Gideon Polya,  ““One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting. HOPE – Best Renewables Now Cost Same as Coal Power”, MWC News, submitted 24 October 2008.

Image of “One Day Pathétique”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/ .

“One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting. HOPE – Best Renewables Now Cost Same as Coal Power

Tchaikovski’s final “Pathétique” Symphony is actually Joyous and Hopeful as is the energy cost cross-over point - the best renewable and geothermal power options now cost roughly the same as coal burning-based power.

I have painted a huge (1.3 metre x 2.9 metre) painting entitled “One Day Pathétique” (see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/ ) that captures Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovski’s final Symphony Number 6, the so-called “Pathétique”. Tchaikovski was delighted with this symphony but because he died a fortnight after its first performance the symphony has become known as the “Pathétique”. There is, however, a joyous and hopeful interpretation of this great work as opposed to the traditional sad, pathos-laden view. One Christmas morning I listened to Tchaikovski’s Symphony Number 6 as the sun was rising over the beautiful Yarra River Valley and I suddenly realized why Tchaikovski was so pleased with his final symphony – it clearly describes one day in the life of a human being. The Symphony is in 4 Movements and is famous for starting off very gently (as one slowly wakes up) and for concluding so softly that you strain to hear the last notes (as one drifts off to sleep after a full day). In between, the Symphony successively evokes the early morning, morning activities, noon time glory, the march of shadows in the late afternoon, and the glory of the stars. Once you realize the One Day interpretation everything fits so beautifully that you can really understand why Tchaikovski was so delighted with the symphony and regarded it as his finest work.

My “One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting is also conveniently divided into 4 Sections (evoking the 4 Movements of the Symphony) which are determined by the 4 major overlapping circles of a classical Italian Renaissance Double Golden Rectangle geometry. I use beautiful young maidens as figurative, almost abstract expressionist elements to tell the story of a lovely day. Reading Left to Right, the maidens slowly wake up (as do birds and flower buds); they then go into the woods gathering wood, berries and flowers; midday sees them busily engaged in the meadows (as are rabbits and birds); and in the evening the glorious stars come out, the birds roost, night birds fly out to hunt, and the maidens rest and finally drift off to sleep.

My “One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting is about joy, beauty, nature and hope – and is ideal for illustrating the Good News in the current Climate Emergency. Just as my painting was inspired by the Sun coming up over the beautiful Yarra Valley, so have I been galvanized by our local Yarra Valley Climate Action Group that is trying to help save the Planet from man-made global warming. Many of my colleagues in the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (and in its umbrella Climate Emergency Network and Climate Movement national umbrella groups) are deeply despondent about the notorious Australian inaction in the mounting Climate Emergency. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and one of the world’s worst per capita polluters but its extreme right wing, pro-Coal Government is strong on rhetoric but lacking in action. The circa $100 billion per annum Australian coal industry has effectively squashed sensible action and determined the resolutely pro-Coal stance of the major political parties (the Federally-governing Labor and the Opposition Liberal-National Party Coalition, these being collectively known as Lib-Labs) (see “Post-Copenhagen Australia will INCREASE its per capita Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/post-copenhagen-australia  ).

I am nevertheless optimistic and tell my colleagues that science, technology, sensible risk management and sensible business practice will eventually triumph over neocon greed, irresponsibility, denial, ignoring, climate scepticism, climate racism, climate terrorism, climate genocide, dishonesty and spin.

Man-made (anthropogenic) greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from fossil fuel burning, methanogenic livestock production, other agriculture (notably major crop-based biofuel generation) and deforestation have lifted the atmospheric GHG concentration to a dangerous level. Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) has declared that “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, a view recently essentially endorsed by the Head of the Nobel Prize-winning UN IPCC, Dr Rajendra Pachauri (see James Hansen et al,” Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?”, Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2008: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126  ).

In 2007 I published an assessment of the relative costs of power from a variety of sources. A key observation was that a Canadian Ontario Government-commissioned study had found that the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (taking the human and environmental impact into account) was 4-5 times the “market price”. Already in 2007 it was apparent that the cost of power from all the lower-cost systems (in cents per kilowatt hour) was LOWER than the “true cost” coal burning-based power (see Paul Gipe, “Ontario Study Identifies Social Costs of Coal-Fired Power Plants

”, EV World, 2006: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836   and "Cost Benefit Analysis: Replacing Ontario's Coal-Fired Electricity
Generation" by DSS Management Consultants Inc. and  RWDI Air Inc., for the Ontario Ministry of Energy, April, 2005, 93 pages,
http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/english/pdf/electricity/coal_cost_benefit_analysis_april2005.pdf.)

However, as summarized below, it is now apparent that a crucial CROSS-OVER POINT has now been reached at which the cost of power from a range of lower-cost is about the SAME as the “market price” of coal burning –based power. In the analysis below the COST OF POWER (e.g. as measured in units such as US cents per kilowatt hour or US$ per megawatt hour) is given for a variety of non-carbon energy sources, together with an estimate of the MAGNITUDE of the various renewable and/or non-carbon energy resources. For detailed documentation of the information given below the reader is directed to a summary provided (with numerous links) by the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group entitled “CROSS-OVER POINT: Best Renewable and Geothermal Power NOW for SAME COST as Fossil fuel-based Power”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached .

1. Wind Power

According to NOVA Science in the News (published by the prestigious Australian Academy of Science, 2008): “advances in wind power science and technology are reducing the cost of wind power to a point at which it is becoming competitive with many other energy sources (at about 8 Australian cents per kilowatt hour)” [i.e. 5.6 US cents per kilowatt hour [kWh] or US$56 per megawatt hour [MWh]). According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) the average cost of onshore wind power in the UK (2005) was 3.2 p/kWh [i.e. 5.2 US cents per kilowatt hour or US$52 per megawatt hour (MWh)] . According to the US Energy Information Administration the cost per unit of energy produced from wind was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to the cost of new generating capacity in the United States for coal and natural gas: wind cost was estimated at US$55.80 per MWh [megawatt hour], coal at US$53.10 per MWh and natural gas at US$52.50 per MWh.

According to a Stanford University study “global wind power generated at locations with mean annual wind speeds ≥ 6.9 m/s at 80 m is found to be ~72 TW (~54,000 Mtoe [million tons of oil equivalent]) for the year 2000. Even if only ~20% of this power could be captured, it could satisfy 100% of the world’s energy demand for all purposes (6995-10177 Mtoe) and over seven times the world’s electricity needs (1.6-1.8 TW)”.

There is huge potential for off-shore wind power. According to Research and Markets (May 2008; summarizing the Global Wind Power Report 2008): “Wind is the world’s fastest-growing energy source with an average annual growth rate of 29% over the last ten years. In 2007, the global wind power generating capacity crossed 94 gigawatts (GW). This represents a twelve-fold increase from a decade ago, when world wind-generating capacity stood at just over 7.6 gigawatts (GW). Being an emerging fuel source a decade ago, wind energy has grown rapidly into a mature and booming global industry. Further, the power generation costs of wind energy have fallen by 50%, moving closer to the cost of conventional energy sources. The future prospects of the global wind industry are very encouraging and it is estimated to grow by more than 70% over the next five years to reach 160 gigawatts (GW) by year 2012”.

2. Concentrated Solar Power with Energy Storage

The US solar energy company Ausra uses a form of Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) technology called Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) technology. In short, solar energy is collected and concentrated in a sophisticated way and used to generate steam to drive turbines and hence generate electricity. A key feature is that solar energy is stored, enabling Ausra CLFR plants to generate electricity 24 hours per day. An Ausra factory producing 700 megawatt (MW) of solar collectors annually opened in Nevada in 2008. Ausra is involved in joint construction of a 177 megawatt (MW) CLFR plant for California. According to Ausra (2008): “Ausra's innovations in collector design dramatically reduce the cost of solar thermal generation equipment and bring solar power to prices directly competitive with fossil fuel power. Using Ausra's current solar technologies, all U.S. electric power, day and night, can be generated using a land area smaller than 92 by 92 miles”.

Solar energy hitting the Earth is roughly 10,000 times greater than the energy we consume globally. Global electricity production (2005) was 17,400 TWh. Exciting new research developments on hydrogen fuel cells (at Monash University, Australia) and efficient electrolysis (at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presage an efficient, solar energy-based, hydrogen fuel cell-run transportation system within a decade.

3. Wave power

The cost of wave power by the CETO system (a sea bed-fixed pump linked to a buoyant actuator) is about that of wind power. There are further big cost efficiencies if wave power is used for cogeneration of potable water. A Carnegie Corporation submission to an Australian Parliamentary Committee (2007) states: that “CETO can offer zero-emission base-load electricity generation capacity at a cost comparable to existing wind power [i.e. about US$50 per MWh] and the capacity to provide potable water to major population centres using 100% clean energy”.

Further, this Submission states: “The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately 2 Terawatts (TW), about double current world electricity production, could be produced from oceans via wave power … It is estimated that 1 million gigawatt hours (GWh) of wave energy hits Australian shores annually, or more than four times Australian’s total annual electricity consumption of 210,000 gigawatt hours (2004 figures)”.

4. Hydro power

According to the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development (2002) various New Zealand hydroelectric power systems provided power for 4-10 NZ cents per kilowatt hour [2.4-5.9 US cents per kilowatt hour i.e. US$24-59 per megawatt hour].

According to BNET (2007): “Hydropower currently accounts for approximately 20% of the world's electricity production, with about 650,000 MW (650 GW) installed and approximately 135,000 MW (135 GW) under construction or in the final planning stages … It is estimated that only about a quarter of the economically exploitable water resources has been developed to date”.

5. Geothermal power

According to Professor John Veevers (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia): “The [Australian hot rocks] geothermal resource extends over 1000 square kilometres … Modelled costs are 4 Australian cents per kilowatt hour, plus half to 1 cent for transmission to grid [4.5 Australian cents per kWh = 3.2 US cents per kWh or US$32 per MWh]. This compares with 3.5 cents for black coal, 4 cents for brown coal, 4.2 cents for gas, but all with uncosted emissions. Clean coal, the futuristic technology of coal gasification combined with CO2 sequestration or burial, yet to be demonstrated, comes in at 6.5 cents, and solar and wind power at 8 cents” see “The Innamincka hot fractured rock project” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics”, editor Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007; also see energy cost-related chapters in this book by Dr Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, Dr Mark Diesendorf “A sustainable energy future for Australia”, and by Martin Mahy “Hydrogen Minibuses”).

According to the Report of an interdisciplinary panel of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) experts entitled “The Future of Geothermal Energy” (2006) : “EGS [Enhanced Geothermal Systems] is one of the few renewable energy resources that can provide continuous base-load power with minimal visual and other environmental impacts … The accessible geothermal resource, based on existing extractive technology, is large and contained in a continuum of grades ranging from today’s hydrothermal, convective systems through high- and mid-grade EGS resources located primarily in the western United States) to the very large, conduction-dominated contributions in the deep basement and sedimentary rock formations throughout the country. By evaluating an extensive database of bottom-hole temperature and regional geologic data (rock types, stress level, surface temperature etc), we have estimated that the total EGS resource has to be more than 13 million exajoules (EJ) [13 million EJ x 277.8 TWh per EJ = 3611.4 million TWh]. Using reasonable assumptions regarding how heat would be used from stimulated EGS reservoirs, we also estimated the extractable portion to exceed 0.2 million EJ (0.2 million EJ x 277.8 TWh per EJ = 55.56 million TWh) ... With technological improvements, the economically extractable amount of useful energy could increase by a factor of 10 or more, thus making EGS sustainable for centuries” (see Chapter1, p1-4).

Nuclear power can be dismissed as a serious future option in this analysis because the overall nuclear power cycle (from mining to waste disposal) currently has a major CO2-polluting component (equivalent to that of a modern gas-fired power plant); the cost of nuclear power via the UK's newest Sizewell B plant is 15 Australian cents per kilowatt hour [10.5 US cents per kilowatt hour or US$105 per MWh; required high grade uranium ore is a very limited resource; and long-term safe storage of waste and security issues are unresolved. Biofuel from land-based crops (notably canola, palm oil, sugar and corn) is highly CO2 polluting from mechanisms such as de-forestation and loss of soil carbon. Indeed the biofuel perversion that is legislatively mandated in the US, the UK and the EU is making a huge contribution to global food price rises that in turn are threatening the lives of “billions” of people according to UK Chief Scientific Advisor Professor John Beddington FRS (see “Biofuel Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/home ) .

In Summary, while the World has arguably already reached “peak oil” and uranium, gas and coal resources are limited, the solar energy hitting the Earth is roughly 10,000 times greater than the energy that Man consumes globally. Geothermal resources are immense. Already developed and implemented geothermal power technologies and low-cost renewable energy technologies directly dependent on solar energy (concentrated solar thermal power) or indirectly dependent on solar energy (hydro, wind and wave power) have reached a CROSS-OVER POINT at which the cost of power in cents per kilowatt hour are COMMENSURATE with the current “market cost” of fossil fuel burning –based power. Further, the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (i.e. taking the environmental and human impact into account) is 4-5 times the “market cost”. Exciting new research developments at Monash University, Australia, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, presage the possibility of an efficient, solar energy-based, hydrogen fuel cell-run transportation system within a decade.

Former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore has recently (mid-2008) called for 100% renewable electric power with ten years: “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years” (see: here). Carbon-free power is now technically and economically feasible at a “market cost” commensurate with the “market cost” of fossil fuel burning-based power.

The science, technology and economics thus indicate that the urgent need (enunciated by NASA’s Dr James Hansen and his colleagues) to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration from the current 387 ppm to no more than 350 ppm can be realized NOW with low-cost renewable energy and geothermal energy implementation coupled with cessation of fossil fuel burning and de-forestation, minimization of agricultural methanogenesis, massive re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to the world’s soils.

Just as there is an Optimistic Interpretation of Tchaikovski’s “Pathétique” Symphony, so we see that with honesty and goodwill the World can successfully address the acutely serious Climate Emergency in a vigorous and timely fashion.