Mm, not very impressive: this study doesn't even take into account the most important form of renewable energy, namely bioenergy.

According to all EU studies, biomass-based energy (CHP) is -- by far -- the most cost-effective, the most energy efficient, and the technology that reduces GHGs most.

Check the EU's renewable energy technology roadmap.

But I do have the impression that Americans are not yet much involved in biomass. It must be that their attention is kept off of this most important of renewables, because of their mania with stupid liquid biofuels. They're wasting all that biomass and land on the least efficient of all options. Biomass for electricity and heat is five to ten times more efficient than converted into liquid fuels.

I'm confident that with Steve Chu as Secretary of Energy, this will obviously change. He's chair of the Energy Biosciences Institute, so he probably knows the difference between loser biofuels, and winner biomass.

His work, especially with his often co-author Cristina Archer on wind, has been path-breaking.  They are the ones who did the study showing a distributed national wind grid could provide baseload

"According to all EU studies, biomass-based energy (CHP) is -- by far -- the most cost-effective, the most energy efficient, and the technology that reduces GHGs most."

Preferably a link that also covers the ability to scale biomass up to a level where it could play a dominate role in power production.  

(Hydro is incredibly cheap and non-polluting.  We just don't have enough places to tap to make it a major player.)

Pretty much sums up the problem.

Biomass OK in a few places under the right controls.

Now, back to wind....

Dr Jacobson's review is not bad, except for his idiotic assumption of a nuclear-war when considering nuclear power.

Well put it this way.

It'd be near impossible to tell countries like Iran and North Korea. "No you can't do that".
Many countries may see this as an arms race and increase their forward leaning military stance.
At very least it would incur a significant military and geopolitical cost overhead.
Especially when it comes to guarding against the creation and use of less sophisticated nuclear weapons.  Such as a "dirty bomb".

there is no way in hell wind+solar can be scaled up to shut down coal plants before 2030

Perhaps, but SolarThermal and EGS Geothermal could do the trick.

Especially considering that they would have a exponential growth pattern, unlike nuclear's linear growth pattern.

-David Ahlport

That's the bottomline.  In terms of efficiency (6% of the energy in the cellulosic or other fuel gets to the wheels) and GHG, BEVs beat internal combustion fuel guzzling.

BEVs fall short in terms of utility though, so plugin hybrids are the short term solution.  They can reduce gas guzzling by 90% and stabilize oil prices and availability long enough to allow BEVs to improve their utility with battery and recharge infrastructure improvements.  

Over the next 10 to 20 years BEVs can replace plugin hybrids.  Over that same time period renewable smart grid technology and conservation will replace centralized power generation from coal, nuclear, and other combustion.  A mere 4% reduction in oil and fossil fuel use per year will stop GHG in time.

Xcel is building a smart grid in Colorado right now and has already closed two coal power plants.  Public policy that pursues these goals is only a mass delusion away.  Eliminate the big lie that says it can't be done, and it will get done.

Present nuclear power will have to be dealt with anyway, so why not close it down last, reduce  coal and oil use first.  

A History Channel presentation analyzing rail accidents highlighting "glow trains", radioactive waste hauling trains, explains why nuclear power plants will be extremely difficult and expensive to clean up, and why waste processing reactors maybe the only way to deal with the nuclear power legacey.  Transportation of nuclear waste to permanent storage sites like Yucca Mountain is too dangerous and too expensive to be practical.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

If Nuclear were to gain serious deployment, it's not going to come from LWRs and PWRs.

-David Ahlport

Waste processing reactors will be needed.  Wether or not they can provide economical power.  

Spreading nuclear power, of the old design or the waste eating variety, especially to nations that do not have nuclear weapons is not a good idea.

Put the waste processing reactors in existing nuclear power facilities.  It maybe more cost effective to move these reactors to the waste...rather than moving the waste to the reactor.

The casks used for transporting waste have to be light enough so that the economics of waste transportation are feasible.  That rules out lead shielding to prevent irradiation of the area surrounding a "glow train".  These trains are described in the documentary as "portable x-ray machines".

When they move through a community everyone gets a dose.  If the train is stalled?  It becomes an emergency situation, people must be evacuated quickly.

A rail accident can release 300 times the Chernobyl radiation, from each cask!  These trains contain many casks, in order to make the transportation of waste economically feasible.

Iran has plenty of material for a dirty bomb already, any nation with a nuclear reactor can easily make pollonium, a deadly dirty bomb ingredient that makes it unecessary to obtain actual atomic bombs.

We are in a very dangerous world of nuclear power/nuclear weapons proliferation.  India and Pakistan are on the verge of nuclear war every few years now.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

This summer a truck carrying some overturned about two miles from where I'm sitting right now.

Luckily they were empty.

Pro-nuke people tend to talk in "best case" terms.  They seem to want to overlook the doofus effect.

Anyone who has any real world experience in building and running complex operations knows that one is always likely to be blind-sided by some unexpected screwup.

(Remember a few months back when a spot check found all the night security at one US reactor asleep?)

...it just shows what a miracle fuel oil is, because it's so compact and easy to transport, all at reasonable temperatures.  The Earth poured huge amounts of geological activity into the formation of oil, basically "compacting" it to its present.

Now people think that "all" we need to replace oil is get a different source of hydrocarbons, but that's not the problem.  The problem is, 1) to collect it -- and here cellulosic like switchgrass is a real loser, because it's spread out all over the place -- and then, second, compress it down -- the processing facilities, which again take up too much energy, as far as we're concerned, because in effect, the Earth provided the processing facility for oil.  Then you have to, third, transport it, and even with oil, pipelines use a few percent of the oil they're transporting to power themselves.

So it doesn't surprise me that you can't recreate something like petroleum economically, in fact, it makes perfect sense.

Better work on those car batteries...

Nissan says they will start mass production of 100 mile range all-electrics year after next.

They must think we're about there....

I forgot, the jeepneys weigh 900 pounds, built with fibrglass bodies.  He featured other small  BEVs that substitute for cars.

Weight is key to battery electric transportation, saving body/frame weight with carbon fiber reduces the hp and weight of the whole drivetrain, and the weight of the battery pack.

Instead of riding steel sleds with steel and glass shacks attached, carbon fiber egg shells with bicycle wheels.  That sort of trend.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

But we see no signs of moving to non-steel construction by a major manufacturer as of yet.

Most likely we'll move there after folks get used to the idea of BEVs.  

One intermediate move is to get away from drive trains and on to in-hub motors/brakes/suspension.  Michelin has an interesting unit that manufacturers can buy and bolt into their "boxes".

Biogas, probably like biodiesel made from old donut grease.  Just not enough to go around.  

Well bob, I'm thinking maybe if 5% of present electric power generation came from waste biogas, with 70% efficient distributed solid oxide fuel cell/turbine cogeneration, then that would be enough to backup wind, solar, and other renewables.

Using conservation, like ground source heating/cooling and plugin hybrids, that would cut the total demand.   With that lower demand, biogas backup would be enough to stabilize a renewable smart grid, the gas can be stored and supplemented with natural gas in emergencies.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Manure is the big source, and sewage, but cellulosic waste is a huge untapped addition.  Wood chips and crop waste make a lot of gas mixed with the proper ratio of manure.

Landfill gas and garbage are another source.

Another huge source could be weed and algae overgrowth in lakes, rivers, and wetlands. Fertilizer and manure run off is killing aquatic ecosystems and their very valuable food resources, along with the fishing communities that depend on it.

It looks like 5% of present power grid generation could be attained.  Farm biogas might even get that much all alone.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

you have the same problem with some of those sources as with cellulosic, that is, they are way to "far-flung", it would take too much energy to collect the biogas.  That's the advantage of landfill gas, which by the way constitutes over 1% of total ghg global emissions.  Manure is also around 1%, if memory serves, but unless it's in those awful cafo lots its hard to collect also.

Hehey, yeah Jon it would need to be collected, with maybe 5 farms sharing a biogas power plant site?  By using lower power distributed biogas generation, supplemeted with farm based solar and wind, The power grid transports the power from the poo.

Farmers can haul it a short distance.  With garbage it is already hauled to the landfill, so replace the landfilling with garbage biodigestion, add leaves, grass clippings, waste wood and so forth that is hauled to the landfill too.

Hmmm so 2% of global GHG?  How much of human caused GHG is it though?

For my region a calculation of kwh per cow (or other farm animal) and ton of garbage or even sewage, along with a wind and solar assesment, should prove wether or not this triumvirate of renewables would provide enough power to keep the lights and heat on, plugin cars charged, and factories humming.

With Lake Superior wind and a dairy farm economy and lots of waste wood resources (slash and dead wood that poses a fire hazard), and about average solar resources, due to our clouds, all running through a smart grid.  And plenty of conservation efficiency gains from ground source heating and cooling and energy storage, a study could prove this energy plan feasible.

Funding anyone?  Dr. Chu?  Mr. Obama?  Hehey.  I'm sure grad students here would do it if you payed them.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

There are a lot of flaws in these figures Jon.

Methane from fertilizer and manure run off is hard to account for.  Nitrous oxide from chemical fertilizer is difficult too.

These are huge sources of GHG that have barely been noticed yet.  The best bet for methane emissions due to ag would be to come up with a per animal figure, for cows, chickens, pigs, the numbers of livestock are known.  And the units of gas per animal are known from existing farm biogas operations.

Anyway, it's a largely ignored area of research, I suppose because funding is short in general and is mainly focused on immediate bottomline studies.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin