that is a deep understanding of the subject, and I am not there yet.
First the good news, though not yesterday's headline: GHG emissions in the US declined by 1.4% in 2023, despite the excellent degree of economic growth. [2] In that broadcast it was pointed out that opponents of clean energy and other climate friendly strategies have long claimed that the transition to clean energy would be harmful to the economy. They are wrong.
Now the bad news, at the planetary level. The United Nations Environmental Programme has issued its Emission Gap Report for 2024 [3] detailing how we as a planet are failing to meet even the modest greenhouse gas emissions reductions we had promised to make - the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - and, if we continued by henceforth complying with those promises we are on track to achieve a 3.1 C (5.6°F) increase in global average temperature by 2100. As you may recall, the goal is 1.5C, with a fallback of 2.0C. As of the end of 2023 we were at 1.17C. [4]
The emission reduction goals have been set based on what is called a least-cost-pathway, with targets set for 2030 and 2035 on the way to the target of zero net GHG emissions in 2050. To reach the short term targets, GHG emissions would have to be reduced by 42% over the period 2020-2030 for the 1.5C goal, and by 28% for the 2C fallback. These equate to rates of reduction of 5.3% per year and 3.23% per year, respectively. But in fact in every year apart from the COVID pandemic year of 2020, global emissions have increased - with the record set at 57.1 gigatons of CO2 equivalent in 2023. As a result the 2030 targets are fundamentally unreachable, and emissions must be reduced by 7.5% per year or 4% per year every year until 2035 to reach the 1.5 C or 2C pathways, respectively. Comparing these numbers with the USA's performance in 2023 (1.4%) it is seen that our effort is far below what is needed. Even the European Union, the only other G20 entity to reduce its GHG emissions in 2023, was barely adequate, at 7.5%.
So much for the global picture. As the US is currently the second largest emitter of GHGs, and is the all-time largest emitter, our future behavior on climate change is important far beyond our borders. We know that there are very powerful forces opposing meaningful action on climate change, including elements in the corporate sector (fossil fuel industry, big banks, power companies, chemical companies, big tech), political factions (the MAGA GOP, Libertarians), and others (especially religious fundamentalists) who see their interests threatened by any effort to save the planet from the adverse effects of their activities. It is useful to explore their plans.
Recently Dominion Energy, the largest electricity provider in Virginia, published their latest long term plan. That plan, together with Amazon and Google plans for powering their rapidly expanding network of data centers, were the topics of articles recently appearing on the same page of our local newspaper, The Loudoun Times-Mirror [5], [6]. They inform us about the prospects for our domestic energy priorities and transition and provide the opportunity to examine them in more detail. Let's start with Dominion Energy.
The latest plan calls for the utility to have 80% of its capacity in the form of renewables by 2045, down from 95% in the plan's previous version. However, the plan addresses only the next 15 years, i.e. through 2039. Total projected requirements amount to 45 gigawatts, up more than 15% over the previous plan. Residential retail prices will increase by 50% (based on 1000 kWH/month; this is suspiciously low, corresponding to an inflation rate of only 2.74%). New sources include:
3.4 gigawatts from offshore wind, in addition to 2.6 gigawatts scheduled to come on line in late 2026 (see the adjoining pink and green areas east of Norfolk) [8]. To gain some appreciation for the rate of transition, per [7] the first site was leased to Dominion on 1 Nov 2013. A pilot plant, consisting of two wind turbines, came on line in Oct 2020. In 2024 regulatory approval was granted for the current system, and construction began in May. That time line would enable the added 3.4 gigawatts capacity to be completed as early as late 2037 - and perhaps several years sooner assuming the lease was granted this year and there was no need to build and experiment with another pilot installation.
An unknown capacity from Small Modular (nuclear fission) Reactors (SMRs) starting in 2035. Herein lies a twisted tale. Dominion had proposed a facility using some number of NuScale's 77 megawatt units, and activist groups pushed back, citing among other things the rip off of customers in South Carolina involving NuScale and eye watering increases in NuScale's projected costs [9]. Though the legislation was approved, Dominion must have been listening, because they canceled their agreement with NuScale. All we know is that there is no contract in place, and that Virginia's gain is now Ohio's loss, as NuScale is now selling itself as an "AI" enabler and has entered into a partnership with ENTRA1 Energy. Reference [5] mentions 5 modules; if on the scale of NuScale's that would amount to 385 megawatts.
6 gigawatts increased capacity from new natural gas-fired power plants, double the amount of the previous plan. Among the problems with this are that the Virginia law enables the continuation of use of fossil fuels past 2045, and that Dominion will almost certainly do so, because from their point of view it makes no sense to shut down a power plant that has many decades of remaining life.
12 gigawatts of new solar, increasing solar capacity by about 150%. Associated with this is an expansion of 4.5 gigawatts in battery storage.
It must be noted that the 80% renewables alluded to in Dominion's plan refers only to added capacity, and even that is a stretch. The above numbers imply 72% renewables in added capacity, discounting the unknown nuclear element, which though carbon free in production is not renewable. For the added capacity to be 80% carbon free, the added nuclear capacity would have to be 8.6 gigawatts - the equivalent of 29 ea, 300 megawatt units or 112 ea, NuScale sized modules, and more than twice the capacity of Dominion's existing North Anna facility. Not likely. The bottom line is that Dominion will increase its greenhouse gas emissions over the next fifteen years, not reduce them.
Having documented the failure of Dominion Energy to plan emissions reductions thru 2035, let us now turn our attention to the giants of so-called tech. It is worth noting that Microsoft has recently arranged for the reactivation of the infamous Three Mile Island unit 3 to help reduce the greenhouse gas impact of their "AI" expansion. Reference [6] provides some details of Google's and Amazon's nuclear plans, which focus exclusively on SMRs. Problems with the SMR concept and its technology were described In three earlier posts, [10], [11] [12].
Google has contracted with Kairos, who, according to their website [13] have only this year received permission to build their first demonstration reactor. Yet Google has announced the first of the SMRs will come on line in 2030, which leaves little more than five years to construct the demonstration reactor, perform a demonstration, obtain licensing for production, and construct the first system. Google states that 500 megawatts of power will be available from Kairos SMRs through 2035. This amounts to about 6.5 of Kairos' dual unit systems. Incidentally, Google consumed more than 24,000,000 megawatts in 2023, so we see this as little more than a publicity stunt, with at most a minuscule contribution to GHG emissions reductions by 2035. (Kairos SMRs are of pebble bed design, employing TRISO fuel technology which though proliferation- and weaponization- friendly present additional problems for nuclear waste disposal and essentially prohibit spent fuel recycling. The coolant is "Flibe", a Fluorine-Lithium-Beryllium salt, with all the attendant problems of molten salt reactors.)
Amazon's press release on October 16 indicated that it is exploring installing a SMR near Dominion's nuclear power plant at North Anna, VA. As it is investing in X-Energy [14], and is teamed with Northwest Power to install four, 80 megawatt X-Energy reactors there, it is likely that Amazon's North Anna facility would use X-Energy SMRs. No dates have been published for the SMR roll outs, and it is even unclear whether Amazon's partnership with Dominion will work out. Dominion issued an RFP to several SMR firms in July concerning SMRs at North Anna. (The X-Energy SMRs are pebble bed designs, using TRISO fuel technology. High temperature gas is the coolant.)
In summary, this sample indicates further failure of SMRs to make a significant impact on GHG emissions. They are many years away from first commercial use, and remain highly questionable as contributors to abating climate change.
Any effort to achieve GHG emissions reductions, whether by wind farms, massive solar arrays, or with nuclear power, requires at a minimum a benign regulatory environment. For that reason among many others it is important to preserve and even enhance the integrity and technical expertise of the various federal agencies charged with energy regulation. As it is the avowed aim of the current Republican party to gut regulatory agencies and implement climate change denial as official US government policy, it is imperative that everyone who accepts the truth of climate change and the need to address it vote Blue up and down ballot on November 5th. The past sessions of Congress provide ample proof that, no matter what GOP members think on a particular issue, essentially none is willing to act against the MAGA leadership. Those few who have, like Liz Cheney and Adam Kitzinger, have paid with their political careers. Don't be fooled!
Notes
[1] Feynman, Richard P., QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Princeton, 1985, p. xi
[2] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1223747804/u-s-cut-climate-pollution-in-2023-but-not-fast-enough-to-limit-global-warming Incidentally, the figure quoted, 1.9%, was incorrect. The actual reduction was 1.4%.
[3] https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2024 In addition to the full report, one can find other resources related to it. Especially recommended is the Key Messages document.
[4] https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/?intent=121
[8] From Dominion's web site, accessed 27 October 2024.
[9] https://appvoices.org/vaga2024/
[10] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/new-generation-reactors-part-1
[11] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/new-generation-reactors-part-2
[12] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/the-small-modular-reactor-ripoff
Stephen, thank you for this well-researched article!
Great article.