Mark Jacobson (associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Stanford University) has just published a paper in the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. You can read the entire article here (PDF).
BEV = battery electric vehicle
HFCV = hydrogen fuel cell vehicle
CSP = concentrated solar panels
PV = photovoltaic
CCS = carbon capture and sequestration
The expense of creating a hydrogen distribution grid would kill HFCV. Costs are not a part of this analysis. Biofuels might be fairly inexpensive. The problem is that as a cure they are worse than the disease:
Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.
...
The Tier-4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.
...
In sum, the use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, solar, wave, and hydroelectric to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs result in the most benefit and least impact among the options considered. Coal-CCS and nuclear provide less benefit with greater negative impacts. The biofuel options provide no certain benefit and result in significant negative impacts. Because sufficient clean natural resources (e.g., wind, sunlight, hot water, ocean energy, gravitational energy) exists to power all energy for the world, the results here suggest that the diversion of attention to the less efficient or non-efficient options represents an opportunity cost that delays solutions to climate and air pollution health problems.
Here is an article that does a good job ripping CCS to shreds (hat tip KO).
Here is a blog article that is critical of the low rank given to nuclear power. They have a reasonable beef about old data used, and don’t care for the speculative nature of nuclear proliferation. They glossed over the study assumption that it will take decades to get a significant number of nuclear power plants up and running, thus allowing coal fired power plants to spew CO2 for a few more decades.
I’m sure the biofuel proponents will weigh in soon enough.
Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!
Climate change and God
Comments
View as Flat
Jonas Posted 4:36 am
14 Dec 2008
According to all EU studies, biomass-based energy (CHP) is -- by far -- the most cost-effective, the most energy efficient, and the technology that reduces GHGs most.
Check the EU's renewable energy technology roadmap.
But I do have the impression that Americans are not yet much involved in biomass. It must be that their attention is kept off of this most important of renewables, because of their mania with stupid liquid biofuels. They're wasting all that biomass and land on the least efficient of all options. Biomass for electricity and heat is five to ten times more efficient than converted into liquid fuels.
I'm confident that with Steve Chu as Secretary of Energy, this will obviously change. He's chair of the Energy Biosciences Institute, so he probably knows the difference between loser biofuels, and winner biomass.
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:06 am
14 Dec 2008
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Bob Wallace Posted 5:41 am
14 Dec 2008
Preferably a link that also covers the ability to scale biomass up to a level where it could play a dominate role in power production.
(Hydro is incredibly cheap and non-polluting. We just don't have enough places to tap to make it a major player.)
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:00 am
14 Dec 2008
Here ya go.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070816-go ...
-David Ahlport
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biodiversivist Posted 6:15 am
14 Dec 2008
I recall posting on that topic last year.
I was curious how Jackobson managed to show cellulosic in such a bad light. Apparently the latest data rolling in is falling far short of industry predictions. Who would have guessed?
To me, the strongest argument he had against nuclear was time to design and build although proponents think that can be overcome just like the myriad of other problems.
Don't know why he skipped biomass.
Our blundering politicians picked the worst two options to support the most. Will Democracy survive complexity? Senate hearings are a far cry from scientific debate.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:24 am
14 Dec 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/ ...
-David Ahlport
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Bob Wallace Posted 7:24 am
14 Dec 2008
Biomass OK in a few places under the right controls.
Now, back to wind....
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:09 am
14 Dec 2008
There are no working batteries of the type that Sci-Fi Environmentalists insist upon.
The people pushing batteries are in cahoots with the electric generation utilities which hope to have a bonanza by getting the public to purchase batteries that:
a. Are inefficient and don't hold charge
b. That drive up demand for electricity
c. That enslave people to the current grid
Texeme.Construct.Questioner
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vakibs Posted 7:12 pm
14 Dec 2008
This study should take into account all the factors accounting for environmental damage : air pollution, demand for fresh water, demand for agricultural land, demand for mining and associated waste and so on..
Wait a minute, we already have such a study : The Extern-E report.
Dr Jacobson's review is not bad, except for his idiotic assumption of a nuclear-war when considering nuclear power.
@Jon
No more coal plants after 2030. If you can do it without nuclear, well and good.
But long before wind+solar can be scaled up to do that, we will hear environmentalists complaining against the stupid idea of covering up the planet with concrete and steel. Even if all the environmentalists sold up their souls and kept their mouths shut, there is no way in hell wind+solar can be scaled up to shut down coal plants before 2030.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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GreyFlcn Posted 10:19 pm
14 Dec 2008
Well put it this way.
It'd be near impossible to tell countries like Iran and North Korea. "No you can't do that".
Many countries may see this as an arms race and increase their forward leaning military stance.
At very least it would incur a significant military and geopolitical cost overhead.
Especially when it comes to guarding against the creation and use of less sophisticated nuclear weapons. Such as a "dirty bomb".
there is no way in hell wind+solar can be scaled up to shut down coal plants before 2030
Perhaps, but SolarThermal and EGS Geothermal could do the trick.
Especially considering that they would have a exponential growth pattern, unlike nuclear's linear growth pattern.
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 12:39 am
15 Dec 2008
BEVs fall short in terms of utility though, so plugin hybrids are the short term solution. They can reduce gas guzzling by 90% and stabilize oil prices and availability long enough to allow BEVs to improve their utility with battery and recharge infrastructure improvements.
Over the next 10 to 20 years BEVs can replace plugin hybrids. Over that same time period renewable smart grid technology and conservation will replace centralized power generation from coal, nuclear, and other combustion. A mere 4% reduction in oil and fossil fuel use per year will stop GHG in time.
Xcel is building a smart grid in Colorado right now and has already closed two coal power plants. Public policy that pursues these goals is only a mass delusion away. Eliminate the big lie that says it can't be done, and it will get done.
Present nuclear power will have to be dealt with anyway, so why not close it down last, reduce coal and oil use first.
A History Channel presentation analyzing rail accidents highlighting "glow trains", radioactive waste hauling trains, explains why nuclear power plants will be extremely difficult and expensive to clean up, and why waste processing reactors maybe the only way to deal with the nuclear power legacey. Transportation of nuclear waste to permanent storage sites like Yucca Mountain is too dangerous and too expensive to be practical.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 12:42 am
15 Dec 2008
Nuclear medicine is not equal to nuclear weapons.
The current state of the world with respect to nuclear weapons is quite dangerous; terrorists might steal any loose nuke and explode it in our backyards. There is a huge amount of secrecy on the whereabouts of nuclear weapons.
More important than finished weapons, terrorists might get hold of "fissile material". Highly enriched U-235 or Pu-239 are just hanging around, in several wearhouses around the world.
We should seriously consider having a thorough inventory of the fissile material. And destroy everything that is not needed (ideally, get into a total nuclear disarmament in the world).
With regard to nuclear power, we have 4th generation reactors that are much superior to current nuclear reactors in terms of safety and proliferation concerns.
For example, IFR / LFTR does not require the enrichment of Uranium. No fissile material ever leaves the reactor. All forms of Uranium enrichment / fissile-material isolation can be outlawed by international law (by IAEA, for example), because nobody would have an excuse to have them in a world of IFR / LFTR.
All existing nuclear weapons / radioactive nuclear waste / nuclear fissile material can be burned in these reactors and the inventory can be rapidly brought down to zero. This is what we should do !
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:00 am
15 Dec 2008
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 1:14 am
15 Dec 2008
Spreading nuclear power, of the old design or the waste eating variety, especially to nations that do not have nuclear weapons is not a good idea.
Put the waste processing reactors in existing nuclear power facilities. It maybe more cost effective to move these reactors to the waste...rather than moving the waste to the reactor.
The casks used for transporting waste have to be light enough so that the economics of waste transportation are feasible. That rules out lead shielding to prevent irradiation of the area surrounding a "glow train". These trains are described in the documentary as "portable x-ray machines".
When they move through a community everyone gets a dose. If the train is stalled? It becomes an emergency situation, people must be evacuated quickly.
A rail accident can release 300 times the Chernobyl radiation, from each cask! These trains contain many casks, in order to make the transportation of waste economically feasible.
Iran has plenty of material for a dirty bomb already, any nation with a nuclear reactor can easily make pollonium, a deadly dirty bomb ingredient that makes it unecessary to obtain actual atomic bombs.
We are in a very dangerous world of nuclear power/nuclear weapons proliferation. India and Pakistan are on the verge of nuclear war every few years now.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Whiskerfish Posted 1:22 am
15 Dec 2008
http://tinyurl.com/6lp2ru
I'm not kidding.
Whiskerfish
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:34 am
15 Dec 2008
Luckily they were empty.
Pro-nuke people tend to talk in "best case" terms. They seem to want to overlook the doofus effect.
Anyone who has any real world experience in building and running complex operations knows that one is always likely to be blind-sided by some unexpected screwup.
(Remember a few months back when a spot check found all the night security at one US reactor asleep?)
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biodiversivist Posted 3:49 am
15 Dec 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:15 am
15 Dec 2008
Now people think that "all" we need to replace oil is get a different source of hydrocarbons, but that's not the problem. The problem is, 1) to collect it -- and here cellulosic like switchgrass is a real loser, because it's spread out all over the place -- and then, second, compress it down -- the processing facilities, which again take up too much energy, as far as we're concerned, because in effect, the Earth provided the processing facility for oil. Then you have to, third, transport it, and even with oil, pipelines use a few percent of the oil they're transporting to power themselves.
So it doesn't surprise me that you can't recreate something like petroleum economically, in fact, it makes perfect sense.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:49 am
15 Dec 2008
The real problem is fundamental resource scarcity.
You only have so much Arable Land, Fresh Water, and Fertilizer to go around.
For instance, here's one study which Ron Steenblik participated in:
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
And to be fair, he gives the assumption that all regions of the earth are capable of achieving Brazilian SugarCane equivalent efficiency. Then he assumes that 1/2 of all possible arable land, be used for biofuel production.
And even with those crazy unrealistic benefits of the doubt, it still doesn't amount to much.
-David Ahlport
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:06 am
15 Dec 2008
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Bob Wallace Posted 8:17 am
15 Dec 2008
They must think we're about there....
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amazingdrx Posted 3:45 pm
15 Dec 2008
http://science.discovery.com/tv/ecopolis/ecopolis.html
The host chooses various technologies for the greenest future city. Transportation was on the first episode. He chose waste biogas electric powered transport, BEV buses and cars.
The other alternatives were hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, algae biodisel, and air travel efficiency improvements.
The winning entry featuires a project in Manilla, 5 hp battery electric "jeepneys". Low speed open buses. Charged on electricity generated from landfill gas.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:53 pm
15 Dec 2008
Weight is key to battery electric transportation, saving body/frame weight with carbon fiber reduces the hp and weight of the whole drivetrain, and the weight of the battery pack.
Instead of riding steel sleds with steel and glass shacks attached, carbon fiber egg shells with bicycle wheels. That sort of trend.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bob Wallace Posted 4:07 pm
15 Dec 2008
Most likely we'll move there after folks get used to the idea of BEVs.
One intermediate move is to get away from drive trains and on to in-hub motors/brakes/suspension. Michelin has an interesting unit that manufacturers can buy and bolt into their "boxes".
Biogas, probably like biodiesel made from old donut grease. Just not enough to go around.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:25 pm
15 Dec 2008
Using conservation, like ground source heating/cooling and plugin hybrids, that would cut the total demand. With that lower demand, biogas backup would be enough to stabilize a renewable smart grid, the gas can be stored and supplemented with natural gas in emergencies.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 4:34 pm
15 Dec 2008
Landfill gas and garbage are another source.
Another huge source could be weed and algae overgrowth in lakes, rivers, and wetlands. Fertilizer and manure run off is killing aquatic ecosystems and their very valuable food resources, along with the fishing communities that depend on it.
It looks like 5% of present power grid generation could be attained. Farm biogas might even get that much all alone.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:50 am
16 Dec 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 2:10 am
16 Dec 2008
Farmers can haul it a short distance. With garbage it is already hauled to the landfill, so replace the landfilling with garbage biodigestion, add leaves, grass clippings, waste wood and so forth that is hauled to the landfill too.
Hmmm so 2% of global GHG? How much of human caused GHG is it though?
For my region a calculation of kwh per cow (or other farm animal) and ton of garbage or even sewage, along with a wind and solar assesment, should prove wether or not this triumvirate of renewables would provide enough power to keep the lights and heat on, plugin cars charged, and factories humming.
With Lake Superior wind and a dairy farm economy and lots of waste wood resources (slash and dead wood that poses a fire hazard), and about average solar resources, due to our clouds, all running through a smart grid. And plenty of conservation efficiency gains from ground source heating and cooling and energy storage, a study could prove this energy plan feasible.
Funding anyone? Dr. Chu? Mr. Obama? Hehey. I'm sure grad students here would do it if you payed them.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:42 am
16 Dec 2008
Then, for waste -- about 2.8% -- of which they simply say "most" is from landfill, so figure 1.5% from landfill? It's very hard to estimate, so it's all rough, but if you look here at page 14 [pdf], you see their rough breakdown, and then go here for the agricultural report -- but it's not easy reading.
So the total would be around 2.5% of all man-made ghgs, for livestock poo and landfill methane
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amazingdrx Posted 1:07 am
17 Dec 2008
Methane from fertilizer and manure run off is hard to account for. Nitrous oxide from chemical fertilizer is difficult too.
These are huge sources of GHG that have barely been noticed yet. The best bet for methane emissions due to ag would be to come up with a per animal figure, for cows, chickens, pigs, the numbers of livestock are known. And the units of gas per animal are known from existing farm biogas operations.
Anyway, it's a largely ignored area of research, I suppose because funding is short in general and is mainly focused on immediate bottomline studies.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 1:55 am
17 Dec 2008
http://www.energy.ca.gov/research/renewable/biomass/anaer ...
California has done research on biogas potential.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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