Scientific American's grand plan to provide a bit over a third of U.S. energy from solar sources provides insight into what it would cost to phase out all or most U.S. greenhouse emissions. Bottom line: a lot less than current military spending.
The total cost of the SciAm plan: $420 billion over the course of that 40 years, or slightly over ten billion dollars per year -- less than current fossil fuel subsidies, less than the new subsidies "clean coal" would require.
The authors suggest phasing out fossil-fuel powered electricity over the course of forty years, using a solar dominated electricity grid. They suggest Compressed Air Electricity Storage (CAES) and thermal storage to compensate for the intermittent nature of solar electricity, and High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission lines to move solar electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed.
However, we can't wait 40 years, and we especially can't wait 40 years for a 35% reduction in emissions. So suppose we tripled the investment, and spent over the course of 20 years. That would be about $1.26 trillion, or $63 billion a year over twenty years -- a rounding error in the Pentagon budget.
Unfortunately, it is not that simple. The "Grand Plan" saves a lot of money via slow implementation, giving the technology time to develop. Implementing it more quickly, with less mature technology, would cost more, probably requiring more solar thermal and less photovoltaic power (unless PV prices drop a lot faster than SciAm projects). So we can double to ~$2.5 trillion, or $126 billion per year. This is still a fraction of our military budget.
One more step raises costs further. In the SciAm projections, around two thirds of the electricity passes through CAES storage. CAES is a hybrid system, burning natural gas to use the compressed air more efficiently. Emissions from this natural gas are around 30% per kWh compared to our present grid. That implies total emissions of 20% per kWh compared to today, or an 80% reduction.
Global warming is just that -- global. If we, the most intense greenhouse polluters, cut our emissions by only 80%, that does not leave room for development by the Global South, which produces one fifth or fewer GHG per person than we do. Reasonably, we need to reduce by 95% or better, to leave some possibility of fossil fuel use for others.
So, no more than 30% of our kWh should pass through CAES storage. SciAm suggests that the next least expensive storage method costs about double CAES. At most that increases total costs of the proposed system by a third. Extrapolating from SciAm's own figures, that suggests a total cost of ~$3.4 trillion over the course of twenty years, or less than $170 billion a year to completely eliminate fossil fuels over the course of 20 years.
However, SciAm actually made a number of expensive technology choices. Making other choices could lower these costs further.
First, the grand plan contains almost no demand reduction, other than what would occur as a side effect of less fossil fuel use, plus electrification of transport. However, we know there is a huge potential for inexpensive efficiency improvements. At the low end, the McKinsey group calculates (PDF) that we could reduce by around 11% in absolute terms at a savings. My own book suggests that efficiency improvements alone could reduce emissions by more than 60%, at a cost lower than the current cost of coal electricity.
Secondly, we can use non-electrical solar to displace a lot of generation. Even in existing buildings, low temperature solar thermal could replace a lot of electricity used for space, hot water heating, and other low temperature purposes. (SciAm does already suggest a smart grid, including low temperature storage of climate control energy in buildings.) In new buildings passive solar is the next cheapest choice after efficiency.
Third, under-using wind costs the SciAm plan a lot. I understand why the authors concentrated on solar. Solar potential in the U.S. is hundreds, perhaps thousands of times current U.S. consumption. Commercial wind potential, in contrast, may be as little as ten times projected U.S. consumption in 2100. But wind electricity is also currently much cheaper than solar electricity. In addition, studies have shown that wind, when produced at multiple sites a great distance apart, has potential to provide a certain amount of very reliable power, even before storage is used.
Still another saving is that the SciAm plan included overbuilding to handle an extreme case where volcanic activity greatly reduce available solar energy for a year or two. A grid that was more evenly divided between sun and wind would still need overbuilding for both the volcano case and for wind draughts. But since the two are unlikely to occur simultaneously over as long a period as either one by itself, the overbuilding would not need to be as large. In addition, while wind by itself needs less storage than sun by itself, a grid that combines approximately even amounts of both will need even less storage. In fact, one very important part of the designing a combined solar/wind grid is to figure out the ratio of wind to sun generation capabilities to get maximum reliability. (For example, the Midwest and Great Plains are probably a lot steadier source of power than California.)
This assumes pretty complete electrification of transport and industry, and that backup for solar in climate control comes from renewable electricity, not fossil fuels. It also assumes we replace at least feedstock for chemicals with biomass, and perhaps tiny amounts of biofuel to run freight trains, short run freight trucks, and perhaps backup engines on plug-in hybrids as well. I don't think we can do completely without liquid fuel, but we can probably reduce liquid fuel consumption to four or five quads.
If natural gas inputs into the electrical grid are already producing all the emissions we can afford, then we have to get liquid fuel from net zero emission sources. Alternatively, maybe this is an argument for spending another 70 billion or so annually on storage so that our electrical grid is truly fossil fuel free, and then using 3-4 quads of fossil fuels (mostly natural gas) for transport and industry.
So conservatively, the cost of eliminating 95% of fossil fuel use over the course of 20 years would be $170 billion annually if we can get small amounts of genuinely sustainable, net-zero-emissions biomass. Alternatively, for 240 billion annually we can do it with no biofuels. So we can completely phase out fossil fuels for around a third of current military spending.
(And zero biofuels is absurd. If nothing else we want to tap methane from waste, if for no other reason than to convert that methane into CO2 that will produce far less warming. Similarly, after we close all coal mines, we want to tap the non-biomass methane they emit into the atmosphere. Sustainable biomass potential may be small, but it is not zero.)
This assumes no breakthroughs in renewable production or storage -- which is also absurd.
This only tackles fossil fuels, not agriculture and forestry. Though these are extremely important, I also suspect that converting them to sustainability would cost an order of magnitude less than eliminating fossil fuels. And in the course of increasing energy efficiency, we would probably make a start by reducing paper use, substituting agricultural waste for a large part of wood use, and supporting more energy efficiency in agriculture. I further suspect that half or more of the cost subsidizing more sustainability could be paid by converting existing subsidies into less perverse incentives.
Do dirty coal plants make us more vulnerable to swine flu?
90 months and counting
Comments View as Flat
Jonas Posted 11:13 pm
16 Feb 2008
Solar is nice, but not very effective
Solar power is nice, but it has many drawbacks. It needs backup, and that means fossil fuels. Also, over its lifecycle, solar emits relatively large amounts of CO2 compared to other renewables.
Moreover, you are only talking about 'reducing' existing emissions. That's a bit of a weak offer.
We have to eliminate emissions to make a dent. Ken Caldeira and Damon Matthews, writing in the latest Geophysical Research Letters, say we have to reduce emissions to zero.
New study shows stabilizing climate requires near-zero carbon emissions now - boosts case for carbon-negative bioenergy
Solar won't get us there anywhere soon.
The only way is to go carbon-negative - taking emissions from the past out of the atmosphere.
You can go carbon-negative by implementing biomass + CCS systems.
Bio-energy with carbon-storage can be implemented today, at low cost, in existing power plants. No need for a new infrastructure.
In short, the solar plan is interesting, but it needs back up from a much more radical energy system that effectively cleans up the atmosphere.
Solar remains carbon positive. That's not enough. You need carbon negative.
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Pompey Road Posted 1:05 am
17 Feb 2008
Cheap Coal Water
Walker/Cat has been running a low brow commercial in Ky and WVA markets to promote mountain top removal. It features a green cartoon bug telling all the local yokels it ok to do MTR's because the bug will move right back onto the land fill. They now have a miss bug commercial, no joke here. It hits the covered stream issue and more or less tells us its ok to cover a stream. I feel they had to rush to the production room and crank this on out to offset courtroom victory's by environmental groups who attacked the coal corporations with the clean water act and state stream laws.
How quickly they adapt, I feel they run the cartoons locally for dogpatch and the slicker productions nationally promoting coal as the alternative to oil or its replacement.
We used to have clear water down here, we still have several natural springs where water is bottled for sale right from the source. However there was a time when we all had private wells, until they were ruined by the coal industry. It now takes millions of dollars to run city water as we call it to every community in East Kentucky. The water source in the river is not what I like to think about drinking even though our health departments are getting better. We have so many boil water asvisories because of the bacterial content of that water.
It is cheaper for us to get off coal. We don't get that much money from it into the community anymore as most of it is owned by out of state interest.
Its costing us and the federal tax payers millions to run water into commities that had the best drinking water on the planet.
It will cost millions to clean up the environmental damage already done to the region. In fact it already has, just do a research on the money already spent by OSM on abandoned mine property.
It will take millions more to complete and we crate more of the damaged property everyday.
Clean clear water, one of the basic elements of life and we let cartoon bugs tell us its ok to destroy fresh water streams.
Get ready to spend millions of federal tax dollars on us down here to run water into our communities, they are for the most part federal subsidized.
On the upside I am glad the Sierra Club has found a way to attack the problem through the clean water act. Better get what you can done before the coal corporations figure out how to close that loop hole on you.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Pompey Road Posted 1:46 am
17 Feb 2008
Point Counter Point
Article I run in local papers countering the Walker/Cat commercial promoting covering up fresh water mountain streams.
Miss Bug
It was not that our intelligence was insulted enough with the commercial by Walker/Cat telling us its ok to do a Mountain Top Removal and a Valley Fill now they have come up with another one with a lady bug telling us its ok to cover up a stream. I feel it is because some environmental groups that have not been successful in the past in court attacking them strictly on the MTR issue has found a chink in the coal corporations armor with the clean water act. I believe the states may have had some stream protection bills passed in recent years that allow the groups to go after coal corporations who destroy fresh water streams
The old timers had it right back when they all had private wells and you could drink right out of most streams around here. Most birds don't crap their own nest and you don't mess where you eat. Of course that is putting it delicately as for how they really said it. We have a few fresh water springs left in Pike County where you can still bottle the water right out of the stream and sell it. For the most part though we are spending millions of dollars running what we call "city water" into every community. The water we once had being ruined by strip mining for the most part. We have better health departments now but the frequent boil water advisories remind us of what is really in that lake and river water they are trying to clean up for us to drink. I don't like the taste of the chlorine and it is a constant reminder of what kind of fecal matter bacteria it is trying to cover up. Fresh clean, clear water one of the basic elements of life, are you really going to let a cartoon bug tell you its ok to destroy fresh mountain streams. Tell me what do you get out of that multi-million dollar piece of equipment that Walker/Cat sells? Especially the ones that covers up that fresh water stream.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:57 am
17 Feb 2008
15 billion
I think Barack is proposing around 15 billion per year Gar. With a lot going to ethanol and clean coal.
Around 50 billion per year is available by eliminating and diverting fossil, nuclear, and agribizz fuel farming subsidies.
I don't think 160 billion is possible politically. With government investment matched up with 3 times as much private investment that total 160 billion per year ought to be possible though.
A 10 cent per kwh subsidy for renewables and 5 cents for conservation, plus massive orders for renewable smart grid and conservation devices from government, should be possible with the 50 billion per year figure, diverted from present subsidies.
25 billion per year from defense should be possible too, as a better way to get national security and fight oil war related terrorism, once the iraq war is ended. But I suppose defense hawks will say that the military needs even more money to recover from Iraq.
I think we could count on diverting the corporate energy subsidies to renewables. That was Hillary's plan. Maybe we ought to keep her plan even as she is losing the nomination.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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WWAGD?! Posted 2:20 am
17 Feb 2008
63 Beeeellll---yun Dollars
The solar industry is ramping up so fast with private investment that 63B a year will seem paltry. At best, it would be the annual revenue for a single solar company.
Yet another case where the best policy is to...do nothing and let the experts take care of it.
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sunflower Posted 3:24 am
17 Feb 2008
Notes from the future.
It is easy and cheap to store solar steam deep in the ground for 24 hour supply.
Solar thermal has a 50 fold return on energy invested, and that 2% can be supplied by other solar.
http://www.solel.com/faq/The objective is carbon displacement. Electricity is a big piece of the pie, but not the objective in isolation. It is much cheaper and more efficient to displace natural gas than it is to make electricity. Industrial process heat is the neglected customer. Solar district heating with seasonal heat storage is another neglected customer, as are commercial heating and cooling loads. Let's not ignore huge natural gas consumers and remind MBAs that peak natural gas prices will enable very profitable energy efficiency and renewable energy developments.
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:42 am
17 Feb 2008
95% solar 20 Yr too weak? Politically impossible?
Jonas
"Moreover, you are only talking about 'reducing' existing emissions. That's a bit of a weak offer."
I'm talking about reducing emissions by 95% over 20 years. That lets us eliminate the remaining 5% of emissions over the next decade. Most current forms of biomass for energy are carbon negative, not carbon neutral.
>I don't think 160 billion is possible politically.
What is politically possible is what the people of this country think is politically possible. Educate, Agitate, Organize. (Yup, a cliche. One of the reasons cliches come into existence is that they are true.)
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:55 am
17 Feb 2008
Biofuels with CCS
Jonas: "You can go carbon-negative by implementing biomass + CCS systems."
Most biomass for energy is currently produced with more net carbon emissions than fossil fuel. If CCS could not only capture the carbon but store in an inexpensive environmentally sound manner at a reasonable price, then fossil fuels and CCS would be preferable to biomass. But right now, it turns out that combine capture and real sequestration is enormously expensive. It is not an environmentally sound method. I think in fact that there are some environmentally sound ways we can produce significant amounts of biofuel without competing with food crops. But the quanties are also limit. I would guess we can (in the U.S.) sustainably produce between 5 and 12 quads of sustainable biofuel. What about the tropics with much greater potential? unfortunately you end up displacing rainforest, which makes the biofuels carbon negative again. What about cases like Brazil in which most ethanol is grown on agricultural land, not rainforest? Unfortunately, as it displaces existing agriculture new rainforest is cleared to make way for new agriculture. In short Brazil is still indirectly burning rainforest.
As in the U.S., biofuels worldwide have a significant potential. But it is as a provide of small amounts of chemical feedstock and backup, not as a main source.
There is also a type of carbon capture & sequestration with real potential. Charag,where some agricultural waste is converted into charcoal, then put back into the soil to build structure, with waste heat and gases use for energy. This is a case where we are reversing what burning fossil fuels do by taking carbon from the living carbon cycle and converting it back to stable dead carbon.
Unfortuntely we don't know how to recreate the complex ecosystem of micro-organisms Pre-Columbian Brazilian Indians created with their slash & char Terra Preta agriculture. So while we can still add charcoal to soil up to a point, there is limit to how much we can add without damaging the soil. Still we can add quite a bit. Possibly this method would let us sequestrate as much as 2% of our annual emissions for several decades. (Unless rediscover how to make real preta/terra. Then we can keep taking carbon out for centuries with this method, and slowly reverse some of the damage we did, assuming we stop adding more, soon.)
There is no one big solution, but hundreds of small ones. We have to stop thinking in terms of silver bullets, and start thinking about buckshot.
(That is true in general. The "solution' is a combination of hundreds of different things, not silver bullets but buckshot.)
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Jonas Posted 3:59 am
17 Feb 2008
Confusion
Gar Lipow, you wrote:
"Most current forms of biomass for energy are carbon negative, not carbon neutral."
I think you are confused.
Most forms of bioenergy are "carbon neutral" to "carbon positive". That is: they add modest amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. Just like all other renewables.
But when you couple bio-energy to carbon capture and storage, you go "carbon negative" and take emissions out of the atmosphere.
Only biomass systems can become carbon negative, fundamentally so (you understand why this is so). All other renewables remain perpetually carbon positive.
Quick overview of lifcecyle CO2 emissions per kWh of electricity generated:
-coal: +850 gCO2/kWh
-natural gas: +200-300 gCO2/kWh
-coal + CCS: +150 gCO2/kWh
-solar photovoltaic: +100 gCO2eq/kWh
-non-CCS biomass: +30 gCO2/kWh
-wind: +30 gCO2eq/kWh
-CSP: +30 gCO2eq/kWh
-nuclear: +15 gCO2eq/kWh
-hydro: +10 gCO2eq/kWh
-biomass + CCS: -1000 gCO2/kWh
Yes, that is minus a thousand, hence "negative emissions" energy.
Source: IEA and EU.
So you see that carbon negative bioenergy is clearly the most radical of all climate fighting tools. No contest - fundamentally so, because only biomass can take you carbon negative.
I think many people still don't understand the fairly basic concept and are confused about the terminology.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:11 am
17 Feb 2008
Study says!
So grow some trees.
Or switchgrass if you prefer.
The difference being is that the plants STAY.
And the soils STAY.
Which is much more suitable on a global scale to not to cause unwanted (gigantic) side effects.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol10
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/2/7/annex7g_agricultu ...
It also doesn't cater towards coal-to-liquids production.
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
_
Kind of sad when people care more about the specific implementation, than the goal itself.
Like BioPact.
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Gar Lipow Posted 4:24 am
17 Feb 2008
Trees and Switchgrass
>So grow some trees.
>Or switchgrass if you prefer.
Yeah, or more to the point, a bunch of different plants together to maintain biodiversity. But again these are not going to be a substitute for renewable energy like sun and wind. Plants grown for fuel in sustainable amounts can supply a portion of our energy. And that is great, cause putting together a bunch of small solutions add up to a big solution.
But plants for fuel is sustainable only up to certain point. Past that point they displace food, and wilderness. If solar and wind (and geothermal and wave and such) replaced 95% of electricity use, and electricity replaced most fuel use in general, possibly biomass fuel could be produced sustainably in large enough amounts to provide the backup for the electricity, and supply liguid and gaseous fuel needs for uses where electricity (and low temp solar) could not serve.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:46 am
17 Feb 2008
Yeah but
But that doesn't explain why biofuels get a lions share of subsidies, if they are only a token solution.
Sorry, but thats the same bullshit that keeps things like hydrogen in the running.
We don't have time to NOT prioritize.
_
Also can you imagine how amazingly expensive a CCS + IGCC + Biomass Feedstock power plant would be?
_
We need to start thinking in terms of Opportunity Costs.
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:51 am
17 Feb 2008
Did not object to prioritization
In fact I agree that biofuels should not receive anything like the funding they are getting. You were the one advocating trees and switchgrass, I was agreeing but opposing making too big a thing of them.
I was pretty explicit that I think the priorities are:
Efficiency (including ground source heat pumps and electrifying transport)
Smart grid (including building storage for low temp heat)
low temp solar thermal
wind electricity and solar thermal electricty (in right balance which we need to determine)
Electricity Storage (It still looks like pumped storage is the way to go).
Get requirements within reason by building long distance HDVC
Biofuels to the extent sustainable - waste gas from methane sources we've already locked, and additional ones from waste. But in any waste to fuel we need to decide: can we reduce the creation of this waste; can this waste be used for something other than fuel (building soil, replacing wood or other construction materials). Where energy is really the best use of waste, then probably the best thing to turn it into is either methane via anerobic digestion where the waste is suitable, producer gas, or methanol where we must produce liguid. (We can also produce charcoal to replace coal in steel making, and as a soil amemdment, but not for electricity production.)
And the main type of research needed for biofuels is to figure out what waste streams are truly suitable for this purpose. Again we have to figure out what waste streams can be eliminated, and then of those which can't be used for something more valuable than fuel. If we are really luck we will end up with enough biofuel to:
- run freight trains whose electrification would be really expensive in the U.S. Freight trains run through long unhabitated stretches where electrification would require a whole new grid much more expensive than the long distance transmission lines I'm suggesting for renewable electricty production.
- Run freight trucks a short distance, as we replace longh haul freight trucking with rail. These would be about double the efficiency of current trucks, and carry about a tenth of curent ton-miles.
- provide backup for highly efficient hybrid cars that can travel a hundred miles on electricity, and then use their gas tanks once that electrical reserve is exhausted.
- provide feedstocks and in high temperature heat for industrial use.
We actually have pretty decent processes for producing methanol, methane, and producer gas from biomass now. What is tough is finding sustainable sources that can produce 5 to 10 quads of fuel as output. What is really tough is that a lot of sources that would be sustainable if our world agricultural system was run right will produce hunger and destruction of wilderness if used in the context of the current world system as it exists to today.I did not include geothermal, wave, and lots of other stuff with potential we don't know how do huge amounts of today. But of course we should deploy all of these we can. Geothermal especially is very high power, so developing all we know how to develop and a reasonable cost is important.
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:53 am
17 Feb 2008
hit post too soon
The other thing biofuel would ideally do is supply about 5% of electricity to provide backup for a renewable power grid, again reducing the need for storage.
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Jonas Posted 8:11 am
17 Feb 2008
Greyfalcn - it's really quite a simple concept
Greyfalcon, from what you write, it is clear that you still don't really understand this most basic of concepts.
- standing trees don't yield electricity; that, you understand
- standing trees do not remove CO2 from the atmosphere (in fact - and you know these studies very well - many types of forest in temperate climes are net carbon emitters); they are just standing carbon stocks
- now if you use the trees as a carbon source for energy, then sequester it, and then grow new trees, you get both electricity and carbon removal.
- growing new trees is activating them as carbon withdrawers - a standing tree does not take CO2 out of the atmosphere, a growing tree does.
- the more you repeat this cycle, the more CO2 you remove.
That's why in this concept trees act as active machines that clean up the past and save the planet.Your argument about trees that "stay" is completely flawed.
I really hope some day you will understand it, because you are bizarrely stubborn on this point.
It's not that difficult a concept, is it?
You accuse us of looking at energy and climate change from one perspective - namely bioenergy's radical role - which is logical because we are a bioenergy organisation.
But your stubborness is unexplainable. May we ask you why you are so radically against the most radical weapon in the climate fight? Are you a stealthy fossil fuel pusher, perhaps?
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Gar Lipow Posted 10:46 am
17 Feb 2008
Trees do remove carbon
Or more to the point diverse ecosystems dominated by trees remove carbon. (We call those "forests".) The studies you are thinking about show that pulling up grasslands in cold climates and replacing them with trees does not remove carbon. However a forest that is already there does, over time remove carbon. An old growth forest in a cool climate, or a mature second growth forest in that same climate removes carbon more slowly than a young forest or grassland. That is because there is a great deal of carbon stored in the soil or trees. However, if you harvest that forest you do the following:
- You disrupt the soil, and lose a lot of the carbon that was in the soil. That carbon does NOT displace fossil fuels.
- You spend fossil fuel harvesting that forest. You spend more fossil fuel processing that forest. Alternatively you use some of the biomass to drive these processes. Either way you have reduced the net energy gained.
- Some of what you harvest is waste, not usable as fuel.
- Even if you replace the old growth with a young monoculture tree plantation that plantation will take decades, possibly centuries to replace the carbon you took out. And in the meantime that plantation will be more vulnerable than an old growth forest to to fire, drought, flood, pests. Most studies show that an old growth forest takes up more carbon than a young forest (let alone a young tree plantation) during times of extreme stress.
- In general you should not confuse live carbon and dead carbon. Live carbon, even sequestered in a coal mine can still return to the carbon cycle. Dead carbon, carbon that is no longer CO2, but is molecularly bonded and stable, like coal and charcoal, or limestone and chalk can be considered sequestrated. And right now a full carbon removal and sequestration system is really expensive.
- Again, if we get to 95% renewable elecricity, then we have two fairly easy pathways to 100% renewable electricity: either producing sustainable biofuel just on much smaller scale than you advocate (which I think we do know how to do), or by achieving a breakthrough in storage. At the end of twenty years we ought to be able to do second. We can certainly do the first.
And that is just existing technology. Any of the following could lower the cost and get us all the way 100% renewable even faster:Permalink
spaceshaper Posted 10:48 am
17 Feb 2008
Dear Jonas
thanks for the clear exposition. I'm guessing the stubbornness of Greyfalcon, which I rather share, revolves around a critical item in your point 3. - "now if you use the trees as a carbon source for energy, then sequester it" (my emphasis).
I'm sure you can guess the question that's coming. How, and at what environmental, financial and social cost, does the sequestration occur?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:07 pm
17 Feb 2008
By 2100 society will be all-electric...
...when fossil fuels are gone, so will be the general use of fuels. As for biofuels, consider the priority of uses for biofuels:
- The military will take the first and best stuff, although they constitute "only" about 1% of current US oil use
- Emergency vehicles: I don't know what the percentage is, probably close to military
- to replace petroleum as chemical/plastic feedstocks, actually as much as 5-10% of current oil use
- Some off-road stuff like construction and mining, but most of that will have to convert to electricity as well.
- Some air use, although probably only between continents
Maybe, maybe biofuels could fill those needs. But for trucking or passenger vehicles? fugedaboutit!So converting to a renewable electric grid is a long-term necessity even without global warming. With global warming, you are simply pushing forward a necessary transformation. And taking it from the military is taking resources from the most wasteful use of resources on earth.
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Jonas Posted 12:18 pm
17 Feb 2008
Going back in time
Ok, one more metaphor, perhaps. Carbon-negative bioenergy is like going back in time: you put fossil fuels (i.e. carbon from biomass) back into the ground, but in the process you extract the energy from it.
That's why it's so radical, and that's why you can get up to minus 1 ton of CO2 per MWh you generate.
Now you ask:
How, and at what environmental, financial and social cost, does the sequestration occur?
-The environmental costs are: reduced erosion, reduced land degradation and soil destruction (because you use afforestation and reforestation based bioenergy systems), reduced air pollution, reduced climate change, reduced destruction of life and biodiversity because of climate change
-The social costs are: major employment opportunities, major economic chances for survival (abundant energy at low cost, versus scarce energy at high cost)
-The financial costs: have been carefully estimated for many different systems: because you use existing fossil fuel infrastructures they are by far the least costly (EU numbers from its renewables technology roadmap: biomass power is cheaper than any other form of renewable, by a fact or 10 to 20 for solar photovoltaic)
-the CCS cost depends on the system: geosequestration is currently expensive, but lots of research money is going into it, and developments for efficient capture technologies are going swiftly; since with biomass you do not have the critical problem of CO2 leakage (because the CO2 is biogenic), costs on this factor are much lower than those of geosequestration of fossil fuels (where leakage would be problematic)
-soil sequestration (biochar) is actually pretty cheap and results in major environmental, social and economic advantages (improved soils, less water requirements for agriculture, less fertiliser needs for agriculture, etc...).
-added benefits: (in the case of geosequestration of CO2) reduced risk of forest fires, which are becoming a major contributor to global climate change (see, recently, California, Greece); young forests (short to medium rotation coppice) are much less prone to forest fires
-(in the case of soil sequestration of inert carbon - biochar): radically reduced deforestation in the tropics (elimination of slash and burn, transition to slash and char), a boost to food security (because char amended soils double, triple, quintuple and even yield 8 times more than non-amended soils; you utilize the biomass from food crops as the feedstock for your pyrolysis plants), reduced poverty, and best of all, access to rural electricity for millions who don't have this today.
Now please weigh off the potential negatives against this set of potential benefits.
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Gar Lipow Posted 1:18 pm
17 Feb 2008
Social costs
"geosequestration is currently expensive, but lots of research money is going into it, and developments for efficient capture technologies are going swiftly"
So the technology claimed to be able to capture really huge amounts of greenhouse gases is still pie in the sky, something we probably will be able to do economically someday. It is like Flying Energy Generators: great potential, but we don't know when we can do it.
"soil sequestration (biochar) is actually pretty cheap and results in major environmental, social and economic advantages (improved soils, less water requirements for agriculture, less fertiliser needs for agriculture, etc...)."
Yeah biochar, is great especially if used as a supplement for low input conservation tillage agriculture. But the percentage you can from that is tiny. No one has laid out a convincing scenario for sequestering more than a tiny percentage of our emissions with today's technology. No one has shown a way for biofuels to supply a more than a portion of the world's net energy sustainably and without competing with food supply. Now that is significant, but it will act as a supplement and enabler for wind and solar electricity, not a replacement.
You get higher than say 10% or so by displacing food supplies, displacing wilderness, mining the soil, or burning more fossil fuels than you get back in biofuel to produce that biofuel. And the amount you can produce sustainably may not be as high as 10%. It is dependent on a lot of things including how you produce your food supply.
The following conditions would maximize potential for sustainable biofuels:
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cscoxk Posted 2:24 pm
17 Feb 2008
Geothermal to supplement Solar
The calculations are already conservative as solar thermal and geothermal are about the same capital cost and both are simple technologies. Solar thermal are a bunch mirrors heating water, Geothermal is drilling a few holes and pumping cold water down one pipe and getting it back another. My calculations using existing technologies in Australia make it feasible to have zero emissions in 10 years. To see what we are doing with geothermal go to http://www.geodynamics.com.au
These people will be producing electricity from hot rocks for an investment of $3000 to produce 1kw continuously for the next fifty years - and there is no storage problem as hot rocks stay hot all day and night and as the heat is extracted more comes from the natural radioactive decay and from the centre of the earth.
Incidently you do not have to take money from defense but simply divert a fraction of the money that has been going into the house price bubble into renewables. This will stop the USA going into recession, solve your housing affordability problem and save the planet.
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 2:28 pm
17 Feb 2008
subsidy figures are a diversion
"Scientific American's grand plan to provide a bit over a third of U.S. energy from solar sources provides insight into what it would cost to phase out all or most U.S. greenhouse emissions....The total cost of the SciAm plan: $420 billion over the course of that 40 years, or slightly over ten billion dollars per year -- less than current fossil fuel subsidies, less than the new subsidies "clean coal" would require."
This is absolutely false. All the talk about subsidies is just a smoke screen to divert your attention away from the real cost of electricity.
Each one cent increase in the cost of a kWh of electricity costs every man woman and child in the U.S. $131.84 per year. With 300 million Americans that is a 39.5 billion cost increase. Adding 1/3 of a cent to the cost of each kWh we buy would cover the $10 billion per year "subsidy", and Gar could claim that we can have solar electricity with no subsidy at all.
As the population grows and we shift fossil energy loads to electric loads this number grows rapidly.
The reality is that if the authors optimistic projections pan out solar will cost us $600 billion more than the nuclear option each and every year, $6,860 per year, every year, for a family of four.
But the authors cannot explain where the enormous amount of bio gas will come from to run their CAES system, nor can they answer questions about reliability and safety.
The fastest way to curtail CO2 emissions is;
1 Place a substantial world wide tax on CO2 emissions.
2 Use the money to increase R&D funding for low emissions energy sources 100 fold.
3 Eliminate all subsidies.
4 Allow the cost per KWh to rise to whatever level is needed to meet demand with low carbon sources.
The authors make this claim.
http://science-community.sciam.com/topic/Solar-Grand-Plan ...
The authors ducked the tough questions on the Grand Solar Plan.
http://science-community.sciam.com/topic/Technology/Grand ...
http://science-community.sciam.com/topic/Solar-Grand-Plan ...
The authors provided no answers to these critical questions, clearly indicating that the plan is not practical.
The idea that some magical combination of wind and solar can meet our needs with the required level of reliability, at an affordable cost, is wishful and dangerous thinking.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:57 pm
17 Feb 2008
Uses for biofuels
Rynn
Ultimately I think we will cut military by 80% or more.
A lot of emergency vehicles (i.e. police, ambulances) travel comparatively 100 miles or fewer before return to stations. With battery swapping, no reason they can't be electrified. OK not fire trucks, tow trucks and so on.
To replace petroleum as chemical stock will NOT require 10% of oil replacement:
1) lowering material intensity. We will need to use material less wastefully, make stuff that last longer, find ways of replacing services rather than material for material - i.e. mugs instead of disposable styrofoam cups, bring your own reusuable bag instead of paper or plastic grocery bag. Less packaging for goods in general, not just grocery bags.
2)Material replacement - hemp, bamboo, kenaf etc. can replace a lot of plastic fiber use.
3)Really stringent requirements for plastic reuse and recycling. Stuff has to be made so that parts are recoverable and reuseable or rebuildable. Companies have to actually setup a way of recovering and reusing. Same for recycling: real material recovery, real material reuse. And then finally real convenience in recycling, really set things up so stuff gets turned in for recovery and recycling.
4) Go to http://www.nohairshirts.com / . Read or skim the extensive section on material intensity. We can reduce material intensity by about three quarters, meaning oil feedstock needs end up between 1.25% and 2.5% not 5 to 10 percent.
In terms of total needs, look at this way. Even if all we do is hold total energy use steady at 100 quads and electrify about 90% of it then:
- transport fuel 2.7 quads
- industrial use 3.5 quads
- 5% electrical backup to minimize storage 4.7 quads
total 11 quads of backup. Current U.S. natural gas production is varies from 16-19 quads. Say by 2030 it is half the current rate - 8 quads. That means from a peak oil view, biofuel needs will be 3 quads. But reasonably we ought to be able to produce at least 6 quads of biofuels sustainably. Six quads of biofuels if they are truly carbon neutral combined wit 5 quads of natural gas is around 5 percent of current fossil fuel emissions. If we can increase biofuel to ten quads, then that leaves one quad of natural gas.Moreover, and 11 quad need for liquid/gaseous fuel assumes we only manage to hold steady. But there is every reason to believe we can do better than that.
- Renewable electricity combined with massive substitution of electricity for fuel ought to by iteself reduce use. You don't have as much wasted energy in converting heat from burning fossil fuels into electricity. As you reduce fossil fuel use you reduce the energy need to extract, refine and transport fossil fuels. Also, while 35 kWh has the same energy as approximately one gallon of gasoline you can get more passenger miles (or ton-miles) out of 35 kWh of electricity than from on gallon of gasoline (or the BTU equivalent in Diesel).
- I don't have to tell you about waste in buildings and appliances. We have similar or greater waste in industry, especially when you consider material intensity. Just as material intensty reductions can reduce the need for plastics, they can reduce the need for metal, concrete, wood, paper, cotton etc...
- The reduction in material intensity reduces the amount of material produced (but not the services provided by consumer products) but also the amount transported. In short you some reduction in freight just as a side effect of reduction in material intensity.
- In addition, there is a huge amount of direct waste in industry.
If we cut absolute energy use by 40% (instead of the over 60% I think possible) then the need for liquid fuel is reduced to less than 7 quads. Yes this does assume that air travel over land is practically eliminated, and intercontinental travel greatly reduced. There are only two areas where sustainability requires changes most of us would consider a sacrifice. One is air travel: I just can't see away around doing a whole lot less of it until we get an appropriate technical breakthrough in the distant future. The other is meat. Possible sustainable world meat production in 2050 is between four and six ounces per person per day, depending upon what peak human population turns out to be. (Potential with current population is more, but the amount actually produced sustainably is much less than that.)Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 3:06 pm
17 Feb 2008
Gar, sounds good to me...
...I hope to have a post in a day or two analyzing official electricity use figures, hopefully it will complement what you've done here, and then we can put together a super-computer-based energy-agriculture-transportation-materials simulation. Or maybe it's late and I need to go to sleep, anyway, thanks for the hard work.
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trock Posted 7:54 pm
17 Feb 2008
the mechanism
Gar,
I read your book. Very good.
So where do we go from here? What's the next step?
The mechanism to get all this done is to increase the cost of carbon either with a tax or cap and trade. I think a carbon tax would work better than cap and trade, but a world wide cap and trade that includes most every major carbon dioxide release mechanism seems to be the way we are going. Cap and trade is a system a lawyer would love and since most politicians are lawyers. . . The problem is the corruption of the possibility and reality of billions of dollars and fraud and corruption in every government and business in the world in how they lobby for the money. Many of the the world political systems are ill equipped to handle it. The less corrupting method would be an agreed upon level of taxation that each country has on it's own internal carbon dioxide release for use by each countries own general tax fund. Each country would be then able to reduce other taxes, whether they are property, sales, income or whatever the tax they decided to reduce was.
Each utility and other businesses now needs it on their financial accounting sheet as a cost for burning carbon and increasing global warming. Or they can't act effectively to reduce their carbon burning. They are obligated to their shareholders and stakeholders to bring low cost power and products to the market place and without the force of a carbon tax or mandatory cap and trade, they for the most part can't do it.
And the atmosphere waits. As we do.
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scatter Posted 10:11 pm
17 Feb 2008
Bill Hannahan...
...you seem to have quite a bee in your bonnet about this report.
What if electricity was twice as expensive to the consumer per unit but they used half as much in their homes? Perhaps an increase the price of energy will nudge us towards using it more wisely. Naturally the best solution would be to combine cheap energy with energy efficiency but there isn't an incentive to save energy as long as it is cheap.
The electrification of transport will add greatly to the demand but even if electricity were twice the price it is now I'd expect it would still be cheaper to run an electric vehicle than a petrol vehicle - especially given the expected reductions in battery prices and the likely continued increase in oil prices. And V2G supplies some of that backup capacity as insurance against variability.
Nuclear is not the only way forards.
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Pompey Road Posted 11:20 pm
17 Feb 2008
Malthus the Inevitable answer
The agro fuels will put an increased strain on food stocks and soil depletion. However not to worry the correction is in the forseeable future. All the elevated musings of all the environmentalist on the planet will have little effect on a world with a population of over 6 billion human consumers.
The food wars in Somalia and other parts of Africa have already begun. The oil and water wars in the middle east augmented by religious striff and fervor will provide the correction needed to reduce the population back down to a susstainable level.
I think the planet under idea managment could sustain a human population of around 3 billion indefinately. 6 moving toward 8 billion is not sustainable under anybody's scenario.
It is just a matter of where the correction will occur, will it just be third world or will it be distributed evenly among the nations?
Negative, pessimistic little theory and I am sure non of the glass half full crowd will subscribe to it. Nevertheless since we have no natural predators to keep the human population in control it will have to suffice.
War,famine, disease, don't count out the big three modes of correction to inable a population to fit its environment.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:42 am
18 Feb 2008
Sequential grid
By controlling when high demand uses like heating/cooling occur, a smart grid can schedule this power use sequentially. That vastly reduces peak demand.
Then using geo heat exchange heating/cooling to lower the power use dramatically, around 80% is possible. Comparing standard air conditioning, for instance, to geo heat exchange cooling that merely circulates water through 55% f ground and through the building structure to store cooling capacity.
Water pressure for a water system can be stored too. And building heat and hot water.
By combining it all together with renewable sources and local biogas cogeneration grid backup, stable power can be assured for basic needs.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 3:29 am
18 Feb 2008
Energy use is not intrinsically harmful.
"What if electricity was twice as expensive to the consumer per unit but they used half as much in their homes? Perhaps an increase the price of energy will nudge us towards using it more wisely."
Scatter, only one third of the electricity that supports our lives is used in the home. It is widely believed that the use of energy is bad for the environment, and any reduction in energy use is therefore good.
In reality the sun delivers 27 million watts of energy to the earth per person. Our energy use is insignificant, it is the emissions from some sources that are harmful.
By developing a source of abundant cheap clean energy we can do things to reduce environmental impact like;
Use UV light to purify drinking water instead of chlorine.
Desalinate massive quantities of sea water instead of damming and draining streams and rivers.
Eliminate the pressure to use up our precious top soil, water and phosphate deposits on a foolish attempt to generate biofuel, thereby sacrificing future generation's food supply.
Most importantly, people will quickly and voluntarily switch to a clean source of energy cheaper than fossil fuel.
Solar is the most expensive energy source yet devised by man and wind is second. When people become aware of their true cost, resistance will be high and our dependence on fossil fuel will be extended, as in Denmark and Germany.
"Nuclear is not the only way forwards."
I think nuclear would do well on a level playing field but the N word does not appear in my four point recommendation. If a less expensive technology evolved that would be great.
Trock did a great job expanding on point 1 Place a substantial world wide tax on CO2 emissions.
Point 2, Use the money to increase R&D funding for low emissions energy sources 100 fold. This is the most important step in creating energy sources cheaper than fossil fuels. U.S. spending on energy R&D is trivial in comparison to the magnitude of the problem.
People who call for big subsidies of their pet projects are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:37 am
18 Feb 2008
Smart grid - DRX
DRX, I mentioned all this in previous comments on this post (in summary form). Not only heating and cooling but most other types of energy demand can be reduced dramatically. However, geothermal heating and cooling still takes electricity to circulate the water. Solar thermal: well various techniques can use passive circulation, but really efficient buildings usually require heat exchanging ventilators which again take electricity. Backup for solar will probably come from small amounts of electricity. And there is lighting, electrified transport, appliances industrial equipment.
You are not going size your wind or solar generators to ten times your average need. So when your local production drops by 90% for five days straight (two weeks straight in some areas) due to cloudy or low wind weather, you are going to need a heck of a lot of storage to keep the lights on, and trains and electric cars running. Put in long distance HVDC lines, and you connect wind and sun dominated local grids together; you seldom have such a drastic drop for so long. Storage gets a whole lot cheaper.
Really, what is the huge objection to tranmission lines. Most of the cost of the current grid is in distribution lines, not transmission, and nobody wants to shut that down. And it is not like a renewable grid does not involve some large scale technology even without the DC lines. One of the ways you bring the cost of both wind generators and solar cells is by larger scale mass production in giant factories. Why the huge objection to the lines besides.
In a way connecting local energy systems together mimics the water and energy flows in nature where there are constant exchanges over long distances between ecosystems. Historically, isolated ecosystems, on islands, on mountaintops, in valleys and so forth are much more fragile than interconnected networks of ecosystems with flows that exchange energy and biomass. One of the most destructive things humans do to ecosystems is isolate them from one another. (On one level roads, parking lots, building and other impervious surfaces. On another farms and fences.)
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scatter Posted 4:25 am
18 Feb 2008
Level playing field?
My nuclear comment was more in reference to your "energy facts" article which on a brief glance appears to be casually dismissive of renewables while boosting nuclear.
After many decades of government subsidy in the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, getting rid of subsidies completely wouldn't level the playing field at all. Renewables are finally just getting started and haven't had access to a fraction of these subsidies - what's level about that? Perhaps if they had a decent level of support we'd start to see a clean, green energy system emerge.
"It is widely believed that the use of energy is bad for the environment, and any reduction in energy use is therefore good."
Come on! It's not some environmental puritanism view point I'm taking here - suggesting we should go back to the stone age or something. It's lazy to suggest that calls for energy efficiency stem from that.
We use our energy spectacularly inefficiently. That's where we can cut back. In all sectors, not just domestic consumption.
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Gar Lipow Posted 4:34 am
18 Feb 2008
Where do we go from here
Trock:
>So where do we go from here? What's the next step?
I agree that a carbon price is part of the solution. Either a carbon tax, or a cap & auction system where 100% of the permits are sold to the highest bidder, none given away makes sense. So basically a carbon tax, or a cap system that is economically very similar to one.
However I don't think money from that carbon price should be used for R&D or green purposes in general. That is because we want to reduce carbon quickly, 20 years and we're 95% of the way towards zero carbon. However if you put that money towards any political purpose, even energy R&D one of two things will happen. If the purpose is politically weak, it will suffer drastic cuts in funding. If strong, it will use that strength to lobby for continue carbon emissions, so you that its primary funding source will continue. Yes, in the abstract, if the cause has political muscle a simple shift in funds will happen. But in practice program opponents always claim that a need for a funding shift shows irresponsibility, and proponents get around it by trying to increase the existing funding stream rather than fighting for new source.
So I think that the key is to apply Barnes proposal, regardless of whether the carbon price form is cap & auction or carbon tax. Put a price on carbon, collect the revenues from that carbon price. And divide them equally among the population. Everybody gets a check, or a special ATM card that is refilled monthly.
But I don't think a carbon price is enough, or even the primary means of making the shift. It is necessary, but people respond to price shifts slowly. And old technology tends to hang around long after it becomes obsolete. The telegraph is still here (though greatly reduced) in the age of fax, email and text email and text messaging. And a lot of energy requires public infrastructure anyway. Not just renewables, but all energy sources require transmission lines. All energy forms include nuclear could benefit from storage. (Nuclear is a capital intensive form of energy. Without storage, you have the choice of using it only for base load, and thus maximizing your use of that capital, or using it for most purposes, and using only a small portion of your capital potential. Storage would let you run a nuclear plant at around 90% of capacity, and still provide load following and much of peak, as well as base. I don't think nuclear is a good choice; I'm just pointing out that storage is useful to all low carbon sources.) Read my post of January 30th, 2008 to see why I think major public investment has to be part of a low carbon energy transmission.
In Orwell's Animal Farm, the animals chanted "four legs good, two legs bad". We have to get over our tendency to chant "private good, public bad". Public and private both have their place; the old time Communist nations, aside from the little detail of being totalitarian dictatorships, tried to fulfill private needs with public investment. We make the opposite economic mistake when we try to use market means to provide public goods.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:19 am
18 Feb 2008
Bury them
I think that's the answer to transmission line NIMBYism.
Individuals or local and regional grids should not wait for large scale HVDC. It might never be done. 10 days without solar or wind? Hmmm... I suppose it's possible. Emergency operation at very low power levels for a few days out of the year would be acceptable until the whole grid joins in nationally with HVDC.
I am very skeptical of national plans right now. If we put all our hopes in that direction, they will most likely be defeated. Barack isn't getting the message, will he as prez?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 5:41 am
18 Feb 2008
Don't wait
Don't wait for large scale solar thermal or wind either. Best to go local renewable smart grid ASAP. Keep the old natural gas turbines and convert them to cogeneration. There are two here in town right next to the paper mill that could supply steam as a byproduct when they were needed for backup.
I believe the sequential idea is new Gar? Or has it been mentioned? It's a huge peak shaver.
Also phase change storage salts could be used to enhance heat stortage. And cold storage salt solutions.
Yeah I know electricity is needed for circulation, but also for heat pumps wherever the ground temp is too far from the building temp, up or down.
The way to get this started is with lomes like Amory Lovins has built. Then tie them into a smart grid and see how stable it all is. With enough biogas/natural gas cogeneration capacity you would never run short of basic power. But how much would that cost?
For a grid of 1000 homes, say 300 watts of emergency power per home. 333 kw , say 3 100 kw generators. That's around 400k? Not too bad.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sam Wells Posted 9:43 am
18 Feb 2008
300 watts?
Wow, let me find my last box of regular incandescent light bulbs - so for 300 watts I can either 3 bright ones or four slightly dim ones? Nice guy.
I can understand how conservatives and the pro-coal industry folks read this kind of stuff and say "this is going to be easy ... just let them dream about cold fusion in a coffee cup or a bio-gas generator on their potties."
I don't mean to be harsh but honest, if a insider who knows heard that folks want to bury high-voltage lines so they won't have a NIMBY problem will laugh right in your face - an utterly ridiculous idea and don't these people know that air insulation is ten times better and ten times cheaper?
Onward through the fog
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In the belly Posted 12:04 pm
18 Feb 2008
yes, 300W
The reference is to Lovin's house in Snowmass CO which he reports runs (including lighting, appliances, computers, etc.) on 300W. Hyperinsulated, passively heated, the video I saw shows some sailing is involved...
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amazingdrx Posted 1:01 pm
18 Feb 2008
Actually
Lovins said it was 120 watts that his home uses, I just picked 300 per home as an average for emergency backup estimation. With a smart grid different appliances would be run sequentially, that's my point.
That way 300 would be more than enough to keep everyone's phone, computer, lights, water pressure, heat/cold up and running. But of course only with conservation designed homes like lovins', with appropriaste geo heat exchange heatinmg/cooling for the region. This emergency power of 300 watts per home would be difficult with typical homes that use 1200 watts.
But after all we are considering distributed renewable smart grid and conservation. one or the other is weaker without both moving forward together. Over say 20 years to get to 100% renewable and plugin transportation.
As far as burying HVDC power lines it is a plus. That air insulation goes bad on you in a 300 mph tornado. More and more of these are coming around lately.
The bad thing about burying AC power lines is that the capacitance bleeds away all the power. But with DC that same capacitance in the underground cable is good, it stores power.
Maybe you ought to let experts speak to points like this on their own, without your help sam. Just a suggestion. Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonas Posted 3:35 am
19 Feb 2008
Malthus is hilarious
To the Malthusianist on this board. He was wrong in the past, he is fundamentally wrong in the future.
Please grab a basic study about the future biomass potential, and what do you see? The planet can sustain 1500 Exajoules in 2050, after meeting all food, fiber, fodder and forest products needs, and without deforestation.
World biomass potential by 2050
So how much is 1500Ej? It's a lot. The world currently consumes around 450 Exajoules, from all sources: coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables.
In short, the world's energy needs would have to triple by 2050 and even then you can meet all of it by biomass alone!
So let's leave the Malthusian jokes for another time, shall we?
Also, don't forget that world population is set to decline from 2075 onwards, probably earlier (because the UN's Population Revisions have for the fourth time been revised downwards - we will now max out at 9 billion people; probably less).
So we have to bridge 70 years and produce food for only 2.6 billion more people.
Three countries can meet this demand all by themselves: the Democratic Republic of Congo (a country the size of Western Europe, which only utilizes 4.5% of its potential arable land), South Sudan, and Angola (less than 5% of its land in use; a huge country).
Then you have all the other African countries that use less than 10% of their potential arable land to produce biomass. Some large ones include: Mozambique, Congo, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Zambia, Tanzania, etc... all pretty large countries with huge untapped potential.
So let's have a laugh with neo-Malthusians. It's fun they keep popping up. This makes the debate a bit humorous, which is always welcome.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:46 am
19 Feb 2008
GHG Jonas?
Did you forget that little problem? Or don't you believe in climate change?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/2/19/ ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:56 am
19 Feb 2008
BTW codger
This is a blog, not a "board". The term board went out with the last century.
Additionally...you, you're the one who is a laughing stock. Hehey. Yes I am laughing AT you.
Why not move to mars and prove that human life has no limits! Have a nice trip. You can use 100% of the land mass for agrichem fuel and food production! No one is stopping you.
Here on Earth we would like to preserve as much of the ecosystem as possible from corporo-human destruction.
Take your "1500 Exajoules", shove it up your ass, and blast off! I bet bushco's mars plan will welcome your self sacrificing efforts.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Gar Lipow Posted 4:52 am
19 Feb 2008
300 Watts
Umm I doubt that 150 watts is Lovin's peak usage, or even 300 watts. He uses a Microwave, electric burner (magnetic) on a conventional stovetop, an electric kettle. Speculatively he may have a laser printer. (Inkjets use less energy, so maybe he has stuck to inkjets.)
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sunflower Posted 5:07 am
19 Feb 2008
Not the same as average watts
A propane refrigerator? He also has an electric fan in the air to air heat exchanger. What are his average watts from pv?
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amazingdrx Posted 5:50 am
19 Feb 2008
Peak?
Amory said 120 watts was average I believe. not peak. Sequential switching could insure all those peak uses in each home can be handled without the peak load on the system equalling the peak possible load.
It would prevent all furnces, air conditioners, refridgerators, water pumps, all running simultaneously. This is the problem that blacks out grids designed with the old peak load paradigm.
Hot weather and all the air conditiooners fire up at once. ZZZZZZ..zap!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GerryWolff Posted 7:26 pm
19 Feb 2008
The DESERTEC concept
The DESERTEC concept developed by the 'TREC' international network of scientists and engineers is similar in some ways to the "grand solar plan" but makes much more use of concentrating solar power.
With CSP, solar energy may be stored very cheaply as heat, thus avoiding the expense and other problems with CAES.
Further information about the DESERTEC concept may be found at http://www.desertec.org/ and http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/ .
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