Golden GEMS

Virtual Event Recordings

Dr Richard Alley: The Big Picture on Energy and Climate Challenges, and Ways Forward

This recording is from the Thursday, March 5th GOLDen GEMS Virtual Get-2-Gether. This talk featured Dr. Richard Alley, an Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences at Penn State.

Answered Questions from Dr. Richard Alley

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What is your view on Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) or Direct Air Capture, as possible solutions?

I’m happy to see research, but I seriously doubt we will ever do much of it. Pulling the CO2 out of the air will take a significant fraction of the energy that was released in putting the CO2 into the air, and flue gas is not that much more concentrated or favorable. Then, the CO2, which is more massive than the original fossil fuel, will have to be put somewhere that doesn’t leak. Taking out a significant fraction of the CO2 will require an operation that is not that different in scale from the modern fossil fuel industry, which is a few percent of the world economy. It will bring NIMBY issues, leaks, and the unavoidable fact that some year there will be a big volcanic eruption that puts up particles and blocks the sun, the next year is likely to have unfamiliar frosts that have real costs to people, but CO2 removal will need to continue after that. I have no confidence that we can complete the political task of paying for it, and maintaining it, in the face of so many headwinds.

How do we convince others who don’t believe climate change is real?

Keep talking, and emphasizing the good points. Most Americans are already on board (see https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/ ), with a small but vocal minority controlling the opposition and blocking progress.

In your opinion, what factors are holding the United States back from transitioning to a more renewable energy future? Do you think the challenge is primarily technological, economic, or sociological?

A little of all of these, but mostly political. Most Americans are on board to take action (see https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/ ). But, the opposition is well-organized and well-funded, and efficiently taps into the economic and sociological factors that you reference. Unfortunately, demonizing the opposition rarely works; I do believe that the path is talking, voting, and continuing to emphasize the good things we can do if we build a better future.

Can you also comment on the role of Negative Emissions Technologies in climate models and our capacity to limit warming to 2C and below.

I’m not too optimistic about negative emissions. I’ll paste the answer I gave to another question about carbon capture and storage below. But things such as preserving and regrowing forests, and helping soils, are highly beneficial in their own right, and can help on climate. 1.5 C is almost surely going to happen, and I worry about 2 C, but I think the amazing progress in renewable energy offers hope.

“I’m happy to see research on carbon capture and storage, but I seriously doubt we will ever do much of it. Pulling the CO2 out of the air will take a significant fraction of the energy that was released in putting the CO2 into the air, and flue gas is not that much more concentrated or favorable. Then, the CO2, which is more massive than the original fossil fuel, will have to be put somewhere that doesn’t leak. Taking out a significant fraction of the CO2 will require an operation that is not that different in scale from the modern fossil fuel industry, which is a few percent of the world economy. It will bring NIMBY issues, leaks, and the unavoidable fact that some year there will be a big volcanic eruption that puts up particles and blocks the sun, the next year is likely to have unfamiliar frosts that have real costs to people, but CO2 removal will need to continue after that. I have no confidence that we can complete the political task of paying for it, and maintaining it, in the face of so many headwinds.”

I work in the Energy Efficiency group of a major EDC here in PA. Where do you Energy Efficiency going moving forward, and what are some of the emerging technologies?

Great!!! You’re a hero. And you’re undoubtedly already highlighting negawatts. Honestly, that’s the easiest way to gain in the short term.

Heat pumps with renewables and general electrification are probably the structurally most important way forward. The report here is absolutely fascinating on the fundamentals of electricity, heat pumps, etc.: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/reframing-energy-for-the-age-of-electricity/

There’s a version here: https://skepticalscience.com/just-have-a-think-primary-energy.html

But, as you know, there is also a lot of low-hanging fruit in old houses and apartments occupied by poor people who can’t afford the upgrades that would save them money overall.

I worked in electrification and with utilities. Do you see us moving away from large, centralized generation to more distributed generation and something like electric co-ops instead of monopoly utilities?

I think it is wise globally and probably in the US and locally, but it will be difficult to achieve because of the entrenched monopoly utilities. (I presume you are more aware of this than I am: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

That obviously does not show that all large utilities are bad, but it shows what can occur.) We’ve seen centralized generation causing problems in Ukraine because of military value as targets, and earlier because of Chernobyl. Our daughter is going to get batteries to go with her solar up the ridge from Seattle because trees take out power lines during every big storm, so they need backup. So do hospitals… The big difficulties you know, though, including how to pay for interconnections to support microgrids, etc. when most of the electricity is supplied locally but a little exchange between regions can be beneficial. There’s real need for people such as you figuring these things out!

Can you offer any opinion on using ocean wave action or river currents to generate energy?

0.01% of the solar energy reaching Earth is more-or-less 100% of human energy use. About 1% of the solar energy goes into wind, so something like 1% of the wind energy is 100% of human energy use (probably less than 1%, but more than 0.1%). 1% of the wind goes into waves and currents, so we would need to get a lot of the waves and currents to power us—there’s just less energy there. But, if we have to build breakwaters and levees and such to protect cities from rising seas, why not take the energy out of the waves with generators? There seems to be a niche there that would be valuable as a win-win. We’re taking a lot of the energy out of rivers already, so there could be some local wins with river turbines, but probably not a major part of the total energy budget. I tend to think that in the future, water will be more important for drinking and growing food and fisheries and recreation than for energy because the wind and sun will be so much more important there.

Any thoughts on the effect of the loss of ice and the thermal energy it is absorbing, on the temperature profile of the world. It seems we are losing ice in Iceland, Greenland etc. so there is a time that the ice will be gone. What are the implications.

Somewhere I can find the numbers if you want me to, but the actual latent heat used to melt the ice is pretty small compared to the others. The Earth is out of radiative balance, with more energy coming in from the sun than going out to space, by a bit more than 1 W/m2 out of 240 W/m2 that drive the climate. The vast majority of this goes to heating the ocean—more than 90%, then heating the air, melting ice, and heating the ground.

The issues seem very large and overwhelming. What are some of the best ways that individuals can help?

Talk to friends. Vote. Look for win-wins in your job or life generally, in which doing the right thing for you and for the climate are the same. Then, if that isn’t enough, pick one other thing you care about and do that. If we all did that, we’d be there!

Here in Wyoming energy is everything (almost besides agriculture). People out here go both ways on wind - for and against. We have many success stories with ranchers such as the one you presented. However, we do have an issue with maintenance and follow up from companies keeping these wind farms going, and with waste disposal from old wind generators that either have been rebuilt or abandoned. This has resulted in much waste in the prairie and people are against wind because of this (not to mention the noise, wildlife death and visual clutter. I have been for wind, but these are serious issues. We need to fix this to sell the idea of more wind energy. How? What is the incentive?

I wish I knew. There is a lot of progress in recyclability, but the older installations obviously didn’t have it, and we have this history of not forcing companies to really clean up after themselves, in wind and sun, in coal, in oil. (Pennsylvania may have more than half a million abandoned oil wells, as well as a lot of un-reclaimed strip mines, as well as the coming issues with other energy sources…). My suspicion is that incentivizing universities to research the problem and then found new companies, with a small fee on all energy sources to fund it, may be the way forward, but that sounds a little Pollyanna-ish, and undoubtedly it needs more-serious thought long-term. If we really do renewables, and design with recycling in mind, the older installations will become valuable resources.

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Virtual Event Recordings

Dr Richard Alley: The Big Picture on Energy and Climate Challenges, and Ways Forward

Answered Questions from Dr. Richard Alley

GOLDen GEMS LinkedIn Panel

April 1, 2025 Golden GEMS Virtual Get-2-Gether

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