Is the World Bank Coal-fused?
You knew it had to happen, the World Bank now has the same climate sensibility as … the Kansas House.
Scientist Jim Hansen, on the other hand, has requested a meeting with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, arguing for a moratorium on coal plants until carbon capture and storage technology is available. Even Wall Street looks on coal skeptically. Last Friday, the Kansas House failed to override Sebelius’ veto of two new plants by only one vote. And the World Bank is considering funding a massive coal plant in India in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism.
Yes, you read that correctly, A larger-than-ever coal plant in a developing giant is considered a mechanism for clean development. Why? Because it will burn more efficiently than other coal plants in India. In fact, it boasts ‘supercritical‘ technology.
The project uses supercritical coal technology, which has been approved by CDM-Executive Board as a “Clean Development Mechanism” for power projects in India. Due to the use of this technology and choice of unit sizes, the thermal efficiency of the project (LHV, gross) will be higher by about 70%, 30% and 20% as compared to the average thermal efficiency (LHV, gross) of coal based power plants in India, across the globe and OECD. Therefore, the project will result in reducing the average carbon emissions of India’s electricity generation system per unit of electricity supply.
This just a few months after a major announcement in the Financial Times of a clean technology fund administered by the World Bank to facilitate the transfer of clean energy technology from developed to developing countries.
Returning to the Indian coal plant (Tata Ultra Mega), how comfortable is the climate policy community with its construction as a clean development mechanism? It certainly harps on the point that the dire need for efficiency in developed countries is much different, intuitively, than the argument for efficient generation and pollution in developing countries.
So, between efficient development and clean development, clean development is obviously preferred, but is efficient development suitable, and under what conditions?
The World Bank explains,
Since the most technologically proven method of reducing GHG emissions is improving power plants efficiency, IFC [International Finance Corporation] is giving high priority to funding more efficient power projects which will reduce the carbon emissions intensity in the country and reduce the average overall environmental impact of the country’s power generation system.
David Wheeler, from the Center for Global Development, has spelled out an argument against the World Bank’s rationale. Wheeler points out that the project is essentially obsolete on the part of the World Bank because supercritical coal plants in India are on the rise without this additional boost. This investment is not worth international resources. He also points to the potential for solar energy in the region that the plant is proposed, and has argued that baseload solar power IS technologically possible.
Just some thoughts to chew on as Climate Progress focuses its climate policy discussion on technology this week. This is all an opportune context to consider technology as an instrument of international policy.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:50 am
“Due to the use of this technology and choice of unit sizes, the thermal efficiency of the project (LHV, gross) will be higher by about 70%, 30% and 20% as compared to the average thermal efficiency (LHV, gross) of coal based power plants in India, across the globe and OECD. Therefore, the project will result in reducing the average carbon emissions of India’s electricity generation system per unit of electricity supply.”
If you believe Jevon’s paradox this will lead to an overall increase in coal use and CO2 emitted. I am very sketical of efficiency-based arguments, whichever continent they are applied to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
April 8th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I don’t like how you (all the authors) link entire sentences. It is poor formatting. Please correct this behaviour.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Ben: Please provide a link from a recognized authority on this matter.
Robert: Jevon’s paradox is bunk. It is an assertion. Studies show it isn’t true.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Jevons is worth an essay of its own, given how often it is (wrongly) invoked to claim there’s no use in getting more efficient in energy use over the coming decades.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Joe,
“Jevon’s paradox is bunk. It is an assertion. Studies show it isn’t true.”
I think in the broadest sense Jevon’s paradox is bunk. It is an assertion. Studies show it isn’t true. is bound to be true. If I can save money on my gas bill by using a more efficient boiler then I am likely to use it on something equally pointless like a trip to the Canaries. The way our economy is set up at the moment, we are in a cycle where higher efficiency -> more economic growth -> more fossil fuel used. You would need to change the economic rules drastically by pricing or capping carbon to change it.
Looked at another way, if we were 100% inefficient in our use of coal, we would never have started mining it and the industrial revolution would not have happened.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
(sorry, let’s try again)
Joe,
“Jevon’s paradox is bunk. It is an assertion. Studies show it isn’t true.”
I think in the broadest sense Jevon’s paradox is bound to be true. If I can save money on my gas bill by using a more efficient boiler then I am likely to use it on something equally pointless like a trip to the Canaries. The way our economy is set up at the moment, we are in a cycle where higher efficiency -> more economic growth -> more fossil fuel used. You would need to change the economic rules drastically by pricing or capping carbon to change it.
Looked at another way, if we were 100% inefficient in our use of coal, we would never have started mining it and the industrial revolution would not have happened.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Robert,
In the last five years we’ve replaced the old furnace, almost doubled our cars’ mpg, insulated the attic and bought a high efficiency stove and refrigerator. I assure you none of the savings is going toward a trip to the Canaries.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
But he misses the point. The money saved on fuel is 100% energy. Most things you’d spend it on are only about 8% energy by cost.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Suppose you use X of some resource to achieve Y benefit.
Suppose the efficiency doubles, so that you achieve Y with only .5X.
Do you still use X to achieve 2Y?
or is Y sufficient, and you now have an extra .5X to spend on something else?
====
But, realistically, if you decide that in the future, you will have only .5X available, in which case you will either achieve .5Y, or else you’d *better* double efficiency just to maintain Y.
Given Peak Fossil, I’d suggest this latter case is more to the point. Claiming Jevons wholescale seems a large over-generalization.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
The World Bank decision appears to be based on an overall reduction in carbon intensity from supercritical coal plants. What are the pros and cons of using this metric in terms of reducing CO2 or replacing fossil fuels?
April 8th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Joe
“But he misses the point. The money saved on fuel is 100% energy. Most things you’d spend it on are only about 8% energy by cost.”
No. I think you are being too simplistic about how an economy works. If I save money then I have a choice of spending it on something else or saving it. If I save it then the bank I save it in lends it out in a highly leveraged way so that someone else can spend it. Whatever I do with the cash just ends up generating more economic activity, and being efficient just accelerates the process.
So then the question becomes: what is the relationship between economic activity and energy use (currently a proxy for CO2 emissions)? I would argue that there is pretty much a one-to-one relationship, although this isn’t very obvious when you engage in some apparently carbon-neutral activity such as a round of golf. Unfortunately, in doing so, you are at the pinacle of a pyramid of economic acivity which results in more Chinese making more clubs to be shipped round the world, earning more income which they spend on cars, heating, meat and so on. Locally it means more cash for the people who maintain the course and staff the bars. Ultimately all this cash trickles down and gets spent on basic things like fuel and food.
The only way to really cut emissions is to reduce your level of economic activity. Earn less. Spend less. Buy less stuff. Throw away less stuff. Consume fewer resources and burn less fossil fuel (preferably none). Obviously this is not fashionable and marks you out as some sort of subversive commie b*****d.
Efficiency improvements make sense as part of some wider plan, based around a hard decision to cut fossil fuel use globally and develop low-carbon energy sources. But in isolation efficiency change will achieve nothing.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
One further thought. The last 200 years of history back up what I am saying. As our machines have become smaller, more sophisticated and above all MORE EFFICIENT their numbers have multiplied. And so have ours. Global population has increased tenfold in 200 years; primary energy consumption by far, far more. There is absolutely nothing in the historical record to suggest that further efficiency gains will magically reduce energy consumption and much to suggest the opposite.
Think also of Maslow’s pyramid. Half the world’s population are right down there on level 1, living on less than $2 a day. Spare energy = more food = more population.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Robert,
History teaches that birth rates decrease when prosperity increases.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Even that argument is flawed. Globally we are adding 200,000+ people each day and in these days of porous borders many of them migrate to wherever they can scratch the best living. The UK is a good example. The fertility rate is about 1.75 but nevertheless our population rises each year due to immigration and people living longer. Moreover, the fertility rate has started rising again due as immigrant families statistically have more children. I am sure you are seeing the same effects in the US, which also has a rising population.
Certainly no room for complacency on the population front. We replaced (net) all of the victims of the Asian Tsunami in less than 36 hours!