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Workshop on reinventing the world's energy systems

In addressing global warming, policy-makers and political leaders need to use "cathedral thinking."

That’s the view of Jim Rogers, chairman and chief executive officer of Duke Energy, who spoke during a three-day Energy, Climate and Global Security Workshop at the Laboratory. The Lab’s Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) sponsored the conference.

Rogers recalled that earlier this year, when he visited Paris with his 10-year-old granddaughter, they toured the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was built over three generations and more than 100 years.

Neither the cathedral’s architect nor many of its stone masons saw the building completed.

"They did it because they had vision that it was possible; they had faith that it was the right thing to do; and, at the end of the day, they committed their lives to it," Rogers said.

"In a sense, this climate change issue has got to be that kind of issue. This is not a problem we fix tomorrow morning; it’s a problem we fix over a number of years."

The CGSR workshop was attended by a diverse group of about 70 people from universities, national labs, industry, environmental organizations, government and non-government organizations and "think tanks." It was designed to define research needs for reinventing the world’s energy system and to identify key principles for a multi-year international research project. In his keynote address, Rogers cautioned that he believes global warming is an "ecological crisis," and achieving a low-carbon footprint cannot be done without technology.

No energy source, whether coal, natural gas, or nuclear power, should be removed from the table for consideration, he said. The head of Duke Energy since January 2007 and a leader with 19 years’ experience as a utility company CEO, Rogers outlined plans for five fuels his firm will use to provide energy while reducing its carbon footprint.

Duke Energy is planning to build two coal plants, each with a different technology.

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked the question, ‘How is it that a guy who is such an advocate for regulating carbon can build two coal plants?’ " Rogers said.

In the first project — a 730-megawatt facility in Indiana — Duke Energy is replacing a 60-to 70-year-old plant in a $2 billion coal gasification effort with General Electric technology.

"The reason we’re doing it is because it’s built in the coal fields and the geology is almost perfect for carbon sequestration," Rogers explained. The Indiana plant, in which carbon dioxide would be sequestered from the atmosphere by being stored underground, would become the largest sequestration facility in the world. Currently, there are 40 sequestration projects for coal in the world, all are small, most are in the planning stages and have low capital. If all 40 projects were completed by 2015, they would only sequester 1.5 percent of the total emissions from coal plants.

"If we don’t do it, who’s going to do it?" Rogers asked.

The second coal plant project, in North Carolina, would shut down an older plant that has not been retrofitted for sulfur oxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions. It would be replaced by an 800-megawatt facility that would be 30 percent more efficient and have a significantly lower carbon intensity per kilowatt hour, Rogers said. The second fuel cited by Rogers is natural gas. However, Rogers cautioned there is a risk – natural gas has risen in cost from $2.50 per thousand cubic feet in the 1990s to about $9 per thousand cubic feet now.

For the third fuel, nuclear power, Duke Energy is undergoing an expedited, 42-month licensing process to build 2,200 megawatts of nuclear power, hoping to bring this power on line in 2018.

"I cannot achieve the decarbonization goal without bringing new nuclear units on," Rogers explained. "Quite frankly, it has to be an important part of the equation."

For the fourth fuel, renewables, Duke is developing about 2,500 megawatts of wind energy and is looking for greater involvement in solar energy.

"I see every customer’s rooftop as potential plant sites because when solar comes, I think we can play a greater role there," he said, adding that about 25 to 50 percent of the cost of photovoltaics is installation, and greater economies of scale are needed.

Rogers characterized the fifth fuel plan, energy efficiency, as No. 1 in his heart.

"This is something we can do right now…and we can do a lot more."

As an example Rogers cited Duke Energy’s "Save a Watt" program, which has been dubbed by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as "the mother of all energy paradigm changes."

"Basically, the idea is simply this: We will invest the money, we will take the risk, and at the end of the day, if we can reduce a megawatt, we want to get pay tied to the avoided cost," Rogers said. "So we have the incentive to treat it like a production cost. So our engineers and our people wake up every day trying to find ways to invest money to reduce energy."

During the conference, the 70 participants came to conclusions on several fronts. They agreed that the rate of change in energy systems and development does not match or come near to the growing awareness of the urgency and threat caused by global warming. They also found that electric utilities and other institutions could play vital roles in scaling up new technology, such as nuclear power, carbon sequestration and renewable energy.

The workshop’s first session focused on the emerging features of a world marked by increasingly complex interactions between energy, climate, security phenomena and economics. The second session was centered on the obstacles and barriers to scaling up low-carbon energy technologies, nationally and in major industrializing nations, such as China and India.

In the third session, the workshop participants examined how the institutions, industries and urban environments impact the energy system and how they respond to incentives, as well as drive the change. In the final session, the group identified some key areas for a continuing international research project.

Vic Reis discusses energy at workshop

April 4, 2008

Contact

Stephen Wampler
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