Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute and author, most recently, of Plan B, Version 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, released a new study today called "Time for Plan B: Cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2020." I was invited to participate in a conference call in which Lester explained many of the highlights of the plan; I will do my best to share what he said (any mistakes are my own).
First, it appears that the only comprehensive plan to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2020 is the one put out by Brown and his associates at the Earth Policy Institute. Partly this may be because Brown explicitly stated that he was not presenting what is politically feasible, but what is needed to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2020.
Cutting emissions by 80 percent by 2050, as he pointed out, is more politically comfortable because it means you don't have to do much now, but it is not what is needed. He discussed Jim Hansen's goal of getting CO2 emissions down to 350 parts per million, a goal which could be targeted after 2020, as the next step after reducing emissions by 80 percent.
Brown's plan consists of three main goals: raising efficiency, moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and biosequestration -- or basically, increasing the Earth's forest cover. Most of his talk focused on moving to renewables.
The core of the plan is to replace 40 percent of the world's electricity that is generated by coal -- there are currently about 2,400 coal-fired electricity generation plants in the world -- with wind power. This would mean, roughly, the construction of 1.5 million 2 MW wind turbines, which he said could be done over the next 12 years, using just the production capacity of idle U.S. auto factories. Although it seems like a huge amount of turbines, considering that the world produces 65 million automobiles a year, it's really quite doable.
Brown noted that Texas is aiming to supply 60 percent of residential electricity with the construction of huge wind complexes in that state. Brown travels quite a bit to China, and he says that the Chinese could supply twice the total electricity they now generate, which is currently mostly coal plants, with the enormous wind potential that they have. As for the U.S., he pointed out that Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota contain enough wind potential to replace all of our energy needs, much less electricity.
Solar energy has three main potentialities, according to Brown: solar water heaters (40 million of which have been installed in China alone), solar cells, and solar thermal plants (concentrating solar plants). He pointed out that Algeria wants to construct a 6,000 MW CSP plant in their desert; they plan to be a major of exporter of electricity, which will replace their oil exports when those run dry.
Next, Brown discussed transportation, and he pointed out that there is an inherent contradiction between cars and cities. While cars in rural areas confer much greater mobility, in cities they tend to lead to less mobility, and of course there are considerations of pollution and carbon emissions as well.
Instead, he proposed high-speed rail, light rail, bus rapid transit, and bike and pedestrian-friendly streets (with such programs as the Parisian Velib program). He pointed out that "high-speed" for rail generally means about 170 mph, and that in the Japanese system -- now 40 years old -- there has never been a fatality; the average late arrival time is all of 14 seconds.
In the question and answer section of the call, I asked about funding various transit initiatives. Brown pointed out that the Europeans and Japanese have been investing heavily in rail and transit for quite some time now, so we should be able to do the same; in addition, he suggested that as we move from a car-centered to a rail-centered society, much of the money from highway programs could be used to build-up the rail system. In addition, since 42 percent of U.S. freight rail is currently used to transport coal, when we eliminate the use of coal, we will free-up freight rail to be used to transport goods between cities -- not from coal mine to coal plant.
Brown also stressed the importance of plug-in hybrids for the U.S, since 88 percent of America commutes by car, we drive 28 percent of the world's cars, and they are the most inefficient and most traveled-in. He believes that plug-in hybrids, powered by wind-generated electricity, will be the way to go, and that vehicles so powered will get the equivalent of under $1 per gallon. Plug-ins can achieve those cost savings because they can be recharged at night -- when electricity is cheaper -- and because electric motors are much more efficient than internal combustion engines.
He also briefly discussed nuclear energy, which he says is not cost competitive if you include the following three costs into the price: 1) waste disposal, 2) plant insurance, and 3) the cost to decomission, which he says can be more than the original cost of construction (he would just let the current plants generate until they are decomissioned and halt future construction).
How do we get from here to there? Brown is a big supporter of carbon taxes as opposed to cap-and-trade schemes, although he feels that the two can be combined. He'd like to see a carbon tax, offset by reductions in income taxes, that would start at $20 per ton of carbon, increasing every year for twelve years to $240 per ton by 2020. He points out that if you calculate the carbon tax of the European gas taxes, it works out to $1815 per ton.
He feels that industry likes cap-and-trade because it gives them wiggle room, but he guesses that if you asked economists which was better, cap-and-trade or carbon tax, 95 percent would prefer the latter. He sees Europe's cap-and-trade system of three years running as a failure at this point, showing that such systems can lead to no decrease in carbon emissions.
In his opening comments, Brown related a question asked of Amory Lovins by Elizabeth Kolbert, the award-winning New Yorker journalist: How do we get people to think 'outside the box'? Lovins' answer was, "There is no box."
If you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor and read his book Plan B -- a rich compendium of problems and solutions, and as good an alternative to Plan A -- business as usual -- as there is. And don't miss David's interview with Brown from 2006.
New nukes? A fair shot, not a free ride
To unlock wind power, put a price on carbon
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Comments
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 7:10 am
02 Jul 2008
Do you believe the time will ever come when opinion-makers on a conference call like this one or a forum of leaders somewhere on the surface of Earth choose to focus attention on what appears to be the proverbial "mother" of all global challenges: the human overpopulation of Earth?
If the family of humanity keeps doing what it is doing now, and keeps getting what it is getting now, population projections indicate that absolute human numbers worldwide can be expected exceed 7 billion in 2012 and reach 9 billion in 2050.
If the tripartite program of action advocated here was successful, what difference would it make if the planet we inhabit -- with its relatively small size, limited resources and frangible make-up -- simply cannot sustain the ongoing explosion of absolute global human population numbers?
Sincerely,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:31 am
02 Jul 2008
The "overpopulation problem" is most of all a "severe poverty problem". Brown discusses a $200 billion annual global budget that could go very far to bring down global poverty and protect vital ecosystems, and thus to bring population back down to something sustainable. download the book or parts of it.
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:37 am
02 Jul 2008
Population issues are rising to the top again. He probably would be safe talking about women's reproductive rights at this point. Somebody calculate the carbon saved by dropping birthrates in places where they are still so high. If access to safe contraception and education are not enough to motivate politicians, maybe global warming will tip the balance to improve the lot of poor women.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Max8806 Posted 7:58 am
02 Jul 2008
1) Over $27 billion dollars as of late 2007 has been paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund from a $.001/kwh fee on nuclear power plants (since 1982). $9 has been spent studying Yucca. Nuclear power plants not only already front the funds that will be used for disposing their waste, but in the political stalemate over Yucca this money is being used to pay down our deficit.
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/about/budget/index.shtml
2) Plant insurance for accidents from nuclear power plants would have to exhaust a $10 billion dollar pool before public money is touched. Each plant carries $300 million in private coverage (paying a $400,000 annual premium), and if damage exceeds that every nuclear plant in the country will be assessed a prorated share of the additional damages, up to $95.8 million per.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets ...
3) Decommissioning costs are also covered by a fund or bond started upfront and added to over the lifetime of the reactor. With 40-60 year operating lifetimes and compound interest, amassing the funds necessary to cover the decommissioning cost at the end is fairly trivial.
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal/factshe ...
All of these costs are internalized in the price for nuclear power. They're always cited by critics as these intractable externalities, but its just not true.
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hapa Posted 8:00 am
02 Jul 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:57 am
02 Jul 2008
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Des Emery Posted 1:02 pm
02 Jul 2008
On the other hand, governments can and should encourage nuclear power sources, not in mega projects but in small manageable units that can pump electricity into a grid on a constant and controllable basis.
Also, nuclear power would not draw on a stagnant source of energy (as both coal and petroleum do) but would be subject to constant research and development, as in finding new ways to re-use the spent fuel rods.
There is lots of room for more than one energy source, solar, wind, tidal, nuclear, and all of them should be hooked into an electric grid which is available to everyone.
Des Emery
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:19 pm
02 Jul 2008
Now, if it were up to me, I would argue for another part of the World War II economy -- a certain amount of planning. After all, after 1942 the government plus companies decided to stop making cars, and shifted to war production. The same could be done in the case of wind turbines, and instead of increasing the military budget, as in the case of WWII, we could get the funds from decreasing it.
The ease of maintaining millions of wind turbines vs. the problems of maintaining hundreds or thousands of nuclear power plants (and finding the uranium, etc) -- to me it should be obvious that wind (and solar) are the better choices.
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LGT Posted 1:41 pm
02 Jul 2008
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advancednano Posted 2:04 pm
02 Jul 2008
3000GW of wind in Plan B but wind has only 20-40% capacity factor. The european avg is 25% load factor over the course of a year (European average). US avg is 30%. The US wind capacity produced 31 billion kWh per year from 16.8GW)2007. American wind farms will generate an estimated 48TWh from 24GW. So 3000GW would produce 5500 TWh. So Plan B is not even in proper units that take into account capacity factor.
Nuclear already generates 2600 TWh. the base reference case is for an increase to 3290 TWh in 2020. 690 more TWh with no mobilization. They turn there nose up at what people are already going to build with a dismissive it costs too much, when the plan is for upwards of $10 trillion in extra spending.
Spend a few billion on assisting and accelerating the development and $500 billion for deployment of the MIT annular fuel system for 50% power uprates to existing reactors. This would allow for 1600 more TWh to the reactors that exist now and are planned to be built anyway.
$2 trillion per year in energy infrastructure spending is already the default projection for 2015.
In the IEO2008 reference case, the world's installed nuclear capacity grows from 374 gigawatts in 2005 to 498 gigawatts in 2030. The IEO2008 projection for nuclear electricity
generation in 2025 is 31 percent higher than the
projection published in IEO2003 only 5 years ago.
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hapa Posted 7:29 pm
02 Jul 2008
i made these two graphics -- renewables goals and total energy goals -- ok, "made" is overstating the second, which is a screenshot of a spreadsheet page -- but i thought it was helpful.
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hapa Posted 7:41 pm
02 Jul 2008
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:18 pm
02 Jul 2008
If it is all right to do so here, may I ask two more questions, both for yours and Lester's consideration as well as for others in the Grist Mill community?
As almost everyone knows but few openly discuss, wealth and power buy freedom. What is all too obvious but often cloaked in silence is this: A small minority of individuals in the human family with great fortunes and virtually all large corporations exercise their great wealth and the power it purchases in ways that allow all of these self-proclaimed masters of the universe to live lavishly as well as to willfully refuse assumption of the responsibilities which necessarily come with freedom.
How do rich and famous people, who live large and have huge ecological footprints, as well as corporate `citizens' that cast giant shadows over the Earth today, so easily get away with socially irresponsible behavior?
The exercise of freedom without the requisite assumption of responsibility by citizens can lead to psychopathic behavior; the exercise of freedom by those individuals and corporations with great wealth who consensually-validate each others refusal to accept responsibility for their excessive, pernicious and amoral behavior is sociopathic, is it not?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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Jonas Posted 10:21 pm
02 Jul 2008
For example, his plea for wind power can't be taken seriously because it doesn't address intermittency and the question where he is going to get his baseloads. His views on solar are rather problematic, because they don't deal with the problem of resource depletion (photovoltaics based on indium and gallium have no future, because indium and gallium have only a few years left.)
He then looks at other ridiculously expensive technologies like geothermal, while not even considering biomass, the most important of the renewables, with the largest economic potential and the lowest carbon-offsetting costs.
In short, on most points Brown's plan can't be taken seriously, because it lacks economic and/or technological realism.
Moreover, on one of the most important issues - deforestation in the tropics - he offers no concrete solutions. He just says we must stop it. But he forgets that 1 billion people depend on these forests. Is he going to employ them in the Earth Policy Institute perhaps, after he has shut down their jobs?
Finally, he is not really up to date on basic science either. His plea for no-till farming (which actually increases emissions), says enough.
Sorry, we need an updated Brown. Brown 2.0, so to speak. Someone who understands science, technology and economics on a global scale.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:08 am
03 Jul 2008
Articles like this might just get noticed by his staff? It's possible.
One would think that with the imminent bankruptcy of the US auto industry and how many other industries that feed the manufacturing supply chain, that it is time to listen to people like this who have known how to avert this crisis for decades.
Send a link to this article along with your next campaign contribution. Maybe it will get to Barack somehow?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:09 am
03 Jul 2008
According to the International Energy Agency, total world electricity generation in 2005 was 18,306,720 GWhrs, or about 18,000 TWhrs. So if 3000GW of wind gets you -- well, 5,500 TWhrs seems a little low, but that's close to the 40% of electrical generation from wind that Brown was talking about.
hapa, is that clear? (Tera is trillions, Giga is billions, mega is millions -- and to get from watts to watt-hours per year, you multiply by the number of hours per year, or about 8,600; so 3000 GW, if it was at 100% efficiency, would yield about 26,000 Twhrs, but at 30% capacity, it would be "only" about 7,500 Twhrs. I'm going through this because I've had to figure it out)
Steve -- Well, sociopathy certainly takes center stage in world history, doesn't it? So really, all you're seeing is the same kind of behavior that led the Romans to do all the awful things they did, through Tamerlane with his heaps of skulls from defeated foes, etc. etc. etc. The only hope I see is if education and democracy spreads far enough that the most powerful become less powerful.
Jonas -- I don't particularly trust you're reporting from Europe, frankly, although I certainly take it seriously. And I don't think that because someone criticizes biofuels or wants to prevent the catastrophe of deforestation, somehow that makes them less credible to most people. We've discussed sustainable ways of using forests and biofuels, and that's not what Brown is criticizing, it's pretty obvious that deforestation has to stop, or at least significantly scaled back. I'm not going to cry for huge multinational corporations because they can't make even bigger profits by tearing down the rainforests, which is the bulk of what is happening, despite various anecdotes that you have written about.
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advancednano Posted 3:36 am
03 Jul 2008
The pdf of that reoprt
Note: McKinsey goes to the trouble of determining the economics of what they propose and how much greenhouse gas reduction comes from each item as well as the cost.
Based on the spreadsheets the capacity factor is addressed by Plan B using the same capacity factor as what is currently installed. However, the Plan B summary graphics are misleading. Plan B shows zero oil and coal usage without clarifying it is only for electricity. They do not address the intermittent nature of wind and solar. They do not look at costs and timelines. They just say that all rail will be electrified and all effort to change out all cars if from 'mobilization'. Yet they claim that nuclear power is not increased because it is not economic. The entire Plan B is insanely uneconomic so what is this bizarre biased standard of using economics in only one part of the plan. The economics that they refer to is an Amory Lovins report against nuclear. Amory Lovins who has claimed since 1976 that the nuclear industry is dieing yet nuclear power generation has increased over 400% since then. Amory Lovins whose micropower plan is to support mostly more diesel, natural gas, some coal and then hope for 30% from wind and solar and small hydro.
The mobilization called for by Plan B is also a prescription for every nation. China, USA, India, Russia etc... all to follow economic insanity to arrive at an intermittent power generation using far less power than is currently used.
The Plan B has no transition plan because the project timelines do not work out even in a mobilized effort. The end result does not work even if it could be arrived at.
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stopgreenpath Posted 4:04 am
03 Jul 2008
here's an idea - net zero structures. let's aggressively pursue building/ retrofit projects which produce more energy than they use or at least a substantial percentage of their own energy use - onsite. conservation and local, point-of-use systems are FAR superior for the planet, the economy, and for individuals than gigantic, remote, wasteful power plants (including solar and wind) and massive power gridlines.
there are dozens of brownfields and superfund sites in most states - these could be developed for utility-scale projects once renewable baseload generation systems are better developed.
we cannot continue using up the earth as though it is a disposable commodity. it's not. these projects create permanent ecosystem and habitat death, like strip-mining. have we learned nothing from the devastation of the Amazon, the mangroves, the flood plains, the coral and kelp beds, etc.? why are people gung-ho to destroy millions more acres of wilderness ecosystems, suck billions more gallons of scarce groundwater each year, create tons and tons of highly toxic radioactive waste, and fundamentally alter the landscape of the planet in order to save a (short-term) buck and cost us a fortune later?
this is all about privatizing profits, socializing costs and commodifying nature at unnaturally depressed prices. that era has to end.
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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Wolverine Posted 4:59 am
03 Jul 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:32 am
03 Jul 2008
Brown's trying to cover the entire planet, so he's a little short on details. These are broad brush strokes, it seems to me; I think other people will have to fill them in. So now, even if wind doesn't take up that much room and is not destructive -- and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think wind uses any water -- so then the problems are the big transmission lines, I suppose. Then my question is, are the towers that carry those lines really so bad? in comparison to coal? Do those towers destroy ecosystems?
Advancednano, the McKinsey report looks interesting, and thanks for the link, although putting carbon sequestration and storage in there is ridiculous, but at least they're thinking about making buildings more efficient. I think you could probably integrate their analysis with Brown's and others'.
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hapa Posted 6:28 am
03 Jul 2008
but there are plenty of spots for turbines in developed areas.
groundwater management is a separate debate. no fair dragging that only partially into this one.
@jon rynn: mr dorn told me they assumed about 35% capacity. ~9200 TWh. looking around today actually i think the number of turbines it takes to meet their goal is less than 1.5 million. 3-5MW is common/typical for offshore farm plans.
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amazingdrx Posted 6:37 am
03 Jul 2008
We can keep it on presently disturbed land and even clean up and reduce that destruction. It's all possible with renewable and conservation energy/ag policy reform. Subsidies redirected from eco-destruction to symbiotic systems.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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advancednano Posted 7:36 am
03 Jul 2008
the International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated that for France - the country with the largest production of nuclear energy (as a per cent of the total output of electric power) - the average person is responsible for 6.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which e.g. is one-third of the U.S. average.
Nuclear is a substantial part of the McKinsey plan.
My own energy plan is here Nuclear is a big part of it.
Any plan should build what we have for the next few years but accelerate the development of better technologies.
The better ones being
Factory Mass produced nuclear power.
China High temperature reactors starting in 2009.
Uranium hydride reactors
-Fuji molten salt reactor
The previously mentioned 50% power uprates from annular fuel.
Better thermoelectrics for cars and power sources.
Kitegen for wind
Coolearth and SunRGI for concentrated solar.
Inflatable electric cars (XP vehicles)
ultracapacitor/battery combos
Electric bikes/scooters (china 30 million per year already)
High risk/high return research needs to be pursued as well - IEC fusion (from emc2 fusion), focus fusion, tri-alpha energy, blacklight power, arata cold fusion
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:03 am
03 Jul 2008
The same can be said, as has been, for continental-sized renewable electrical grids. So if sometimes Denmark exports and sometimes Denmark imports, that would seem natural to me.
Many of those technologies you list, advancednano, look interesting, but I haven't heard of many of them. Fusion I know something about, but that's very long-range. It's important to show how, using technology that exists now, we can make the energy system carbon-free.
The reason nuclear worked in France is because it's a state-owned utility, so they could impose one really good design on the entire country. Free market dogmatism killed nuclear in this country.
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stopgreenpath Posted 8:53 am
03 Jul 2008
you know that there are 4 national parks in the Mojave alone, right? and they are under siege from Big Energy profiteers. you need to head to some of the BLM hearings so you recognize that the New Boss (Big Solar and Big Wind) is the same as the Old Boss (Big Coal, Big Oil). these guys are freaking about having to do EIRs, want access to the National Parks, the National Forests, ACECs, DWMAs, you name it. totally rapacious corporatists, not some cool hippie types trying to "do the right thing."
secondly, how much do you know about CSP? clearly if you understood it, you would not try to separate it from "groundwater" issues, since these power plants use between 35 million gallons (for completely dry cooled) to 800 million gallons (small wet cooled plants) per year per power plant. is it fair to drag it in now? where do you think this water is coming from? is this the highest and best use of scarce desert water resources? this has to be factored in, and NOT externalized, since it is a DIRECT cost of operations.
i say it again - a mostly untouched ecosystem is far more valuable than a "developed" one, and we need to keep our grubby mitts off. we have NO idea what kind of snowball effects destroying the deserts will have, but we should know that killing ecosystems has resulted in huge losses of life, property, species, and global climate problems, so why mess with it?
at least the BLM, which was badly maligned for it, is doing a cumulative impact report on the first million acres of destruction in this region...
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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hapa Posted 9:50 am
03 Jul 2008
but put the water use in perspective.
Overpumping of groundwater by the world's farmers exceeds natural replenishment by at least 160 billion cubic metres a year.
that's 42,267,528 million gallons of groundwater over replenishment. 42 million million gallons in excess.
so you have a solar thermal plant taking maximum of 800 million gallons of groundwater, without counting how much they could be taking, just the gross input, without anybody tellling them they need to use minimum and site responsibly, and you separate that from the total groundwater take.
i don't know how the changing climate will alter them and i don't know what people are going to do. i strongly prefer wind and small solar exactly because they don't need cooling. we just killed a million people in iraq on a hunch so i don't have many fantasies of the energy transition being other than ugly with such a clueless citizenry driving it.
this document -- "plan b" -- is all about what can be done. implementation is not included.
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stopgreenpath Posted 10:14 am
03 Jul 2008
ok, so all the farmers in the ENTIRE WORLD waste as much per year as one dry-cooled 250 mW power plant wastes on rinsing mirrors each year?
there are 130 CSP applications pending in the southwest, a mix of dry, partial and wet-cooled projects of varying sizes. if the average water use, per year is a conservative 250 million gallons, at 130 projects (and counting), we have roughly 32.5 BILLION gallons of groundwater taken from under the DESERT every single year. PV and wind, as you note, use approximately 0 gallons.
i can't really understand the reasoning behind discussing what they "could be taking," since this is currently undisturbed wilderness, when the numbers are outrageous on their face. let's talk about what they "should be leaving," which is an important expanse of functioning, intact ecosystem...
when people say "oh, CSP is so much cheaper," this is the kind of thing they are ignoring. aquifers collapse when they are drained - it's already happening in the Palm Springs/Indio (golf course) area. they can never be refilled or repaired, and are gone forever. this seems crazy. not to mention, we are being threatened with water rationing, but a few dozen billion gallons of water is available for Big Energy? hmmm.
Ok, point made (and made). thanks for listening.
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:02 pm
03 Jul 2008
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Des Emery Posted 1:13 pm
03 Jul 2008
Basing future plans on present conditions has always been seen as a reasonable plan of action. But changing weather patterns worldwide make things like desert-based solar mirrors and wind-power turbines iffy propositions at best, and lead to estimates of "produced power" way, way below what we may have originally hoped for, and simultaneously wildly exaggerated difficulties in constructing and maintaining the installations, based on current weather conditions which will not apply in the near future.
Turbines, in addition to the steel and aluminum required in their assembly, also take a huge amount of cement for stabilisation (especially in the event of hurricane-force winds and/or eroding rains) Cement powder is a tremendous source of polluting energy in its initial production.
Solar arrays occupy much too much acreage for the power output which they produce. Individual roof-top installations work well in certain climates, but not so well in others.
Many small nuclear plants could be individually removed from the stream of power-production for any repair or rejuvenation required without detrimentally affecting the whole grid. Government ownership or supervision could be imposed on any private source of nuclear power without any opposition, simply because it's nuclear and deserves adequate control of quality and price. And housed within buildings, nuclear would not be subject to the vagaries of the weather fluctuations we can positively expect soon. And buildings can also be earthquake-proofed from the get-go.
There is not an awful lot of time left for us to come up some solution. We have to act now.
Des Emery
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SocraticGadfly Posted 3:06 pm
03 Jul 2008
Appliance efficiency; we ought to be taking James Hansen's preference for a carbon tax, rather than cap-and-trade, on electric plants, a big step further with a VAT-type carbon tax all the way down the chain.
Conservation in general.
The amount of land needed to generate that much wind power. I've seen some tentative estimates for here in Texas, and it's not minuscule.
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hapa Posted 4:00 pm
03 Jul 2008
@SG: energy efficiency and conservation are rolled into the renewables, transport, and industry slices of the pie chart. cutting how much energy's used to do a job reduces how much clean supply needs to be built to get that job done, speeding up the transition. (read the booklet pdf thing.)
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Des Emery Posted 2:57 pm
04 Jul 2008
Of all the prognostications for our common future, Global Warming is the one showing the most difficulties for human beings to confront. Any attempt to change or even influence that looming danger must be undertaken now, and the qualifications for that attempt has to take into account our mutual tendency to leap from the frying pan into the fire. But it is obvious that if we continue to debate rather than to act, we're fried.
Des Emery
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amazingdrx Posted 3:36 pm
04 Jul 2008
These are the big peak loads, heating and cooling, that usually overtax the grid. Melted transformers from 120 degree heat in southwestern desert cities. The huge air conditioning load does it.
If building mass is cooled by ground cooling and in really hot areas ground source heat pumps or solar absorption cooling store cold as ice, that coolness lasts through dips in renewable electricity production.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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hapa Posted 5:43 pm
04 Jul 2008
i don't get the sense we could build 4x more nuclear capacity -- plus replacement for retiring plants -- in this country in 15 years. let alone of an in-development design.
that was a question. i think your answer was:
Do we aim for "the perfect solution" before we start to address the problem we are confronted with right now? Or do we get all the various treatments started immediately and give the most effective (and therefore the most efficient) our support as progress is demonstrated?
which i'm taking to mean, "i don't know and don't care whether my idea works. it's the only one i will support."
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newnoah Posted 1:46 am
07 Jul 2008
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6414 Americans have no trouble reaching consensus on who won the last Super Bowl or who's still in contention for the World Series. There are no deniers claiming that ManU is really the best baseball team in the world. Put up the bleachers on an electronic highway 61 for a science-based competition and get everybody on the same page about just how serious climate change really is.
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advancednano Posted 2:13 am
07 Jul 2008
Advanced uprate 50% more power from existing reactors. Proven in pilot reactor.
Advanced thermoelectric up to 50% more power from existing and new reactors. (Depends upon the temperature of operations.
Both can be developed and implemented over the next ten years.
With those advances just need to double the reactors and total nuclear power would be increased 4 times.
High temperature reactors can achieve 55% thermal efficiency compared to about 33% for current reactors. This is just using proven Brayton cycle with a steam cycle tacked on the output of the Brayton cycle. Advanced thermoelectric which will bring heat conversion close to the Carnot limit will do even better.
The US built ten reactors per year in the seventies. The world built 24 reactors per year in the eighties. It is possible to build at that rate because it was already done. Plus scaling based on increased GDP it is possible to double that build rate. The nuclear supply chain is already being restored. There design and engineering alternatives to deal with the temporary constraint on large steel forgings.
Operating costs are coming down and EROI is increasing with new laser enrichment (GE) which will reduce costs by three times or more.
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:35 am
07 Jul 2008
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stopgreenpath Posted 3:18 am
07 Jul 2008
As for water waste in CSP, natural gas, coal and nuclear, you are right that it's insane, but it cannot be ignored, externalized or otherwise "separated" from the analysis. Dry-cooled CSP plants are also roughly 15% less efficient than wet-cooled in very hot areas like the Mojave (where they still wash the mirrors every day because the erosion they cause creates huge dust problems).
Add that to the roughly 7 - 10% transmission losses for these remote plants, the enormous loss of wilderness (solar and wind averages 10,000 acres apiece for 200 - 400 mW plants), the giant powerlines through habitats and neighborhoods, AND the pipelines and combustion of natural gas at most of these plants (yep), and we really don't have the "silver bullet" that Big Energy is promising, nor do we have the dramatic "efficiency" improvements over residential PV. No, what we have is a net loss of reliability, independence, wilderness areas, private homes and opportunity.
Why not let all the property owners in prime Solar and Wind resource areas build out oversized systems on their roofs/yards and feed excess to the grid for good money? WE ratepayers and taxpayers will be forced to absorb the entire cost of this new infrastructure, so why can't we build something that BENEFITS us instead of Big Energy? Peaker power is the most wasteful and expensive to produce, so why not let US profit without harming our planet? Looks like a no-brainer until you get lobbyists and propaganda involved...
Add in a SERIOUS commitment (we're talking Mars Rover here) to improved conservation tech and implementation, and we have a very good solution to a very large part of this equation.
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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advancednano Posted 3:46 am
07 Jul 2008
Recent Redbook on uranium reserves up 17% to 5.5 million tons.
I have researched and written about the deaths per twh from different energy sources
The stats show that nuclear is safe.
Solar will have a problem with falls from rooftop installs. Thus CSP from coolearth and sunrgi is better.
Uranium mining is mostly insitu leaching. there is almost no risks to the workers in this process. No one goes underground. It is pipes feeding acid.
Nuclear waste is unburned fuel. Thus the need for high temperature reactors able to burn the "waste" of existing reactors. Molten salt reactors can bun 99% of the uranium and plutonium from the fuel. What is left has 30 year half lives or less. Uranium hydride reactors can burn 50-60% of the fuel. thus the strategy would be to leave the "waste fuel" in barrels that can hold it for a few more decades like the ones used and proven already then develop the next generation reactors (some versions of which were built in the sixties and seventies) and burn all the waste fuel and increase uranium and thorium usage efficiency.
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:51 am
07 Jul 2008
Here's something to consider: the Feds could build silicon purification plants -- the kind that are so expensive it's been a bottleneck for PV -- and sell the pure silicon for cheap, making PV cheap, ergo, it's easy to blanket roofs with the stuff (did I mention that SF is planning to cover enough roofs to produce 100 MW for their grid?).
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:08 am
07 Jul 2008
You bring up a good point about solar installation deaths and injuries, I'd like to see if the green collar jobs people have any data on that.
As for China, I assume that this is a state-owned utility that is ordering and running these units, that is, like France, the government imposes one design. I guess I'd rather see China put up nukes than coal plants, but they also have huge wind resources.
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advancednano Posted 7:04 am
07 Jul 2008
He has stats for each of the different kinds of nuclear reactor models as well.
Kitegen would use less steel and concrete.
China is using a fair bit of standardization but they are building about ten different kinds of reactors, but they will be getting a lot of consistency because they are building so many.
The most common will likely be the AP1000 (100+) and the High Temp Reactor (200MW, might make thousands).
They will also make fast breeders, and some Candu heavy water reactors and some of the other models too.
China is also making a lot of wind, solar and hydro.
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