...by 2013, just in Texas...

...and that's just from one wind farm, built by Pickens...

...he just ordered the first 600+ turbines for phase one.

One wonders how much the state will produce when that's combined with all the other, smaller, wind farms under construction?

increasingly uniform and yet hotter temperatures worldwide

jabailo, just how will global climate change create uniform temeperatures?

If anythin', the opposite would be true, with localized and regional weather patterns changing very quickly and in unpredictable ways.

I used to think this was too mild.  But since it looks like solar cogeneration and geo heat exchange could take care of 76% of grid power, 20% from wind is perfect.

Solar furnace cogeneration and biogas ought to take care of the rest, plus charge up electric transportation, plugin cars, bikes, and electric mass transit.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I think geo heat exchange  ought to have its own wedge.  And solar cogeneration another wedge.    

The plugin and plugin hybrid wedge, very good.

And the concentated solar thermal as factory mounted solar furnace cogeneration, that's a great wedge.

Along with the wind wedge and a biogas from waste organic fertilizer/farming wedge, it looks to me like we have enough wedges to actually reverse GHG climate disaster and dramatically lower energy costs.  And end reliance on imported oil and natural gas/fertilizer.

Maybe another one for water power, wave, hydro-electric, river, tidal, and ocean current.

The electric mass transit wedge and a wedge for   natural gas/biogas train/truck  power, should complete the GHG free picture.

The other ones, like nukes, fuel farming, and clean coal.  Forget them.  Coal should only be used in the form of conversion to natural gas underground.

The smart grid itself, to interconnect it all, ought to have its own wedge status too.  It makes the other ones work and enables storage.

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The problem with Romm's vision is that 450ppm is not the scenario humanity should be aiming at. According to James Hansen, it's 350ppm to avoid catastrophy.

He lists 5 technologies and concepts that can make this possible.

Wind, solar, nuclear and other renewables are not mentioned by him, because they are all carbon-positive, that is, they keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere over their lifecycle, while we should taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Moreover, non-baseload sources of power (like wind or solar) can never support the economy we need to build a system that can withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere.

So here are Hansen's technologies (in random order).

a moratorium on coal without CCS (i.e. coal + CCS)
coupling biomass cogen to CCS (thereby providing a carbon-negative baseload)
avoiding deforestation in the tropics
reforestation in the tropics
biochar applied on a large scale (i.e. carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, thereby removing CO2 and reducing other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide); a transition from slash-and-burn to slash-and-char in the tropics

Wind power certainly can play a small role after we've reached 350ppm, but for the time being it can't be our priority.

The coming years, we really need the more serious and drastic concepts to work. That's the first thing to do.

It provides GHG free baseload power.  It is cost competitive with coal, even without CCS.  With CCS, if it could be acomplished, hugely expensive, and it would burn even more coal to run the pumps to sequester the CO2.  40% more coal to get the same output power.

CCS has never worked.  Projects have been abandoned.

Biochar increases GHG.

Energy conservation (efficiency, Hansen got that right) is least expensive, wind is next, solar furnace thermal cogeneration is next, solar PV/heat cogeneration, then farm and waste stream biogas.  In that order of cost.

It's all cheaper than coal with CCS.  Or nuclear. And it actually works, safely.  Which CCS coal and nuclear never will do.

CCS doesn't work with coal, so how is it supposed to work with biomass?

Sequestration of carbon needs to happen in carbon sinks, like a living soil ecosystem.  With biomass returned to the soil, not burned as a fuel.  Combustion is the enemy.  

Solid oxide fuel cells extract 50% of the energy from biogas directly and another 20% or more can be recovered from waste heat.

Evidently being a climate expert does not necessarily make one an authority on green technology.  The recent studies noted here in the blog put the lie to biomass as a GHG free fuel and CCS and nuclear power as climate friendly and any of this as cost competitive.

Cows eat grass, collecting biomass, turned into biogas and fertilizer the original biomass is consentrated.  And wether it is captured or not it emits methane (a 21x  worse GHG than CO2).  I noticed Hansen mentions non-CO2 GHG as imortant.  he seems to have skipped nitrous oxide (296x GHG effect as CO2) from chemical fertilizer and manure run off though.  It's a huge factor in climate change.

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In thinking about electricity, I like to think about building efficiency. Partly because I live and work in buildings, so it's something I'm familiar with and partly because I think that the concepts of building efficiency are things people can be shown immediately to work.

So I like to think about reflective roofing, proper (or "super") insulation, natural lighting, solar water heaters, and geothermal heat exchangers.

I would LOVE for someone with authority to come out and say, "Any new house with an annual heating/cooling bill of more than $100 is poorly designed."

Wind, solar, nuclear and other renewables are not mentioned by him, because they are all carbon-positive, that is, they keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere over their lifecycle, while we should taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.

How do wind and solar add CO2?  The only CO2 they produce is during construction, and they more than offset it during their lifetimes.

Also, since when in nuclear power considered renewable?

And also, as I've said before, since most current proposed CCS projects include usin' the sequestered carbon in oil and gas fields to increase production (which would then produce more CO2 from oil and gas which couldn't be sequestered), how does that take CO2 outta the system?

I do agree though that we need to take GHGs ouuta the system and aim much lower than 450ppm.

But I think massive restoration of forests, coral, and wetlands, and other ecosystems, along with redesign of cities and land uses would be more likely to have a major impact.

I'm struck by the relative cheapness of wind: we could replace all of our coal plants with the investment of 10% of our GDP for just one year!!

We could replace natural gas generation and power our entire light vehicle fleet the 2nd year, provide the generation to electrify all I/C and residential HVAC the 3rd, start synthesizing hydrocarbons from atmospheric CO2 for sequestration the 4th, and start giving away turbines to other countries on the 5th.

Obviously, this is oversimplified, and the timeline is greatly compressed, but it illustrates the size and cost of the problem.

If we decide that AGW really is an overriding priority, we don't have to dismantle our economy to stop emitting CO2, we just have to make a moderately serious effort.

A Chicago company named Indie Power has reduced the drilling cost and footprint required for geothermal heat exchange, making retrofitting urban environments more feasible.

The knowledge base is there. The innovative spirit is there. All we need now is the political will and the investment.

And economic revival from that sort of plan nick.  And the inflation fighting effect of lower energy prices.  That stabilizes our currency, allowing for financial security, a major part of the pursuit of happiness.

Applying conservation throughout the renewable generation buildout, will lower the amount of power needed as the amount of renewable energy available rises.  They will meet up, maybe in 10 to 20 years.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Electric power in a plugin nybrid costs 66 cents to go as far as a gallon of gas takes you.  And a buck's worth of methane (natural gas/biogas) equals one gallon of gas burned in an ICE.

That natural gas in a fuel cell/turbine backup generator in a plugin hybrid car, would only cost 33 cents to go as far as a gallon of gas.

Savings for heating oil are really incredible.  Geo heat exchange powered with solar cogeneration will actually produce excess electric power.  Zero heating oil consumption and a net positive energy output.  This form of powering buildings replaces natural gas heating too.

Freeing up natural gas for transportation uses.  Replacing more oil.

Maybe the US could become an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries member!  Wouldn't that be exciting.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

To conclude on a purely logical note (formal logic):

-if wind power adds CO2 to the atmosphere during its lifecycle
-and the goal is to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere
-then wind power cannot be a core technology to achieve the goal

Sometimes good 'ole logic suffices.

If the 450ppm scenario is the goal (but it shouldn't be), then there are numerous technologies that can be seen as core technologies, including, perhaps, wind, provided baseload and peakload capable renewables are given the priority (again, that's pure logic: you need a renewable baseload, before you can make non-baseload technologies like wind truly fully renewable).

And so do others "...even read what ...(I) write".  

Will anyone read yours?  That is the question,  Hehey.

Did you read the recent biochar thread?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

...Sequestered carbon would add much more CO2 and GHGs than wind does.

Nearly all carbon sequestrion projects and proposed projects have the sequestered carbon being used to help enhance oil and gas field production.

In other words, they use it to pump more fossil fuel from the ground.  But when the oil and gas is burned, it releases CO2 and other GHGs which can't be sequestered the way CO2 from coal can.

So you're essentially usin' the sequestered CO2 to increase the production of other sources of CO2.

Sources which may have been left in the ground otherwise.

So, what's the net gain?

Nearly all carbon sequestrion projects and proposed projects have the sequestered carbon being used to help enhance oil and gas field production.

That's like saying all wind turbines have been built and will be built near coal mines to provide power for digging up more coal. That's simply not true, only a few wind parks provide electricity for coal mining operations.

But besides that, it's also a dumb suggestion, since the hundreds of coal plants on this planet are all far away from oil and gas reservoirs, which constitute only a fraction of the much larger number of potential geosequestration sites.

Of the currently working CCS projects, none is used for enhanced oil or gas recovery.

Ironically, the only full-scale project that has years worth of CCS experience, uses... a saline aquifer.

Tasermons partner, allow me to ask you two simple questions.

IF 350ppm is the goal, AND CCS is safe and sequesters CO2 permanently into sites not used for EOGR, AND applicable to biogenic CO2 sources, would you then be in favor of the technology or not?

And if not, and assuming you are not advocating such funny ideas like shooting glass mirrors into space to reflect sunlight or other geoengineering follies, which are the carbon-negative energy technologies you suggest we use to reach the 350ppm goal?

You're doing just fine with facts and logic.  You don't need to call people or arguments "dumb".  It would help win arguments to leave it to logic.

A lot of cooking and building and water heating is provided with combustion Jon.  That would account for the rest of the GHG figure, other than GHG from the electric generation.  As far as 76% of grid power, lighting, heating/cooling , cooking, laundry, and so forth could account for it.  

It's a big long list.  Manufacturing, mining, construction, and transportation would be the rest of grid power use.

I think there is enough roof space to power buidings with solar cogeneration given geo heat exchange conservation and storage in the heating/cooling portion.  My suspiscion is backed up by that San Diego study of suitable roof space for solar.

I'll take a look at the spread sheet though, thanks.

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Tasermons, your reference is not very convincing, because it deals with EOR and EGR projects. Not with CCS projects.

Enhanced oil & gas recovery has been practised with CO2 from naturally occuring sources for decades now - this is what your reference is about.

Capturing CO2 from powerplants to geosequester it, must be seen entirely independently from this old practise. In certain cases, there can be technological overlaps, but conceptually speaking these two things are very different.

So I think my point clearly stands: of all the working CCS projects (that is: not good old EOR projects of which there are very many), none includes EOR.

To stick to the biggest projects, the only ones operating at full-scale:

-Sleipner stores in a saline aquifer (there's no oil or gas in such saline formations)
-In-Salah stores in depleted gas fields, no EGR involved
-Lacq stores in depleted gas fields, no EGR involved

I do understand your point, and geosequestration combined with EOR should be seen as problematic.

But please also understand my point: if CCS becomes a viable technology as such, then it can be applied to biogenic sources of CO2, and result in radical withdrawals of CO2 from the atmosphere - i.e. a carbon-negative energy system.

If we take Hansen's 350ppm scenario serious, we must begin to think of such carbon-negative energy technologies.

Just think of what Bioenergy with CCS means: you can scrub more than 1000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per GWh of electricity generated.  With all other energy technologies - which are all carbon-positive - you add CO2, thus contributing to the problem.

If we're trying to biosequester carbon.
Why must it involve combustion?

Can't we perhaps grow long-lived plants, and then just leave them alone.

I sure like add on greenhouses for retrofit bio-d.

The best would be on the southside of an existing building.  But to adjust to buildings that have no solar exposure, a greenhouse can be built on, extending into a good sunny patch of the property.

A garage or shed can be added on the north side of the greenhouse.  A greenhouse supplies early garden plants and food most of the year in most places.

Solar collectors can then be hung inside the green house, in the form of horizontal louvre blinds that form solar concentrating troughs that can be adjusted to follow the sun.  Solar PV is mounted in strips onto a flat metal conduit with water circulating to the solar water heater.

The solar energy leaks through the blinds to power the plants in the greenhouse.  Additional louvre trough PV/heat collectors can be mounted on roofs (south facing) and covered with tough glazing.  Blinds are made with insulating material and close off at night.

This is a very cheap cogeneration design, easily installed by DIYers or local contractors.  Each louvre end would have a flexible plug and play fitting for water and electric power at the ends where the louvres mount on a pivot.

A control motor would pivot the louvres according to optimium sun angle.  The louvre collectors could be assembled one at a time and the parts all mass produced.

With a nice geo heat exchange system and building mass storage (and maybe heat stoage salt also, much more dense a storage media), heat/cold (depending on climate and season) would be stored when the sun was shining.  Enough heat/cold storage would keep the building and refrigerator/freezer at proper temperatures for days with no sun.

That's it bio-d.  Less than $100 a year for all utilities.  In fact this would produce extra solar electricity for the grid (depending on solar collector area). At the price payed here by a local utility (23 cents per kwh to solar panel owning customers) that might just pay your property taxes.  As well as providing all your own free kwhs and btus.

And lots of greenhouse space for your own veggies.  And lots of biomass for your very own backup generator running on biogas.  A 2hp generator, very tiny, running on biogas would make sure you have power and heat (with cogeneration) no matter what.

Imagine the future, ride on into it on your plugin bike and car.  Hehey.  But seriously, it does seem doable.

Subsidies per kwh to homeowners and low interest community loans would sure help.  The lowest income people are hit the hardest by soaring energy prices.

I think this sort of design (maybe tweaked back and forth) in the "architecture of mistakes" (earthship "Garbage Warrior") mode to find the best devices.  That's the beauty of the per kwh subsidy, the market, the real market of real consumers, make the product decisions.

People will want a proven product that delivers the GHG free kwhs that insures a reliable subsidy check to help pay for it.

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Greyfalcon, we've been over this many times. It surprises me that you still don't grasp the basics, which, we've explained to you several times here and at other forums.

But we'll answer your question, just once again.

Reason requires patience.

If we're trying to biosequester carbon.
Why must it involve combustion?

Can't we perhaps grow long-lived plants, and then just leave them alone.

No, that would be a rather bad and inefficient idea for a few very basic reasons.

trees only sequester carbon once during their growth stage. At maturity they remain carbon-neutral at best, or they become carbon emitters.

it's much smarter to use the woody biomass for a purpose that serves humans. Use it as a building material. Or much better still: use land to grow these same trees, short coppice them and use them as an energy source; you cut them down, use their biomass instead of fossil fuels and sequester the C permanently. Then you repeat this process continuously.

This is obviously a much more efficient use of land. It allows you to sequester a much larger amount of C/CO2.

you also considerably reduce the risk of wildfires, one of the very large GHG-sources.

When someone retorically asks "do you even read what you write", because the person in question most obviously hasn't read the information to which he is referring, then that isn't an insult, is it?

It's good to see though that neither you, nor the person I was addressing, is capable of formulating an answer after everything he's said has been debunked by rather obvious sources.

Of the tens of points I've made, the only reply you come up with is that you feel insulted.

Maybe your lack of arguments is indeed an insult. To reason.

...but how to address the increased energy needed for sequestrian?  It's predicted to take up to 25% more energy to sequest the CO2 from coal, as opposed to non-sequestered.

So wouldn't we still be usin' more coal in the end?  And wouldn't that just increase strip minig and drive up the demand, and thus the price, for coal?

The logging companies still do not bother to even clean up slash.  Which is necesasary to prevent catastrophic fire in these times of GHG related drought.  When they are forced to clean up, they burn it, adding to GHG.

We need a new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to recycle underbrush and dead wood posing forest fire danger.  Firestorms are right around the next corner.  A firestorm creates a huge suction around the base of the fire, similar to a tornado, that sucks fuel into the storm.  

Nature starts firestorms usually (the allies started one in dresden in WW2) but humans probably can't put them out.  Only natural fire fighting, rain storms, can put them out.

But don't turn the waste wood into fuel for gas guzzlers.  Use the sound wood for building products and paper, and the rotted woods in biogas digestors.

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