Opinion
Energy supply accounts for a major share of human impact on the global environment. The primary issues driving energy policy were succinctly summarized nearly 20 years ago by my friend John Holdren in his Sept. 1990 Scientific American article, “Energy in Transition”:
Of all environmental problems, the most threatening and in many respects the most intractable is global climate change…. The only other external energy cost that might match the devastating impact of global climate change is the risk of causing or aggravating large-scale military conflict. One such threat is the potential for conflict over access to petroleum resources…. Another threat is the link between nuclear energy and the spread of nuclear weapons. This issue is hardly less complex and controversial than the link between carbon dioxide and climate….
Decisions are being made about how to fuel two new energy facilities in the Twin Cities — one near the Rock-Tenn paper recycle plant in St. Paul and the other in Minneapolis near Hiawatha and Lake Street. The options are natural gas or wood chips or other forms of biofuels. Environmental and health issues are getting a good bit of attention.
Of the many environmental challenges facing society, greatly reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is the most important. Incinerating natural gas produces significant carbon dioxide, albeit much less than coal or oil; and biofuels can have zero net carbon emissions. Biofuels win from the standpoint of climatic change — if they are produced sustainably. Incinerating fossil fuels is also responsible for most conventional air pollution, of which small particulates have the largest direct impact on health. Natural gas produces marginally fewer airborne small particulates than does biofuels combustion.
But pollution control costs money, and we have long been addicted to the lowest possible cost for energy. Air pollution and other environmental issues with the proposed Midtown Eco-Energy facility are detailed in the Green Institute’s comments to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, available online at www.greeninstitute.org/energy.
The local availability of wood chips and other biofuels has also been called into question.
It may be true that the supply of biomass (primarily wood chips) from the Metro area itself is insufficient for new power plants, but the potential Minnesota supply is huge.
When opponents of the new energy plants argue that there is insufficient biomass, they mean insufficient biomass at little or no cost and, or, that natural gas is cheaper in the short term. This will change, and change fairly soon. There will be ample supply of biofuels — if the price is right. The future price of biofuels is apt to be much less volatile than is the future price of natural gas.
Biofuels are not “the answer” (no single measure is), but sustainably produced biofuels will be an increasing fraction of the new energy mix. For guidance, Minnesota could look to northern Europe. Finland and Sweden are leading the world in modern biomass use. Biomass supplied 19 percent of Finland’s total primary energy supply. In Sweden, biomass, primarily wood chips, accounts for about 15 percent of total primary energy supply and 53 percent of the fuel mix in residential and commercial district heating. These countries have environmental health standards second to none.
Many energy plants are located in urban areas. I have taught energy policy for nearly 40 years, including part-time at Lund University in southern Sweden, where the campus is heated by a biomass-burning plant that is located in the middle of the campus. Some of the biomass is produced locally, but much of it is shipped in from the surrounding area and some from quite some distance away.
So, what is the bottom line? No combustion source, including natural gas, is “totally green.” The best energy options are truly renewable energy sources, primarily wind or solar power, and reducing demand by increasing the efficiency with which energy is transformed to energy services. But for now, many decisions need to be made about the fuel for facilities such as those proposed for Rock-Tenn and Minneapolis Midtown Eco-Energy facility. Remember that the basic laws of ecology still hold, among them this one: “There is no free lunch.”
Dean Abrahamson is a retired University of Minnesota professor of energy and environmental policy and a resident of Prospect Park.
last revised: January 4, 2008