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Is there a technology that will prevail as the ultimate solution to climate change? How far along are the research and development for widespread implementation of coal-to-liquids, nuclear, wind, solar, and biofuels technologies? During today's OnPoint, Robert Rosner, director of Argonne National Laboratories, discusses what needs to be done in order to encourage consumers that climate technologies will be cost beneficial to their bottom lines. Rosner talks about how Argonne's work has been impacted by the major focus on climate change. He also discusses how Argonne is contributing to the climate change discussion.
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Dr. Robert Rosner, director of Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Rosner thanks for coming back on the show.
Robert Rosner: It's a pleasure to be here.
Monica Trauzzi: As Congress and the administration and the scientific community weigh their options for addressing climate change which technologies do you see as the most promising for addressing the issue?
Robert Rosner: I would say that the answer is we're not quite sure yet. What we do know is that we have really a huge menu of likely possibilities. And if you were to ask me what's the most likely one? It's that most of them, in fact, will come to fruition. These range from sequestration of CO2, and that's the result of burning coal, or oil shale eventually; includes biofuels, both ethanol produced from feed stocks like corn, maybe sugarcane, maybe switch grasses; includes biofuels such as biodiesel; includes nuclear; includes solar; includes wind. I think all of them, we know that these will work at some level. And ultimately I think the question will really come down to economics and the economic question really depends on where will our technology develop? And it's driven by basic science needs. Where will that really end up? And we don't know that.
Monica Trauzzi: But it's such an urgent issue.
Robert Rosner: Absolutely.
Monica Trauzzi: Is that an OK answer? We don't know.
Robert Rosner: No, no, no. I don't know means, you are asking me to select one of the winners before people have really done the really hard work, finished the hard work really, of doing the basic science. What I'm saying is that could be all of them, at some level we'll be winners, and which one truly will be out ahead really is an economic question. It's a question of how well does technology will really push the price of electricity, for example, production by these means downwards to where in the marketplace they can actually produce.
Monica Trauzzi: So how far along are we in the research and development of these technologies?
Robert Rosner: I think this depends very much on which area you pick. In the area of biofuels we know that today, with subsidies, we use ethanol. Every time you drive up to a gas pump in the state of Illinois we're pumping ethanol, about 10% of the volume is, in fact, ethanol. So some of these things are already underway. And the economics of ethanol really ultimately will depend on improving the yield of ethanol production from the feedstock, finding the feedstocks that are probably more effective in being turned into ethanol. I mentioned what the Brazilians are doing today using sugarcane. The possibilities of switch grasses, other kinds of plants that are basically optimized for the use of producing ethanol as opposed to food stuffs. And that's a process I think - we will see the price of ethanol production continue to decrease. The other thing about ethanol production that's important here is that ethanol production, at first, when you first look at it, doesn't really help you on the CO2 front. What it does do is it helps you on the displacing gasoline front, that is aside from the energy security issue. But I think ...
Monica Trauzzi: And it doesn't help on the CO2 front because ...
Robert Rosner: Because you need ...
Monica Trauzzi: ... energy is required?
Robert Rosner: To produce it, right. But I think as we go in the direction of cellulosic ethanol production that will change. And once that happens and that becomes economically really competitive you will also see an improvement on the CO2 front.
Monica Trauzzi: Is the current R&D funding sufficient though from the Department of Energy or is more needed in order to successfully create and implement these technologies?
Robert Rosner: That is a very interesting question. The first point that I would make is that it's very clear that everybody, on a nonpartisan basis, understands that large investments will be needed on the R&D front. So I think that's an issue that's, from the point of view of, on the political it seems to me, from my perspective as a scientist, luckily off the table. Everybody recognizes R&D is necessary. Now when you ask me is it enough? This then is like, imagine asking a scientist, do you have some money? Would you like it? And would you imagine ever meeting a scientist who would say, no thank you, I have enough? I don't think so. I think it's all a matter of pacing, a matter of the feeling of urgency, and, quite frankly, also it helps to have a crystal ball where you would know where to put your money. One of the great difficulties I think that we have today is that it's not obvious exactly where you would place your bets. If you had $100, how should you divide $100 between the various possibilities? And today what we're doing is we're spreading the money fairly evenly because we don't quite know yet which will be the real winners. And I think that's appropriate.
Monica Trauzzi: So there's this big push for action on climate change right now.
Robert Rosner: Right.
Monica Trauzzi: Particularly with the Democrats in power. The IPCC report certainly has brought more attention to the issue. How is that affecting the work that you're doing? Is there an increased push for your laboratory to work even more?
Robert Rosner: Oh, I think so. I think there's no question about that. We're seeing a revival of research areas that the laboratory once upon a time was in fact quite active in which we're going back into. The climate area is one such area. Our laboratory doesn't per se do climate modeling in the way that, for example, National Center for Atmospheric Research does in Boulder. But we're very interested in coupling to the kind of work that they do. We do experimental work on, for example, atmospheric sampling. So that's an important component of what we do. And we're also interested very much in the question of how climate modeling couples to the economy. How does climate, in fact, influence the economic sphere? And one of the key elements of this is, in fact, the role of simulations. Climate modeling is all about using computers to understand the atmospheric system. But we also know that we can do modeling in the economic sphere. And the questions to voice then, do they interact? For instance, does climate influence what happens in the economics and vice versa? How does economics, in fact, drive where climate is going?
Monica Trauzzi: Part of the issue of moving from a petroleum economy to a more green economy is convincing the consumer that change is good.
Robert Rosner: Right.
Monica Trauzzi: And to sort of get them to accept these new technologies and ideas.
Robert Rosner: Right.
Monica Trauzzi: So even if the technologies do exist, how do you get the customer to buy into it?
Robert Rosner: Well, here I will express an opinion that perhaps not everybody will agree with. We in the Chicago area, at this point, are paying about three dollars roughly speaking per gallon for gasoline. And you can ask yourself, well, is that the true cost of using gasoline in my car? And the answer really is it is not. If you're asking about paying for the life cycle cost for fuels, in the case of gasoline what you would have to include is the fact that we are, in fact, emitting carbon dioxide, we're influencing the atmosphere in a negative way, and ultimately somebody is going to have to pay for that, to fix that problem. So one proposal that's on the table is, for example, carbon tax. Lots of people have been talking about this in Washington and elsewhere. And my feeling is that something like a carbon tax, something, some tool, economic tool that actually makes the consumer pay for the actual cost of what they're actually consuming, is I think a good idea.
Monica Trauzzi: Let's talk about nuclear for a moment. When you were on our show two years ago there was opposition to Yucca Mountain and major questions about spent fuel. Now with the Democrats in power and Harry Reid as the Senate majority leader, he's the senator from Nevada, we're not quite seeing the shift from that thinking.
Robert Rosner: Right.
Monica Trauzzi: Where do you think the debate over nuclear stands and do you see it having a major role in the future of U.S. energy policy?
Robert Rosner: So the answer is, let me start with the second part. I think nuclear is at some level unavoidable. When we think about what the energy mix will be for stationary power say 30 years from now or 40 years from now, it's very hard to see how you're going to avoid the use of nuclear power. Even in the most optimistic scenarios about carbon sequestration one question that does come up is, in the long term, if you're really talking about say time scales of the order of say a century, 100 years, does the United States, for example, have sufficient reservoir capacity to actually contain all the CO2 that would need to be, for example, pumped into the ground if you sequester it? The answer is, well, it's not so clear. So if you take the long view, not next year, not five years, but if you really take the long view of say 50 years from now, 100 years from now, it's very hard to see how you can avoid a source of energy such as nuclear. So having said that the question is, well, how do you get there? The rest of the world is plunging on ahead. There's no question about it. If you go to China or you go to India they're busy building nuclear plants. If you go to Europe the Europeans are starting to build nuclear plants.
Monica Trauzzi: France is very involved.
Robert Rosner: France, of course, very involved. The Finns have just ordered, in fact, and I believe it's actually already started, building a plant by the French. The French are building a nuclear plant in Finland. So there certainly is, outside of the United States, increasing momentum in this direction. I think part of the reason is folks do realize that nuclear has to be part of the solution. It's not the whole solution, but it's certainly part of it. So for us what is the issue? Well, there are many issues. One of them has to do with public acceptance. I think that you were getting at that. You're hinting at it. Another one has to do with an issue that everyone faces throughout the world, which is what you do with the spent fuel? In the absence of having Yucca Mountain opened yet the spent fuel, at the present time, is still being placed in storage near the existing nuclear plants. And I think everyone from the utilities all the way to the regulators to the folks, anybody with interest in this question who'd like to solve the problem of what you do with that spent fuel? And the program that this administration put forward is in answer to that question. The answer to that question is that spent fuel can be reprocessed to the point where what's left, what really is the residual, is material that can really be fairly characterized as low-level waste. So it doesn't have the radioactive level of the spent fuel that comes out of plants right now. And once you get to that point questions about putting it into a repository such as Yucca Mountain become much easier questions to answer.
Monica Trauzzi: OK. We're going to end it right there. Thanks for coming on the show.
Robert Rosner: It's a pleasure to be here as usual.
Monica Trauzzi: This is OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Thanks for watching.
[End of Audio]
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