Ecology + Energy Last updated 2018
Already in 1937 the climatologist Roger Reveille has warned of mankind’s experiment with earth’s climate. In 1972 Jorgen Randers wrote a report for the ‘Club of Rome’, resulting in the best-seller “Limits of Growth” with the warning of a catastrophe. The ‘hockey stick’ doctrine of Michael E. Mann of the Pennsylvania State University, the ‘Stern Report’ of Lord Nicholas Stern, a British government consultant, and other predictions frightened readers. Mojib Latif of the Helmholtz institute recognized some fluctuations, but he warned: “Already now we have a CO2 concentration in the atmosphere which was non-existent since almost a million years” (Die Zeit, Jan24, 2013). A change has been shown by the melting Arctic ice. By mid-September 2007 it covered 4.17 million square kilometers, while five years later it had shrunk to 3.41 million square kilometers (according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre of the USA). Antarctic ice melted, too, and in the southern hemisphere warming is endangering agriculture. Between 1850 and 2013 the man-made CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen from 270ppm (parts per million) to more than 400ppm. The critical limit is considered 550ppm. Physician Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, consultant of the German chancellor, stated that “beyond that limit uncontrollable processes could start…” A special danger is the release of methane from seas and soils in permafrost regions of the Arctic, as Wikipedia explained, quoting among others scientist Natalia Shakova, stating that “up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage (is) highly possible for abrupt release at any time.” Barry Minkin (a long-term consultant with the Stanford Research Institute) considered the release of methane gases more dangerous than nowadays’ entire carbon dioxide emissions. In 2011 the New York Times (Oct31) quoted Andrew J. Hoffmann, director of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute: “Climate change presents numerous ideological challenges to our culture and our beliefs.” And the New York Times commented: “There are, of course, other factors, that hardened resistance: America’s fossil fuel industry…” Only China surpassed that world-leader in CO2 production. For 2040 the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted a share of 80% in US energy production contributed by natural gas, oil and coal (USA Today, April08, 2014). There is the coal industry, too: After Japan’s Fukushima catastrophe in 2011, only Germany announced to close down its efficient nuclear power stations without any political opposition, praising a change to solar and wind power. But immediately it changed to enhanced brown coal burning, polluting the atmosphere. In late 2013 the total share of coal and lignite in German electric energy production has risen to 45.5% (Muenchner Merkur, Jan15, 2014). Already a quarter of a century before, after the Chernobyl catastrophe in Ukraine, many German newspapers had stirred up an anti-nuclear panic (but the author has been to nearby Kiev three weeks after the disaster, life there has been quite normal and we enjoyed the spring). More than a year after the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan’s government has announced to abandon nuclear power, facing elections, but the opposition under Shinzo Abe warned of the economic consequences and won the elections. However, in 2018 Financial Times reported that “Japan, together with China, is the largest public funder in coal-fired powerplants.” Nevertheless China was reported having reduced its carbon intensity. As the biggest coal exporter was listed Australia, rejecting climate calls. Coal has no future – that was a headline of Handelsblatt (Nov21, 2017), quoting Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency, promoting an enhanced emissions trading system. In 2018 Germany decided to close down its coal-mining, and 20% of the electric energy was reported coming from wind power. Energy Supply Energy demand was rising in the 20th century and for the next two decades a rise by 70 to 80% became expected e.g. by energy historian Daniel Yergin. It must rise further, otherwise the social problems could never be solved. Harrassing wind, water and solar power is the safest way of producing energy. But in 2011 these “renewable” energy resources were reported covering only 2% of mankind’s energy demand. Nuclear power stations continued to be built in many countries, considered in 2011 delivering 13-14% of electric energy or 6% of total energy supply (according to Wikipedia). The Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, built in the Soviet Union in 1954, had been described (via Wikipedia) being “the first nuclear powerplant for civilian purposes.” The economy of France and Italy was reported being dependent by 70% on French nuclear power stations. And despite president Macron’s open politics, France kept its hands on the energy sector. When China’s energy sector was dominated still by a 64% share of coal burning, He Yu, the chairman of China General Nuclear Power Corp said: “China needs to build at least 10 million-kilowatt nuclear power units each year to achieve the emission reduction plan …” (according to China Daily). Nuclear fusion technology is a long-term development e.g. by the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) initiative in France, considered safer and reducing the dependence on uranium. While electric power supply is not necessarily dependent on coal, oil or gas, air transport is connected with carbon emissions, as long as alternative technologies are not available. When the electric motorcar would be common, the demand in electric energy must rise, not shrink. Ships can be nuclear-powered – and not only the US aircraft carriers, but also the passenger-freighter “Savannah” has proven it. In 2015 the ferry “Stena Germanica” was announced to become the first methanol-powered passenger ship. In 2018 the “AIDAnova” was built at Papenburg, the first cruise ship powered by liquified natural gas (LNG), more clean than petroleum. And LNG-powered ferries appeared, even between Melbourne and Tasmania. 80% of world’s oil and 95% of natural gas reserves were estimated being still in the ground, but alternatives are a precondition for survival. Climate Agreements Contrary to road transport, air transport traditionally has been exempted from paying fuel taxes. It was a result of the Chicago conference in 1944, when the environmental issue had not yet been on the agenda, a “grandfathers’ right” without obligation. In order to avoid fuel taxes, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) has called for being included in an emission trading system. In America, the FAA opposed the European Emission Trading System (ETS) and the U.S. Congress rejected it. And the Chinese government interdicted Chinese airlines to participate in the ETS system. The USA, Russia and China opposed the ETS at a Moscow conference in 2012. About the inefficiency of the European ETS, Johannes Teyssen, chairman of Econ, commented (in Financial Times Deutschland, March30, 2012): “While in the emissions trade the avoidance of 1 ton CO2 at present is rewarded with at most 10 euro, the cost of avoidance in the case of wind is roughly 30 euro (onshore) to c.60 euro (offshore) and in the case of sun collectors 350 to 400 euro.” Finally, in late 2012 the intention of introducing ETS for global traffic in 2013 was dropped by the EU. In the USA, president Obama’s attempt to reduce CO2 emissions with help of an emission trading system was prevented by the Republicans in 2010, but Obama started initiatives with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At the Paris climate summit in 2015, a limit in global warming of 2 degrees was set as a target. The G20 countries are responsible for 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions and a global emission trading system was considered the only way into future. But in 2017 Donald Trump renounced participation in the climate agreement. Fortunately China’s president Xi Jinping together with many nations declared their belief in favor of protecting Earth’s climate. AirTransport’s Share A publication by the German organization BDL stated a 41% share in total CO2 exhaust by producing electric energy and heat, 23% by traffic, 20% by industry and c.16% by others, stating that air transport caused 2.46% in CO2 production, refuting some hostile lies. Not ignoring the other emissions apart from CO2, MUCLife (Nov 2009) quoted a report by the World Resources Institute (WRI), which classified the percentage in emissions without “forgetting” other gases: Industry 41.3%, agriculture 27.4%, housing 16.5%, road traffic 10.5%, other traffic 2.5%, air traffic 1.7%. In 2014 Clearsky stated a c.2% share of air transport in mankind’s CO2 production. However, as jet air traffic is polluting the upper part of the troposphere with CO2 and NOx, further researches are obligatory. According to Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz (Lufthansa Magazin 04/2011), “since 1991 the fleet’s average specific kerosene consumption has fallen by over 30% (…). Forecasts estimated that passenger numbers will have doubled by 2020 (…). That is why all airlines belonging to IATA have undertaken to stabilize their carbon emissions by 2020 – on the basis of the annual figures for 2005 – and to halve these emissions by 2050.” According to Jim Banke of NASA (Aerospace America, July 2011), NASA’s “goal is to develop technology that would enable planes to burn only half as much fuel by 2020 and at least 70% less by 2025, compared to one of today’s most fuel efficient aircraft…” Additionally, development in the traffic management system is targeting “to handle aircraft in a more environmentally responsible manner.” According to the above-mentioned BDL report, German air traffic had (in 2009) a fuel consumption of 3.92 liter per passenger per 100km. That’s roughly half the consumption of a fuel-efficient motorcar. But the electrified railway is the most eco-friendly means of transport. Subsonic jet aircraft are flying in the free troposphere, the tropopause, at a flight level around 30,000 to 40,000ft or c.12km. As the upper end of the troposphere on the poles is lower than elsewhere, the impact of Polar flight routes must be examined. Supersonic jets, in the early 21st century not a commercial reality, pollute the stratosphere, where the oxides of nitrogen NOx emissions have reduced the ozone CO3 layer. Fortunately in 2014 a recovery of Earth’s ozone layer became expected. The Concorde was operating at a flight level of c.18km. The vision of a big fleet of supersonic jets with conventional fuel propulsion had created the fear of cancer from cosmic radiation when Earth’s ozone layer would be endangered. Additionally, the pollution was described lowering the Earth’s temperature possibly more than desirable. Lowering global warming must not at the expense of the ozone layer. Fuel Prices After the Yom Kippur war in 1973 (when some press, misinterpreting the “Club of Rome”, proclaimed the end of oil resources already in the 20th century), the Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Yamani strengthened the OPEC cartel, controlling around 50% of total oil production and wrestling control of the market from Western oil companies. It quadrupled prices, but brought also a sort of global stability. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the long-run average of $25 per barrel (159 liter) had been considered a standard. At that time the fuel cost e.g. for an Airbus A340 on a medium-haul flight was estimated 19% of the flight’s total cost. In 2011 fuel accounted for an average of 32% of operating cost, as IATA director Tony Tyler estimated. In 2014 lower oil prices were welcomed, but with the motorization mainly of China and India, the demand for oil was considered to rise 70% by 2030. Then Russia was reported backing an OPEC production freeze for rising oil prices – a precondition for protecting Earth’s atmosphere. Financial Times reported in Nov 2017: “The original deal with Opec’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, brokered by Mr Novak (Russia’s energy minister) and Russian president Vladimir Putin, reduced oil production from participating countries by 1.8m barrels a day and helped push the price of benchmark Brent crude above $60 a barrel…” But in 2018 Donald Trump wanted lowered oil prices. However, prices rose and dropped. Liquefied Natural Gas Some sources have stated already a 22% share of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the energy mix. Russia is a main producer. North America intensified LNG production with “fracking” (hydraulic fractioning) and large resources are presumed also in the Middle East. The experiments of 1988 in Russia resulted in the development of the Tu-156 testbed, operating on kerosene and liquefied natural gas (LNG), less hazardous than hydrogen. In 2008 an A380 had a first test flight with one engine powered by a mix of GTL (Gas-to-Liquid) fuel and kerosene. The German magazine Focus (March31, 2008) however claimed that gas-to-liquids could raise CO2 emissions by 50% in comparison to conventional fuel. Liquefying coal by the Fischer-Tropsch Process had been a way to convert coal into a liquid fuel already in war-time Germany, neither cheap nor ecologically friendly. And some day not only crude oil, but also coal and natural gas resources will be exhausted. Methane The director of Stanford University’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development described a special option: “…Hydrate’s importance as a source of gas has suddenly become a very real possibility… Hydrate is formed when gas is trapped in a lattice structure of frozen water molecules… The scientists were able to release controlled volumes of methane… Buried beneath marine and permafrost areas of the globe are massive deposits of hydrate” (Newsweek, Dec22, 2003). Mentioning the aircraft tests with hydrogen and liquid natural gas in Russia, started already in the mid-1970s, Wikipedia (2011) stated that a 60% cost reduction was claimed, “with considerable reductions to carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions. However, environmental effect of a big methane-burning fleet must still be examined. About the Orion spacecraft, Wikipedia reported (in 2013): “The ascent stage would be powered by a methane/oxygen fuel to return to lunar orbit (later changed to liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen due to the infancy of oxygen/methane rocket propulsion).” Infancy must not mean the end… Bio-Fuel In 2005 Embraer has started studies to convert a military-training Turbojet T25 to biofuel ethanol. But the International Herald Tribune (July17, 2008) objected: “Corn-based ethanol (…) is out of consideration because it freezes at high altitude …” MTU engineer S. Donnerhack (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Sep29, 2007) stated: “If fuel contends a higher percentage of bio-kerosene, the plane has less power. Logically, consumption is higher. Perhaps the fuel tanks and planes must become larger, causing a higher fuel consumption.” Greenpeace stated that within two years the global deposit in grain was reduced from 175 to 105 million tons and every year 150 million tons are changed into biofuel, while 925 million people are hungry. In order to create agricultural areas for producing biofuel, tropical forests were burnt down e.g. in Indonesia, causing more CO2 emissions than the entire economy of an industrialized country during one year. In 2011 a headline was: “Green light for alcohol” – meaning the alcohol-to-jet fuel (ATJ). But replacing cultivation of grain by sugar-crane for fuel production could lead to starvation of the poor. In the same year 2011 the certifying body ASTM declared a 50 by 50% mix of kerosene with HRJ biofuels open to be used as an environmentally-neutral fuel. The environmentalist institution ClientEarth however stated that biofuel produces more greenhouse gas emissions than can be absorbed (Flight Intl, July12, 2011). In Germany, some media had lamented over the death of forests (“Waldsterben”), but then they published the proposal of chopping down forests in order to make gas from wood (copying Hitler’s inefficient ‘Holzkocher’), and beneath the forests large brown coal reserves are assumed. The Herald Tribune stated: “Industry experts are pinning their hope on oil from algae (…)”. However, Der Spiegel reported: “For replacing the entire kerosene consumption by algae fuel, under nowadays’ technological conditions (…) an area of 68,000 square kilometres would be required – equivalent almost to the size of Ireland.” Air & Space made already a joke of some airlines’ propaganda with biofuel tests. Published estimates indicated that a part of the Sahara could, via halophytes (salt plants) and seawater irritation, produce biomass sufficient for replacing the entire fossil carbon fuel consumption – but first the Sahara must be conquered… Liquid Hydrogen Liquid hydrogen (LH2) propulsion was envisioned in Germany in the 1970s by Ludwig Boelkow. In 1988 the Tupolev Tu-155 derivative of the Tu-154 airliner with one additional liquid-hydrogen engine took its maiden flight. When in 1990 Deutsche Airbus participated in the Tupolev program for development of cryogenic propulsion, one option was liquid-hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen may be produced by electrolysis and the only exhaust would be – steam. The electric energy could be provided by nuclear power-plants, but publications asked for using solar energy, harnessing the desert sun. Proposals saw the liquid hydrogen being carried by tankers from African to European ports, but an explosion of such a tanker could be equivalent to a nuclear bomb attack. Media have moderated the hydrogen euphoria already decades ago. Indeed, for private motorcars it would be too dangerous, whole living-quarters could be destroyed by gigantic explosions. The EU-founded “Cryoplane” consortium found that hydrogen-powered aircraft would require fuel tanks 4x larger than today’s. A study, published decades ago by the American Institution of Astronautics and Aeronautics, showed a delta-winged supersonic aircraft, the large hydrogen tanks placed in front and in the rear of a twin-deck cabin, not very inviting. For NASA Glenn’s N3-X studies, promoting turboelectric distributed propulsion (TeDP) fans and supercooled transmission of electricity, also the possibility of using liquid hydrogen for the turbo-generators became evaluated, with all its dangers. Innovative Energetics? Envisioning a completely different fuel, Craig Venter, famous for decoding the human genome, started targeting a fuel made truly synthetically through bio-chemical processes. Wikipedia (2011) reported: “In June 2005 he co-founded Synthetic Genomics, a firm dedicated to using modified microorganisms to produce clean fuels and biochemicals. Venter hopes to eventually synthesize bacteria to manufacture hydrogen and biofuels…” Dennis M.Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA Langley, gave a report (in Aerospace America, Sep2012) on nuclear fusion studies: “Perhaps the poster child for an energetics revolution is low-energy nuclear reactions (…). LENR produces heat, which could be used directly as a combustor replacement or, via means such as pyroelectrics or Stirling cycles, produce electricity for propulsion.” For further studies compare the main chapter To Space/ 21st Century. Changes can’t come immediately. For the next decades Mike Farmery, a global technical manager at Shell Aviation (quoted by Flight Intl, July29, 2003), has predicted: “The last usage of kerosene may well be in aviation”. Sound Jet airplanes can make a wonderful sound – but not always, and so the noise problem has become an urgent matter. The impact on health is proven, but it is misused for political propaganda. A newspaper wrote that 1/3 of the German population is suffering from aircraft noise, but in reality so many people are not living so close to the airports. A ban on night flights is a necessary measure for airports in densely populated regions, and also a progress in technology is essential. With modern turbofan engines, the noise of jetliners has been reduced by 75% during the past four decades. The advance had become evident in comparison with old Soviet planes with their loud sound, but then still some western-built types made a clinky noise. Enthusiasts may prefer the powerful sound of the TriStar, not to speak of the fascinating Concorde. Aiming to reduce fuel consumption, contra-rotating open rotor engines have become studied, but (according to Flight Intl, Oct23, 2007) they were “noisier than high-bypass turbofans”. The electric “Green Taxiing System”, developed by Snecma and Honeywell, is an attempt to reduce noise and pollution on the ground. Noisy short-haul flights could be reduced by building high-speed railways (and the fastest, the magnetic-levitation Shanghai airport link, makes almost no noise at all), but in most regions of the globe high-speed trains are non-existent and they are combated by opponents. Consequently, environment’s and air transport’s future is dependent on changes in politics and on intensive researches in ecology and energy supply – but beware of science fiction. Serious researches are necessary for protecting our planet Earth…  Caravelle of Istanbul Airlines, flying over rapefields, Munich R. approach, 1987 (WS)  Greenland, 2007 (WS)  Greenland, a thunderstorm (WS)
|
