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39 comments on Winchester Lets Brown Have Both Barrels
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Its interesting that the graph is fairly flat between the two world wars (great depression etc). Its also illustrates that an economic growth and energy consumption go together (plotting the graph at the end of 2008 may illustrate this). I have to admit one thing it does not tell me is where the Kyoto Treaty was signed. I will leave that task for someone with more imagination than I have.
We often here that we now use less energy per unit GDP than ever before, particularly in the west. There are probably several reasons due to the complexity of society. but here are three reasons that cross my mind
1) If I understand correctly, GDP is essentially money changing hands and nothing more. Each time it does so the government takes its share in taxation. So If a mother goes to work and sends her child to nursery school, several transactions will be created eg nursery school fees, mother spending her wages, spending of nursery school wages and so forth. It is obviously in any governments interest to get mothers to work, as the uk Lobour government keeps harping on about. However this superficial economic activity does use energy, though less so than perhaps a heavy industry economy. (Pitt The Elder has recently made this point someware on TOD), if this is correct then it obvious GDP/Joule will increase, but the real issue is gross energy consuption still increases, though at a lesser rate maybe.
2)As mentioned above we have outsourced our energy intensive operations and now import "embedded" energy in finished goods. That doesn't count of course in the country's energy consumption figures (hence CO2 emissions).
3)Improving thermal efficiency of our prime movers allows more useful work per unit of energy input. This point is easily illustrated using the following examples: Traditional steam engine 7% vs coal fired power station 35%-40% (5* improvement) vs Combined cycle gas turbine 60% (1.5 * improvement). We are now, to all intents and purposes, at the end of thermal efficiency gains that are possible due limitations placed by the maximum temperature we can operate at (material limitation). There was a step change in automotive diesel efficiency mid 1980's onwards in the adoption of direct injection (1.2 * improvement). Although DI technology was as old as the diesel engine itself, IDI had been used for highspeed automotive products.
Your point 3 hits the nail on the head. The majority of the population do not understand (or appreciate the work done by) energy, the trap is they vote in the political parties that don't seem to either. I live near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and am about to see 5 large wind turbines installed in my back yard. The public objection was very prominant via a noisy few, my only guilt is, as for all folk that don't object, I lay silent. Also, It was on the BBC news the other day about an eco town proposal (can't remember the location, near Stratford on Avon I seem to recall). The locals where all up in arms; all for eco towns, great idea, but not here! I can't help laughing as I write this; sorry, its rather sad in reality.
Are humans smarter than yeast? From my 44 (ish) years on this planet in think probably the answer is no.
May be you should arrange to meet Gordon in China with his cheque book!
Finally, to test your point, maybe you should form a political party called The "Energy For the Future" party and have in your manifesto a proposal to cover the uk with windfarms and what ever else is required to keep our lights on. It would be an interesting experiment!
Some Questions:
Why can't nuclear be built in Scotland? I was not aware of this one. I know wales has a plant in the decommisioning stage near Ffestiniog, cannot this be used for new build?
Are politicians smarter than yeast? may be the question that needs to be adressed.
Typo
"We often here" should be "we often hear".
-1) Yes, the correlation of ff consumption is with economic growth and population growth and many would say environmental destruction.
0) I usually try and make several spilling mistakes os that folks acn't distinguish between my tpyos and the words I can't spell.
1) It is worth while aiming to maximise GDP whilst minimising energy consumption - there in lies the path to salvation.
2) Correct - the embedded energy in manufactured goods should be deducted from the manufacturing countries emissions and added to the importers'. There's no getting around that logic.
3) I think one giant leap will come with electrification of all transport, including cars. Batteries and electric motors are so much more efficient than thermal systems there is a vast amount of energy to be saved there.
4) Your (English) opposition to eco towns - line the folks up who opposed and give them energy coupons I say.
5) The Scottish National Party (SNP) and Liberal Democrats have a large majority in the Scottish Parliament and both are opposed to Nuclear Energy. So for as long as that persists we will have no new neuks. The SNP claim that we currently export 25% of the electricity we (Scotland) generate and hence, with modest expansion of renewables we can get by without nuclear. If that is true then I'd tend to support the no-nuclear position, even though I'm not anti-nuclear per say. England needs nuclear and it is best that the power plants are located in England.
If a cast iron argument is made that Scotland needs nuclear to provide base load as Brian Wilson argues then so be it. A pragmatic decision based on need and not upon emotion and rhetoric.
The only reason that one works is because they are part of the much larger UK grid.
Renewables for any reasonable standard of reliability tend to need bigger grids, not smaller.
If they try to withdraw into some kind of 'Little Scotland' state then they will have heck of a job getting renewables to work at all effectively.
When you have Hydro you don't need to be so well connected.
Surely maximizing GDP is another term for maximizing growth. Growth will not allow you to minimize energy consumption, rather it will cause energy consumption to increase.
"It is worth while aiming to maximise GDP whilst minimising energy consumption - there in lies the path to salvation"
I may be wrong but I sense a element of sarcasm here. Yes the fact GDP growth leads to more energy consumption is the reality and the crux of all our problems. But to listen to politicians, Gordon Brown in particular, GDP growth is all that matters. From the laymans pespective we could keep writing cheques to each other, each on slightly more in value than the last in a financial "merry go round". Gordon would be happy syphoning off the tax every time a cheque crossed palms and the economy would be growing. I've just invented Utopia. The trouble is Gordon has overlooked the fact we will shortly all die of starvation. Oh shit its back to the drawing board, my economic model has failed!
The opposite would be minimising GDP whilst maximising energy consumption - I presume everyone disagrees with that.
Another way of putting this is to aim to maximise efficient use of energy.
Maximising GDP doesn't mean GDP has to grow - but I think we need to aim for the best that can be achieved - sustainably.
We waste so much energy right now that it won't surprise me that once we start to treasure it and use it wisely that average wealth starts to grow. Wealth after all is the accumulation of assets - and right now we are simply burning one of our most valuable assets for little return.
Euan,
I possibly misinterpreted you, I thought you were being mildly sarcastic towards the concept of GDP growth.
The way I understand GDP is that it is essentially the country's cash flow and nothing more. Governments need GDP to increase to cause previous debt to "devalue" as does every one who has debt, ie a mortgage. Tax revenue is also a function of GDP (may be approximately proportional to, but tax thresholds etc mean the relationship will be more complex than a simple linear function).
The relationship between useful work, energy consumed and GDP is also complicated. If we plot a acale with "waste" at one end and "essential" at the other, I dare bet most of our GDP creating activities are at the waste end. Farming, clean water etc are at the essential end, holidays, cosmetic surgery, new this new that, excess packaging etc at the other. Farming and water treatment are energy intensive but essential. So increasing GDP using low energy activities (according to Pitt The Elder this includes service type industries)that do no more than create jobs may not be the best way to proceed. Decreasing GDP but repairing infrastructure and essential machinery may be energy intensive but will keep us alive. I realise this is taboo, decreasing GDP is recession and not compatible with our current economic thinking. Taking what I am trying to say to the extreme, If we all end up back on the farm, working for nothing but food and shelter, GDP may tend towards zero. So even if we use small amounts of energy, the ratio GDP/Joule will be high, though absolute energy use will be low.
Yes, there is no doubt electrification will give a step change in vehicle efficiency but at the moment we are stuck with the thermal stage at generation. I accept that trains should be electrified as the overall efficiency is still much better than diesel (energy recovery, no idling or part load losses and more efficient transmission are the main reasons since the diesel engine is an "efficient" prime mover at 40% plus). With renewables the thermal efficiency of wind tubines is incredibly poor (orders of magnitude less than one). Fortunately the heat source is very big and free! If we had to pay for the 4,000,000 tonnes of hydrogen it consumes every second, wind power would be rather expensive! Is sunlight and wind taxed yet? (many a true word said in jest)
I have grave doubts about the "hydrogen stage", the overall cycle efficiency is worse than the IC diesel engine. Its batteries, less long distance travel or nowt. As for aeroplanes and the associated employment, its trouble ahead i fear.
One of the Scottish islands (Isle of Lewis) have just rejected a very large wind project, which may prove detrimental to the sustainability of the island concerned for a number of reasons. One in particular is migration of the young to areas of greater economic activity, the wind project was a potential source of employment as well as energy. Could be a case of cutting down the ladder from which you have climbed for those that objected.
One thing I do consider with wind turbines is the quoted EROEI of about 30:1. I do not dispute the figure, but the blades are made using epoxy or polyester type resins which come from oil which is an energy "head start". What would the EROEI be if the raw materials were hydrogen, carbon and oxygen with the wind turbine as the energy source to combine these elements into resins? Thats what really counts in the long term. I am no chemist, but I suspect it would be a wounding blow to the EROEI. In the end as long as its positive, we should be ok, we will just have to divert the HSE employees and other parasitic jobs to wind generator factories.
In my FAQ I have a pointer to a calculation that the payback for some wind farms is as high as 80:1.
Let's try your calculation. Here's a very modern wind turbine blade, weighing in at 17.7 tons. It is 61.5 meters long, and goes on a turbine rated at 5 megawatts. Assuming 1/3 of the blade mass is resin, total resin for a 3-blade turbine is 17.7 metric tons.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that production of the epoxy takes twice as much energy as the heat of combustion of the equivalent mass of gasoline. Gasoline's LHV is roughly 20,000 BTU/lbm or roughly 47 MJ/kg. 17,700 kg of resin at 94 MJ/kg is 1.66 TJ, or 462 MWH. A 5 MW turbine operating at 30% capacity factor would produce this much electricity in 308 hours, or under 2 weeks.
So yes, 30:1 appears quite reasonable even if you are producing the raw materials out of electricity.
Engineer-Poet,
I am pro wind and have been to the blade factory at The Isle of Wight (when it was NEG Micon). I was not implying wind would not be energy positive, just what the efficiency of conversion from elements to chemicals is. I had worked out that a 2 MW unit at 30% CF would generate the energy contained in 400 (ish) tonnes of diesel fuel (gross calorific value of 45MJ/kg) per year so its obvious the blade weight in hydrocarbon energy is very quickly repaid. What I did not realise is that energy payback had risen to 80:1. Its not long ago when 600 kW was a large unit (1990's), then in 2000, two 2MW units were installed in Blyth, uk one km off shore. At the time 30:1 was the figure the BWEA was quoting for a good site. I assumed this figure was using petroleum as the input. Even if it falls to 15:1 we are still quids in!