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Renewables out of the bottle
Posted by Ugo Bardi on April 22, 2010 - 10:28am in The Oil Drum: Europe
There is an old zen koan that says that a baby goose was placed inside a glass bottle and raised inside it. When it was fully grown it could no longer pass through the neck of the bottle. How can we get the goose out of the bottle without breaking it? It is the concept of "satori," "revelation". It is something that shakes you out of your old views and takes you to a new vision. It happens when you see something apparently impossible suddenly coming true, like the goose in the bottle suddenly appearing outside, free. Renewables have been growing as inside a bottle so far; a bottle made of disbelief, red tape and not enough financing. It is time for a little satori in renewable energy. Renewables can hold on their own with new and more efficient technologies, in particular the CdTe thin film version which may have an EROEI of 40. With such EROEIs, we can start thinking of renewable energy as abundant and cheap. (image on the right from rhizome.org)
I can't really fault this lady for the way she had understood the situation; not after I have seen expensive "cash for clunkers" programs being implemented in Italy and elsewhere. If a government is willing to pay cash for destroying perfectly good cars in the name of the environment, one wouldn't be surprised if wind turbines were to turn out to be little more than souped up lava lamps. Machines that turn and turn, but produce nothing.
This is an attitude that I have often seen in politicians and the public alike: renewables are nice toys, but little more. When it is time to get serious, you need something real. You can't produce energy without burning something. You need a smokestack, somewhere, that's why you need coal, or oil, or gas. That explains another story I was told: that of the national minister of industry who was shown an electric heater (about 1 kW) powered by a 300 kW photovoltaic plant and who refused to believe what he was seeing. "Where is the trick?" he kept asking. No smokestack, no energy, apparently. You can't power the world with little blue squares facing the sun or with propellers that turn in the wind, sometimes.
Even promoters of renewables seem to see renewable energy as at best a marginal source. Most environmentalits seem to think that the right way to go is energy saving. That's the real, untapped energy source that we need to exploit. This is a respectable opinion, but I think it doesn't take into account the real potential of renewables. And that potential is truly gigantic: think of the amount of sunlight that arrives on earth everyday - you probably have heard that it is almost 10,000 times larger than the primary energy we produce today (see here ). So, what prevents us from using it? Once you start thinking about the possibilities, you may experience a little satori , an illumination where you see renewable energy suddenly breaking free out of the bottle. Renewables can provide as much energy as we need and it doesn't have to be expensive. After all, sunlight and wind are free and there is plenty of both.
But even a Zen satori has to be based on some good physics when it is about energy. And, when talking renewables, the good physics is mostly contained in the concept of EROEI - energy returned for energy invested. It is the ratio of the energy that a plant can produce over its lifetime divided by the energy needed to build it, maintain it, and dismantle it when its useful life is over. A good energy source must have an EROEI larger than one; obviously. But that is not enough; it must have an energy much larger than one if it has to provide that surplus that we need to keep up what we call "civilization".
Now, if you look at Charles Hall's balloon graph with a list of EROEIs for various sources, you'll probably think that there is not much hope for renewables. In the graph, the EROEI of PV is given as under 10 and that of wind as under 20. The graph is dominated by the blue balloon of "Oil, domestic, 1930") which is rated as having EROEI= 100. If our economy has been built on oil and if oil's EROEI is so large (or, at least it was at that time) then we can't expect that renewables could substitute oil and fossil fuels. Renewables, it seems, are a marginal source at best and surely can't give us back the good times of old.
But things move on. Charlie Hall's graph is already outdated in some points. The EROEI of renewables is increasing, it is actually shooting up. Realizing how fast that is happening was a little satori for me, not more than a few months ago.
It came when I found a 2007 paper by Raugei, Bargigli and Ulgiati that evaluated the LCA of various photovoltaic technologies (See the references at the end). Then, the same authors published another paper in 2009 and in a few years the change has been remarkable. They don't report the EROEIs directly, but these can be approximately calculated from the values of the EPBT (energy payback time). I discussed the results with one of the authors, Marco Raugei (incidentally, a former student of mine), and we arrived to the conclusion that, in favorable conditions of illumination (1700 kWh/(m2*year) and assuming a lifetime of 30 years, polycrystalline silicon has an EROEI of 15, while CdTe thin film cells have an EROEI of 40.
Now, tell me if this is not enough for a good satori. An EROEI of 40? And that with a "state of the art" system? Yes, with CdTe cells that you can buy on the market! I can almost hear the objections - that I am too optimistic, that the EROEI depends on the initial assumptions, and how about intermittency, and don't you know that we passed peak tellurium? And so on. But let me discuss these objections in a note at the end of this post. For the time being, let's take this large value of the EROEI as a working hypothesis and let's see how we got there and what are the perspectives.
First of all, this high EROEI is the result of a breakthrough in thin film cells. There are many ways of making thin film cells; the advantage is that the amount of material needed is very small and that reduces the cost. The problem is that in some cases it is the manufacturing of the cells that is expensive; requiring, for instance, vacuum processing. In other cases, making the cell may be cheap, but it is the efficiency of light conversion that is low; that's the case of many kinds of organic cells. The low efficiency of the cells increases the cost of the installation (called "BOS", "balance of system") because larger areas are needed.
So far, thin film cells have been either too expensive or too inefficient (or both). However, in the past few years, CdTe (cadmium telluride) cells have reached conversion efficiencies of the order of 11% and that has led to a commercial boom all over the world. A breakthrough, indeed, compounded by further advantages of the CdTe technology: that of being less sensitive than silicon cells to high temperatures, and that of being more efficient in capturing diffuse light. First Solar , the company that makes CdTe cells, is now the second largest producer of solar cells in the world, with a yearly production corresponding to about 1.2 GW peak power. Plans have been announced for reaching 1.8 GW by 2012.
So, we aren't yet at the EROEI = 100 of oil in the 1930, but the progress in this area has been remarkable. And if PV based on CdTe can have an EROEI of 40, what prevents us from getting much higher values, using the same or other thin film PV technologies? And not just photovoltaic cells are susceptible of breakthroughs. Not long ago, I had another satori when I reviewed the situation with Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) and in particular the implementation called Kitegen. Here, we are talking of prototypes still under costruction, but the simulations are extremely promising - the EROEI could well be over 100 .
At these EROEI levels, well, the goose is really out of the bottle (and the bottle is not broken).
Of course we can't yet claim that the energy problem is solved. We may have high EROEI renewable sources, but we still have to build up the infrastructure needed to build and deploy the plants; we need to build up a "smart grid" system that can manage power production in such a way to overcome the intermittency problem; we need also to restructure our economy in such a way that it can use electric power instead of fossil fuels for such things as transportation. It can be done, but it is not at all obvious that it can be done before running out of the resources needed for doing it, that is of fossil fuels. But it is not impossible.
It is a fighting chance, but it is there.
Note: The calculation of the EROEI depends on where exactly you take the "boundaries" of the system and that we still don't have rules on this point (see this paper by Charles Hall ). But as long as we compare different technologies then we can compare the relative EROEIs and that has a meaning if the same methodologies have been applied; which is the case here. About PV in general, I know that we need to take into account the question of storage, but that is very often overstated and PV is not supposed to be the only technology used for energy production. PV would be embedded in a mix of different sources over large areas that would compensate each other. The concept of of "smart grid" would provide the necessary management of the energy produced and consumed. Then, I know that the value of EROEI=40 it is obtained under rather optimistic assumptions: that the plant is located in a well irradiated area (e.g. Southern Europe or North Africa) and that it has a lifetime of 30 years. Optimistic, perhaps, but realistic as well. You CAN place these plants in Southern Europe, North Africa or Southern US and their lifetime can exceed thirty years if they are decently maintained. So, we are not talking futuristic applications - it is reality. Then, there are other objections that one can make to CdTe technology; that it needs the rare element tellurium, that cadmium is toxic and what happens in case of fire; etc. All reasonable objections, but notice that these very problems imply that there is a tremendous stimulus to recover and recycle the materials used. Finally, if one thin film technology can be made commercial, it is reasonable to think that there are more that can reach the same level.
References
"Life cycle assessment and energy pay-back time of advanced photovoltaic modules: CdTe and CIS compared to poly-Si", by Marco Raugei, Silvia Bargiglia and Sergio Ulgiati at Energy Volume 32, Issue 8, August 2007, Pages 1310-1318
"Update of PV energy payback times and life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions" V. Fthenakis, H.C. Kim, M. Held, M. Raugei and J. Krones, 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 21-25 September 2009, Hamburg, Germany
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One of my concerns is that there is a fairly big difference between cost of a solar PV module and installed cost of solar PV, so I would expect the EROIs are fairly different as well. The slide Steven Chu showed at his recent presentation at an EIA Energy Conference shows the following steep drop in module costs, to a level of close to $1.00 / Watt.
This chart from an analysis of installed solar PV costs from a study by Berkeley shows installed costs nearly stalled at close to $8.00 a watt.
A second concern is that the EROIs of wind are generally decreasing, not increasing, as plans are being made to put more and more of them out at deeper and deeper levels in the sea. The cost per kWh is clearly a lot higher, which says to me that they likely have lower EROIs.
A third concern is that I am doubtful that EROIs across different types of energy are sufficiently comparable to be very helpful. I can see comparing one wind turbine to another wind turbine, using EROIs, and one solar PV panel to another solar PV panel using EROIs, but I think comparisons to fossil fuel are likely to be misleading.
There are several reasons why I don't like comparing renewable EROIs with fossil fuel EROIs. One is that I doubt the boundaries are really comparable. If obvious pieces like installation are excluded, that is a problem. If we will have to add significant infrastructure to shift to a more electric approach (say, electric cars, or even long distance transmission and upgraded grid), that is an energy cost that is not considered. A second issue with EROI calculations is that they do not consider timing, and the timing of energy returns for renewables is slower. If a time adjustment is made, the EROIs would need to be higher to be comparable. A third concern is that I am not convinced EROI calculations value labor and more nebulous inputs well from an EROI perspective, even though they have a close tie to energy. Even consultants use energy--for flying around, and their salaries go to pay for energy products. I would expect the distribution of types of inputs to be quite different for renewables compared to fossil fuels. The outputs (intermittent electricity vs fuels to burn) are also quite different.
Regarding wind, of course I am optimistic. Tis a brilliant idea and the entropy of wind predictability will become something we will embrace. Just as we will get the efficiencies of PV cells up there, we will harness wind efficiently. I just finished off another masterful analysis, this time on the topic of "Wind Dispersion and the Renewable Hubbert Curve"
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2010/04/wind-dispersion-and-renewable-h...
Comments encouraged and welcome.
Hi WebHubble,
Does your analysis agree with the common observation that most wind farms are operating 1/3rd of the time? Or may be I am confusing it with the rule of thumb that if wind has X maximum capacity the observed power is 1/3*X.
There was a DOE study which concluded that wind power could supply up to 30% of the US electricity needs. Beyond that point the system becomes unstable.
most wind farms are operating 1/3rd of the time
Yes, that's how they're designed. That's not necessarily a problem. Heck, many gas plants operate far less, but it's ok because that was part of the design.
Beyond that point the system becomes unstable.
The DOE study found that 30% was feasible, but did not report that above that point the system becomes unstable. IOW, that was a floor, not a ceiling.
Well, solar has a 50% duty-cycle by definition.
I could see 30% easily being possible and you are correct that they were "designed" that way, which is a euphemism for saying no one ever expected more than X% utilization based on the Rayleigh distribution of winds.
I guess as a country we are not used to dealing with entropic power sources in contrast to our current philosophy of instant power.
solar has a 50% duty-cycle by definition.
Well, a CSP installation might get up to 35%, and PV might get as high as 25%, though 30% and 20% would be extremely respectable.
a euphemism for saying no one ever expected more than X% utilization
You could increase utilization by reducing the size of the generator, but that wouldn't be optimal. Increasing the size of the generator doesn't cost much, relative to the additional high-energy high-speed winds you'd capture.
we are not used to dealing with entropic power sources in contrast to our current philosophy of instant power.
More accurately, utilities are incentivized to build, build, build to deal with any kind of potential power shortage, due to the rate structure. They need to be incentivized to match demand to supply, rather than just building more capacity to handle any peaks in demand. It's much, much cheaper to use Demand Side Management (aka Demand Response) to match demand to supply, than it is to build more generation (or storage). This is very well known in the industry - there's no rocket science or new tech needed.
My 50% number is because half the day is night.
Sure.
But, if you want to compare sources you want to be more precise. Output falls before and after noon, so you have to use the numbers I gave above.
I dumbed it way down.
We still live in a BAU world with BAU costs of living, populated by BAU contractors and BAU workers. That having been said I know of some furry newly evolved little non BAU businesses, my own included, who get up every morning and scurry around the feet of the lumbering BAU dinosaurs...and while many of us get stomped on and crushed by the dying beasts, I think enough of us are doing what it takes to bring those costs down. What needs to happen is a lot of outside the box thinking.
I'm 100% convinced that part of what you claim re the $8.00 installed watt, is already changing. I know that I can do an installation, (I farm out my installations to other contractors)at well under that price and I'm sure it will come down further.
The sooner we kill BAU the sooner you will see that happen. I'm out there every day with my little sling shot trying to do my part to put the behemoths out of their misery, sooner than later.
So Gail, whats on your roof top ;-)
Nice, FM.
Though Gail is right at the moment about a lot of installation cost USA and UK etc (exceptions, examples Paul in Halifax and your furry animals), consider how much our high cost and high income BAU has come to rely on China et al. First we did 'oil' to increase our legendary productivity, then we increasingly 'off-shored' the labor components? By such, we have maintained an enormous 'discretionary income' (even with our admittedly very skewed income distribution). To what extent have 'we' been riding, if in part but increasingly on the back of millions of Chinese coal miners? Consider how China might manage it's ratio of installation cost to EROEI and what about all their solar domestic hot water heaters? A future not made in the USA?
Fred,
If I had the money I'd invest with your company.
But I can do my little part, which is all we need to have done to limit BAU from leading us down the wrong road.
The designs for a better fed future, which I call BioWebScape, is a whole systems approach to living off the land. The houses are passive solar, either earth shelter or at least something along those lines. Wind, Solar, geothermal, microhydro, and biogas energy sources are used where they can be, and limited use of "on the grid" energy.
Eating your landscaping, and a total use of the plant materials available to be grown on the site is also key to all this.
Every little bit of help that the future generations can get from people living today is one step in the right direction.
Lots of people still need to be convinced that the future does not have to be doom and gloom everywhere. It might still be hard, but no one said that a hard life was what we are trying to avoid, just a wasted life.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed future.
Gail, the data I have cite take into account the whole cycle of solar PV; not just the cost of panels, but that of the BOS as well. The breaktrhough is mainly in the panels themselves, but there have been improvements in the BOS as well. So, the EROEI rises gradually and we are now at a level of 40. Of course, we need to compare what is comparable. The study by Raugei et al. is based on the standards for LCA and that gives us a good basis. Then, it is correct to say that the consultants of the PV industry use planes, but then we should add to the energy costs of the oil industry those of tanks, bombers, missiles and all the rest. If we are to enlarge the boundaries of the EROEI calculations, then renewables win hands down.
I have been trying to start a co-operative for local PV businesses, I think at the next meeting I will suggest that we need some tanks, bombers and missiles in order to be more competitive with fossil fuels' EROEI. If nothing else we could bomb the local power company and sell more emergency solar generators ;-)
Seriously though, I couldn't agree more!
Hi Fred,
About 35+ years ago, a friend and I explored the potential for starting a business installing solar roof top devices for hot water heating. Instead, we decided that computer software development had more potential - whew, glad we made that choice!
However, the key element in our decision making was our experience with licensing regulations. We needed licensed plumbers and electricians along with our certification as a licensed contractor. We ran the numbers and simply could not figure out a valid business plan with these restrictions. As it turned out, roof top solar hot water heating, here in Wisconsin, became a very challenging business prospect (while computer software development was wide open for a number of years).
I really have not followed the solar installer business for many years. But, I believe that licensing requirements have lessened and there are some established companies now in our area. What is your experience in Florida with licensing requirements? Is this now pretty much a trivial issue?
I could probably write a book about anecdotes of my personal experiences with different municipalities and permitting issues and contractor licensing requirements. It varies from simple and straightforward to byzantine and Kafakaesque.
To be fair it has gotten better but I wish it was standardized across the board. As it is the local municipalities have the power to make their own rules so to speak. So it depends on how enlightened or corrupt the local officials are.
LOL. I too couldn't agree more. :-)
..and those boundaries must also begin to take into account the unpaid-for environmental costs of the pollution that has resulted from all this fuel burning as well.
In a time when all our energy production is pretty much invisible to us in our daily lives, I think it must be really hard for most people to see why PV, a one-stage conversion of sunlight to electrical current, no moving parts, in a modest package-- is really a radical change in how power can be collected.
Hi Ugo,
Interesting article. My one concern is that EROEI doesn't guarantee that the power is economical.
Ultimately EROEI is insufficient as a guide to decision making (that my suspicion).
EROEI is something that scientists understand, but ultimately the power source has to be economical enough to be commercially viable.
Best as I understand, cost is not the same thing EROEI. If it is, I would like to see the derivation.
Hi Ugo,
Interesting article. My one concern is that EROEI doesn't guarantee that the power is economical.
Ultimately EROEI is insufficient as a guide to decision making (that my suspicion).
EROEI is something that scientists understand, but ultimately the power source has to be economical enough to be commercially viable.
Best as I understand, cost is not the same thing EROEI. If it is, I would like to see the derivation.
Ugo,
The fundamental question that must be answered in order to get your technology accepted by the market is not EROEI. If you don't believe me, try to raise money to deploy such a technology.
The key questions are the payback period and the rate of return.
I don't see an obvious way of translating EROEI into cost.
A technology could conceivably have a really good EROEI but still be too expensive to find a place in the market.
There are at least two technical approaches to thin film manufacturing now in pre-production development that can turn the PV cost equation on its head. Both involve nanoscale deposition techniques to roll print multi-junction cells. Multi-junction cells enable capture of a greater portion of the solar energy that hits them--- up to 42% for the world record handmade cells.
Mass production of 30% efficient multi-junction cells at less than $1 per watt cell cost would truly be a game changer for energy production, and I fully expect to see it within a decade. While low cost, low efficiency cells like First Solar now produces may be competitive today, total-system costs (permitting, installation, mounting racks, inverter & wiring, sales & marketing etc), present a steeply rising barrier to further price reductions.
When solar capture efficiencies are tripled within the same physical footprint and installed system cost, $30,000 home roof systems will become net energy exporters and coal and NG become high cost alternatives.
I think for the average person a $30,000 system is already going to be a net energy exporter. That's nearly a 4kW system, which wouldn't fit on the roof of most homes.
He is assuming a conversion efficiency from sunlight to electricity of 30% which means the PV panels would occupy ~13.4 m2 assuming 1,000 W/m2 illumination. The average American house needs a 5 kW system to produce 30 kW·hr / (sunny day).
First Solar stated average manufacturing costs (2009) are $0.87 per watt so the 8 dollars a watt in the study can easily be attributed to installation. The first graph in Gail's post is purchase price and I would imagine for a dollar a watt purchase price they'd need their costs well below $0.50.
http://www.firstsolar.com/Downloads/pdf/FastFacts_PHX_NA.pdf
The $8 dollar per watt cost is probably for residential installations in relatively small quantities. With respect to First Solar, one should look at utility scale installations which are going to have much better economies of scale. I don't know what the total costs are, but it is certain they are a lot lower than residential or small commercial installations.
As the cost of the PV itself approaches triviality, more attention will be paid to automating and routinizing the installation costs, including more focus on invertor and other accessory costs.
Anyway, I thought the EROEI for oil was down to 10 and sinking. And as was pointed out above this does not even include the billions of related dollars spent on the military, including our hundreds of overseas bases.
Solar is very diffuse. The electrical equivalent of 10 TW would require a PV array of 85,000 square miles, more than all the land in Kansas.
Hoffert, M. I., et al. Nov 1, 2002. Advanced Technology Paths to Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet. Science, 298: 981-987.
I think the EROEI of building and maintaining PV is staggering if you look at all the fossil fuels used in their production.
1) A PV plant that could produce 5.5 TWh of power (what the Glen Canyon dam produces) would displace an enormous ecosystem, about 20 square miles. It requires 177,788 MT (megatons) of aluminum, 2,222,356 MT cement, 480,029 MT copper, 7,556,010 MWh of electricity, and 4,600,276 MT of steel.
S. Pacca, D. Horvath 2002 Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Building & Operating Electric Power Plants in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Env Sci & Tech /Vol 36, # 14 3194-3200
2) The direct current generated by solar cells can’t power a typical household’s appliances. First it has to be converted by an inverter to alternating current. For a home to be completely self-sufficient, a battery bank is required. Acid and hydrogen gas batteries are heavy, expensive, and potentially dangerous. A PV system isn’t merely PV panels, there are many other components involved, such as Charge Controllers, Inverters, Fuse Blocks, devices to feed the power to the grid, or if it’s an off-grid system, batteries and an oil-based generator to keep the batteries from being drained. All of these products can break down, requiring maintenance or replacement, and require energy to build.
3) Smart grids rely on computer chips that are highly energy intensive to make (and incredibly environmentally destructive (Williams 2002), and chip factories are vulnerable because they 1) dependent on just-in-time delivery 2) use rare minerals subject to depletion 3) have so many single points of failure since there’s often there is just one supplier of a particular chemical (thousands are used) or machine used in the hundreds of steps of manufacturing computer chips 4) take days to recover if there’s a disruption of electrical supply 5) every step requires 6 nines of purity or more (.999999) which is hard to achieve in any country with the likely social disorder accompanying fossil fuel shortages in the future (Van Zant 2004, Quirk 2001)
Williams. E, et al. 2002. The 1.7 kilogram Microchip: Energy and Material Use in the Production of Semiconductor Devices. Environ. Sci. Technol #36
Van Zant, P. 2004. Microchip Fabrication, fifth edition. McGraw-Hill.
Quirk, M. et al. 2001. Semiconductor manufacturing technology. Prentice Hall.
What's needed are solar cells built from something cheap and abundant like feldspar. Right now, using pure silicon based PV is like putting diamonds on your roof. The race to on to find cheap low-tech PV before social disorder, from energy shortages disrupting the food chain and other life-sustaining infrastructure, makes developing solar cells unfeasible.
Some good points, but the interesting one was
as the
Total capacity for Lake Powell is 27 million acre-feet, and the active capacity is 20,876,000 acre-feet. At normal water surface elevation, the reservoir has a length of 186 miles and a surface area of 161,390 acres
a quick calc with 640 acres to a square mile and you get a surface area of over 252 square miles.
Now stuff does live in the lake but the former ecosystm replaced was a dozen times your solar number. You might notice a little area gets displaced by the likes of coal mines as well, whereas the solar 'fuel' will not require additional land to be displaced to keep the solar power plants producing. Trade offs are part of every game.
Thanks for this post. Wikipedia says 254 square miles for Lake Powell, btw
Drain Lake Powell and install solar panels on all the land!! ;-)
(seriously, Glen Canyon Dam will have to be decommissioned at some point or another)
This is no different than adding up all the steel in one pipeline from northern BC, it's tankage and pumping equipment, and distribution collection all the way down to Chicago. Any system will require infrastructure. Also about a ton and a half of steel is washed out of the tailings pipings systems of one oilsands plant each and every day.
Coal also cannot be used to run your refrigerator. It needs to be dug out of the ground, hauled someplace, pulverized, cleaned, burned, used to boil water, the steam forced through a fan, the fan turns a heavy copper mass, etc etc.
And the third point OMG it won't work cause we need computer chips!!! (Sorry - heavy sarcasm)
The difference with the forms is the input - something that has to be purchased and burned vs something that has to be purchased and will work.
The maintenance and infastructure requirement is there either way.
My own personal opinion is this - having spent my entire career fixing industrial plants from oil refineries to metal refineries to tar sand mines to nickel mine - the marvel of some of this alternative energy technology is how absolutely maintenance free it would be - compared to what we do now.....
You could, should you so desire, install all DC appliances and lighting. What's wrong with being non typical?
Yes that's true but none of this is rocket science and most people have those dangerous batteries in their cars without you hearing about too many cases of loss of life or limb. We know what precautions need to be taken, so we take them. There are permits and inspections for a reason.
Yes, most of that is true to some extent, however, I can't think of any currently existing systems in my home today that don't at some point need maintenance, are completely fool proof or 100% safe under all circumstances. That's a part of life. Most of the components you mention are by now quite well tested in the real world and guess what, they work.
The point is that it is not attractive in today's environment. We need to move people off fossils fuels now, not when oil production begins declining. But the cost has to be compelling for that migration to start.
Economics always matters ....
Finally back home managed to fly around the world. But on topic time is something I hit on a while back and in the end time is everything. Understanding how time really fits in with EROEI is difficult. For example for oil we had many decades and to do that one can readily consider monetary inflation and time/money are very similar with inflationary fiat currencies. I.e the steady expansion of the currency system over time is not only inflationary but time like in and of itself as inflation causes money to have a time aspect. I.e invest or devalue. This is important because we are using inflating fiat currencies backed by cheap energy to eventually measure the costs of renewable energy.
You can see that the basis for measurement is in and of itself incorrect. Thus the results of articles like this are effectively meaningless. You simply cannot project our current society forward and assume it can readily transition to cheap abundant renewable energy. The time/money concepts in a renewable society are in my opinion substantially different from what we have now.
The time/money aspects of transition are especially troublesome. The time/money/energy quantity is itself a variable and cannot be used as a basis for measurement over a transition period. Thus in my opinion there is literally no route from our current society to a renewable one. No way from point A to point B if you will.
Believe or not that was my conclusion from my odyssey around the world so its not really off topic but deeply on topic at some point it hit me that we can't make it simply because there is fundamentally no way to make it. No path for transition actually exists.
To try and visualize it its like a very deep gorge covered in fog with the stub of a bridge sticking out on one side. Many see the stub and claim it spans the gorge regardless of the fog. The fog is of course our time/money system. In reality it does not it simply a stub of a bridge and does not cross the gorge.
The deep gorge is of course population/energy.
The question is how to explain to people that there is no way across and all the supposed bridges are not real but dead ends ?
The only way to cross the gorge is to not build fake bridges but to fill the gorge which means to dramatically reduce population until no bridge is needed since bridges cannot work.
Thus the right answer is to recognize that you cannot build bridges but you have to eliminate the need for bridges itself i.e eliminate the gorge. However I don't see how to explain this to all the people that want to build bridges to solve the problem just as its impossible for their bridges to work its also impossible for them to see why they won't work as the concept of having to fill the gorge is not something they want to accept.
Hope you walked and sailed all the way, obviously if you are right back where you started from there couldn't be anyway to get anywhere else because here you are right where you started.
Besides people, like a lot of other critters, really like to build stuff. Good thing for you or you would have had to walk and you might actually have ended up somewhere else and found that you could get there ?- )
Memmel;
Sounds like you've recreated the old Maine adage of 'You cain't get there from here!'
Of course, like the implications in a 'Titanic' analogy, this one has failure painted as a great fall into a gorge, and catastrophic death, which might work broadly, but doesn't necessarily offer a picture of what the fall would actually look like on the ground out here, what a hard landing means, and for whom.
I think BAU will receive many crushing injuries, but various people are more or less beholden to the international markets and the grid, etc.. and of course, each of us has the chance (if we are looking for it) to see if 'There' isn't actually not to far from 'here'.
I think BAU will receive many crushing injuries, but various people are more or less beholden to the international markets and the grid, etc.. and of course, each of us has the chance (if we are looking for it) to see if 'There' isn't actually not to far from 'here'.
Yes they are beholden to the grid/international markets but one thing a trip around the world does is open your eyes again to what we have achieved with insanely cheap energy and a agricultural revolution that rivaled the discovery of agriculture itself.
We have filled the world with billions of people that are desperately poor people and perhaps 1 billion or more ravenous consumers hell bent on achieving the "American Dream". This is what we did with our everything effectively given to us on a silver platter. Thus claim that we will be able to carry on somehow with much more expensive renewable sources of energy and slower growth rates and probably even steady decline in overall energy consumption along with much slower gains in agricultures strike me as simply absurb.
You have to be stark raving mad to write fancy articles showing how great things will be as our oil supply dwindles. Its going to be a holocaust for many which makes the people writing these sorts of articles even worse as they are assuming by wearing blinders to the truth that they re assuming somehow will be the camp guards. I'm not sorry to use the holocaust as and example as this is in my opinion the truth we face.
In reality what we are talking about is taking a substantial amount of the meager winning of the billions of poor to attempt to continue our society. Certainly they don't have much as per capita energy consumption shows but billion face from going from having very little to nothing as we concentrate on supporting the top. What people miss is nothing is infinitely less than something.
Thus you cannot do it. I have yet to see a single article with a bright vision of the future tackle the problem of how the billions of poor people people are going to transition to a renewable energy world. Who is going to build their wind turbines and pv arrays ?
Who is going to subsidize the energy needed to transition ?
The answer is of course no one will and no one is willing to voice the truth.
Thus articles like this simply enforce the recognition that we are truly a sick and insane society that fails to see what it has done.
However back to my analogy of a vast gorge that needs to be filled one can readily treat it as a large number of virtual potholes which need only a few shovels of dirt to fill with more than enough people to wield the shovels. Thus paradoxically its not and impossible task just needs people to focus on really filling the potholes. This of course is not EV's and wind turbines in wealthy regions but steady reduction in consumption and standard of living in these regions with the turbines if built at all built in the poorest countries first. Tossing bits of dirt of the top of the gorge has no effect but if your willing to open your eyes and start filling it from the bottom up then it is possible.
Financially of course this means we have to crush our consumption in the wealthy nations which means elimination of our debt based fiat currencies and move to real stores of wealth. And this is not enough we need also rapidly transition the poorest levels to a reasonable renewable living standard. Thus not only do we have to stop our ravenous consumption we have to efficiently transfer a substantial amount of what real wealth exists into the poorest regions. As you can see this works to flatten the society if you will to one of equality albeit generally poor.
What it does is fill the gorge by blocking the ability of the wealthy to borrow from the future via use of debt and transfer of ill gained accumulated wealth of the past to the poor via forced investment. Thus the only way out I can see is for practically everyone who has benefited from the past imbalanced society to willingly give up their position can we succeed. Thew problem is of course individual acts of selflessness are not enough the society has to undergo and intrinsic conversion recognizing what it has done. And in effect atone for its sins.
Humanity today simply cannot make such a group effort its literally impossible.
Even worse few can even see that its absolutely required.
Flight in Europe are open now. If your wealthy enough and have the time I urge you to fly around the world and consider what I'm saying spend a bit of time sitting in various cities with your eyes open and watching the inequality of our world flow in front of your eyes and consider what I'm saying. Its not that hard and perhaps just perhaps you can see something different from what I see. I doubt it, however someone willing to go take a look and think about it is important most seem either unwilling or unable.
I cannot help resenting your lumping the entire developed world under the stupid "American Dream". The majority of people in MANY other parts of the developed world are awake.
I disagree. All I see are variants of the same old thing. Everyone out to build their castle. Your confusing the size of the McMansion with the fact its a McMansion. Focusing on the scale factor between say a Indian professional spending his inheritance on a massively over priced small flat vs and American buying a massive shoddy house build by Mexicans hides the same underlying pyramid scheme.
Once you correctly scale the situation its all the same crap no difference.
The only real difference is in the second and third world you have a massive pool of deeply impoverished people living on the fringes of the faux American Dream machine. I suspect that over the next several years even this distinction will disappear.
It does not really matter if the tops energy consumption is black brown or green what matters is there is simply no more to take we have taken everything and worse spread or sick culture of theft around the world.
Right now of course many parts of the world are still in the inflationary phase of debt creation with no hope of ever paying it back especially India which is gutting the savings of its elderly generation to fuel rampant speculation in housing. However if you think that the collapse of housing/commercial real estate in the US was bad just wait until it collapses in India the devastation will be immense. After that perhaps China, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil etc etc etc.
Without first stabilizing our financial situation and unwinding the massive imbalances "green" energy is of little value esp concentrated in the wealthy nations of the world. It does nothing to solve the fundamental problem.
What I'm trying to say is that the correct solution is some sort of minimal humane standard of living a sort of global minimum wage if you will that works to balance the economic situation. Given the numbers its probably a fairly low level but thats not whats important whats important is a foundation has to be laid that stabilizes the global economy at some level it could well be shockingly low. Until you make such a move we simply have way way to many people playing variants of the American Dream/ponzi scheme to stabilize consumption. As long as you continue to allow debt fueled consumption to drive energy usage you simply cannot transition.
Windmills built with borrowed money generating electricity for a thousand homes bought with 3% FHA loans and EV's purchased in the same manner solve nothing. Similar games in every country. I'm not saying you cannot build it and pat yourself on the back four how great you are but nothing has been solved.
Actually I don't think the system will last long enough to even accomplish the above past a few Potemkin villages but thats not really the issue we face so why debate how great our new green energy will be ?
Until you have a world thats balanced and can offer a stable minimal standard of living for all that fosters building everything from accumulated wealth not debt the problem of "green" energy is simply a side show. For example if we actually dramatically cut our energy usage and brought the per capita energy consumption in the first world into line with the rest of the world we would have more than enough fossil fuels to last for decades. Annual CO2 emissions would fall to a fraction of their current levels and we would have decades to expand renewable sources.
Sure it means tossing a good bit of the first world down dramatically but so what consumption would fall off the need for globalization of trade to produce redundant items would fall and localized economies constrained by the natural regional abundance would flourish. Of course on top of the wealth imbalance is a major population imbalance and a lot of this leveling is really simply rebalancing of the the world population geographically out of resource constrained overpopulated regions to thinly settled but relatively renewable resource rich western nations.
Basically what you have to do is import all the impoverished people into the wealthy nations bring both their needs and labor locally. This was the way America actually achieved dominance in the past and a similar massive migration is require to rejuvenate our global economy. The wealthy would have no choice but to provide for their now localized servants. The trick of hiding our slaves in distant lands or turning a blind eye if your local has to be undone and reversed.
It does not actually mean a direct impoverishment of the "wealthy" simply that they take responsibility for the care of all of those uncounted people that actually provide for them.
This will force them to naturally cut their consumption or develop the blindness common in poorer countries. And of course deal with the social issues of deep impoverishment in their own backyards if they wish to ignore it.
What even more important is that if this is really the only solution then it will happen regardless of what anyone does. This means that soon the waves of immigrants for the poorer countries will quickly rise to a tsunami overwhelming the wealthy nations with masses of people who cannot be stopped.
Thus if I'm right then it literally does not matter what people think they will soon be faced with the terrible choice of killing millions of desperate immigrants or embracing them and sharing what they have. Thus if I'm right we really don't have a choice in the matter its the only solution and thus it will happen.
For Europe of course this means migrations out of Africa become overwhelming perhaps Egypt collapse leading to a rapid influx perhaps elsewhere in Africa who knows Turkey Iran ?
For the US the obvious is collapse of Mexico but anywhere is possible. Once it starts in earnest it will only increase rapidly until the wealthy nations are literally drowned in a sea of impoverished immigrant or adopt unspeakable policies.
So I'm not saying that this great leveling is optional its impossible to stop it its going to happen no matter what people think. Just as the migrations of old eventually overwhelmed the Roman Empire we are going to see the modern version of a vast desperate migration unfold globally.
Green energy as I said is irrelevant until this rebalanced and re-localization has run its course.
As it does how we live sustainably will develop on its own accord.
We have no choice in the matter except that of course if we recognize its inevitable then the underlying pain and suffering can be dramatically reduced. Not removed mind you but reduced.
To add one more thing and put it into perspective the current flow of money around the world is correctly recognized as a flight to safety and is keeping the US dollar strong for example. However what people don't realize is that this flow of capitol is just the start or first stage in the largest migration event in history and probably of all time. At first the money flows and then the people. Thus the flow of money into safe havens is simply signaling the next move as people begin to pack up and leave their countries for physical safety in the wealthy nations. At first of course the wealthy of the second and third world will follow their money but soon there after increasingly poor people will have no choice but to die or migrate. If I'm right then of course the current financial conditions are signaling a huge migration event is on the verge of happening on a scale thats never been seen before or will be seen again.
I doubt it would be possible for mass waves of people to reach Europe. The population down in Sub-Saharan Africa would of course have to cross the Sahara Desert. I doubt this can be easily accomplished in a massive wave. Any large influx of foreigners into Europe would of course destabilize the countries and really anger the locals. The Sinai peninsula is guarded by Israel, they aren't going to let teeming masses into their country or to cross through it. Africans would have to cross either by boat in the Mediterranean or at the strait of Gibraltar. This would greatly limit the ability of people to cross. Realistically at least in Africa, I imagine South Africa would bear the brunt of it.
I am not sure of the U.S. for something like this to potentially be taking place if politicians would still be in a BAU mode saying things like "We're a nation of immigrants, we must take in the world's poor, more people help the economy, etc." and let tens of millions of Central Americans just walk right in. The U.S. military is pretty good at maintaining order, a few hundred thousand soldiers with UAVs, planes, and automatic rifles could easily deter anyone from crossing.
Something on the scale you're talking about would be civilization and nation destroying and would definitely be handled with force. You would find some extreme version of Nick Griffin in every country of Europe dealing with the problem. Turning western countries into third world dumps can't be done overnight, that would result in all types of crazy things even military coups. It is more likely countries will collapse on themselves, nearby countries are not going to want to deal with their problems.
And the point of your post is ??
How many people are we going to kill with our UAV's and guns. And are you sure your going to be happy living in a nation that resorts to mass murder at its borders to protect its standard of living ?
As far as your comments on Africa its clear you have not even made and attempt to inform your self about the current immigrant crisis much less what I'm discussing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6228236.stm
Its not like the routes are not there they are all I'm talking about is this migration turning into a veritable flood.
If it turns into a true flood of course it would be forcefully stopped. People aren't going to simply give up their country for no reason while they are unemployed and poor. The current illegal entry attempts are not a massive flood. Killing people is perfectly acceptable if it prevents you from dieing, a flood of people would collapse countries. Europe isn't going to say "they want to come here and take over our countries, we have to let them because Africa is bad." Once they figure out force will be used to stop them, there will be no flood.
What you're saying will occur is highly unlikely, if debt based fiat currency collapses or the grid goes down we'd be well on our way to something like World War 3.
Why of course and not only this but we will sit in our happy little towns powered by wind mills driving EV's while the third world dies at our borders ?
Hopefully you realize what your saying.
I don't think our towns will be happy as there will be chronic unemployment but surely the developed world is not going to let the overpopulated third world flood in. The developed world is already extremely dense and won't be needing any more people. Countries like Japan will never open the flood gates, and as the conditions worsen Europe will be locked down.
If the third world is over the carrying capacity they will deal with the consequences on their own, no one told them to have so many children. I'm sure some of those countries will be able to trade resources for food, however.
But but all are problems will be solved by cheap renewable energy. Yet cheap energy is what got us to the point where a drop in energy availability threatens the foundation of our civilization.
And of course printing money is certain to solve the co-problem of excessive debt.
I won't belabor the point of whats going to happen in the future but suffice it to say even if cheap renewable energy was true it would have to be doable at the global level not just for the wealthy countries and far more likely just a fraction of even their population not the current number of of people that think they are relatively well off.
Thus the real problem is that we abused and abundant cheap energy supply to pollute or planet and embark on reckless growth and overpopulation stripping the planet of its other resources. More of the same if possible is simply not a solution. The higher probability that future excess to energy will be the domain of and ever smaller elite class is both far more probably and certain to lead to constant war regardless of if its renewable or non-renewable resources taken by force. It literally does not matter who controls the smaller pie what matters is that its practically certain to be smaller.
I'm sure someone can extend the current article to show how cheap abundant renewable resources can be developed globally regardless of the income levels of the worlds countries. And I expect such and article will be written I hope its only distributed electronically and not printed so at least the paper won't be wasted.
Memmel,
Sometime you just don't get it.
The rising price of oil will induce substitution away from oil and reduce energy demand in general.
That is exactly what has happened in Europe as a result of high gas taxes.
Take a look at how the US energy efficiency compares with Japan and Germany. It's deplorable.
Even in the US per capital energy consumption outside of transportation, and of course, the US has done virtually nothing to encourage efficient transportation networks.
You are engaging in fear mongering.
No actually the problem is I get it very very well.
I don't have a problem with renewable energy I do have a big problem with it being touted as some sort of solution. Esp claims of ever cheaper renewable energy. It solves nothing.
As I posted on the drumbeat we have had insanely cheap energy for decades and whats the result ?
Super cheap energy got us into one heck of a mess in the first place to claim that some other super cheap energy source solves the problem is simply nonsense.
Right, a continual source of cheap energy only solves the problem of "Where will we get energy?"
We need other answers for the rest of what ails us, and energy is neither the cause nor the solution for those problems.
I certainly know this nation would be pretty good about making sure the most of the mass eradications were done as far from its borders as possible. Ugo and many others posting here are equally aware of what may very well go down. I'm not too sure you are.
Memmel,
Have you ever lived outside the US? I lived in France and now Hungary. Cultures are different.
The French are not pursuing the American dream. The French are far more sophisticated and mature.
And the Apocalypse Now talk is getting tiresome.
If you really that worried about the world coming to an end, buy oil futures and hedge.
Your Apocalypse Now talk is a problem because it encourages people to think that Peak Oil is a fringe movement led by Old Testament Prophets.
It is not helpful nor justified.
Well I've lived in Shanghai, Taipei, HoChiMinh/Siagon does that count as outside the US. I've spend extensive time in I'd guess at least ten countries if not more I'd have to think about it. Last passport need pages added twice.
I've seen and been in more crap than I care to think about in my travels. I just friggin flew around the world because of the Iceland crap spending a month in India and a weird day in Bangkok which was a very very edgy place I was only a few miles from the protests.
Now of course your extensive experience in France and Hungary of course is superior to mine so I don't know what to say.
However absolutely zero doubt in my mind that renewable energy simply does not solve our problems. We need to stop growth reduce our population and live well within our energy supply eventually it should be switched to clean renewable sources sure but thats not important over the short term indeed probably not critical for decades if we get our act together. Indeed if we really did the right thing then I don't see why burning renewable fuels such as coppiced trees and a small PV array and perhaps a few windmills are more than enough for what we really need. The key is to bring the population low enough that simpler solutions become viable. Another part is of course energy efficient dwellings etc.
The key and critical point is not the move to sane renewable energy thats something you do as you embark on solving our problems its not the solution to our problems indeed its not even absolutely required simply it makes sense once we have finally tackled our core problems. Its more icing on the cake if you will.
Until we deal with both absolute population levels and the massive disparity in living conditions world wide coupled with the growth based economic engine then energy sources are themselves simply not important. Even if we managed some sort of energy solution if the result was yet more growth then eventually some other resource would again put us pushing the boundaries of growth.
In reality once everything is said and done NG, CTL, NGL, Nuclear, Renewable etc are simply all variants of the claim that some sort of change in the energy mix is sufficient to allow continued growth. Nuclear done right is by far the strongest contender and of course nothing really wrong with more coal fired electric plant if your willing to ignore global warming. My point is that a good bit of the world could readily adopt more nukes and more coal and keep the absolute energy production levels rising even as oil declines renewables are not technically needed.
With nukes even global warming is not and issue.
I'd argue that regardless my concerns remain as they are not a result of absolute energy levels but the pattern of growth we are on. Only a liquid energy source comparable to oil can in my opinion keep things from imploding others simply require to much infrastructure to work in second/third world countries.
My main point is I don't see the first world lasting with the second and third world imploding we reach my conclusion that we are doomed unless we make some serious and basic changes.
Now if I actually saw proposals that would ensure that second and third world countries would make it through a energy/economic transition then sure I'd change my tune but I've seen very little that addresses the issue I feel need to be addressed. And last but not least the reason why they are big issues now is because the underlying problems are very difficult to solve there simply are no easy solutions and I feel we would need to make some very basic and fundamental changes to even begin to really solve our basic problems of population and inequality.
Windmills in Germany are not even remotely close to a solution.
And of course sure I can be wrong I'm human but my problem is the tragedy that could unfold if I'm even close to being right. Given that it seems a lot of people seem to have no problem condemning potentially billions of people to death I guess I'm something of a minority.
Old Testament ?
No this is a New Testament issue because we could well be on the verge of friggin Armageddon if things are allowed to unfold as they seem to be going. We need to start thinking and acting globally and cut the crap of having a so called global economy without true global citizenship.
memmel,
I wouldn't waste my time with Roderick Beck as far as I can tell he is an arrogant troll who is not interested in exchanging ideas. He is sure his economic theories are the full explanation of all that exists in the universe and his experience in France and Hungary qualify him to tell everyone else what stupid unsofisticated low lifes they are. Just for the record I myself am fluent in three cultures and speak five languages. I have traveled extensively and lived in few countries myself. Big F'n deal! I assume that quite of few of the commenters on this site are quite aware of what the world is like and have themselves ventured beyond the borders of US suburbia.
He is the one who JUST DOESN'T GET IT! I expect it would be too much to expect for him to get over himself and be humble enough to learn a little from some of the folks on this site.
Nothing wrong with Beck. I would rather have someone make some criticisms of my work than have no criticism at all. It gets one prepared for future criticisms.
This is all original stuff I do, so if no one else desk-checks it, I am taking a risk.
The only thing is that the criticism can sting, but you get used to it. And one can always push back :)
WHT, criticism and disagreement are fine and I agree with you, perhaps its just me, but Beck comes across as a condescending know it all. It is his attitude that I have a problem with. or DO YOU JUST NOT GET IT? ;-)
yes, but I do this so I appear more measured and reasonable than I inwardly am.
"but one thing a trip around the world does is open your eyes again to what we have achieved with insanely cheap energy and a agricultural revolution that rivaled the discovery of agriculture itself.
We have filled the world with billions of people that are desperately poor people and perhaps 1 billion or more ravenous consumers hell bent on achieving the "American Dream". "
Right on Mike. Too many "experts" with their superior world views simply haven't "been there, seen that". They have no concept of the scale of humans' consumption and their assault on the Planet. In the US especially, most folks have no concept of how the other 95+% of the people live. Still, they consider themselves experts on how they should live. There's the rub...
Read above they are about to find out.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/23/obama.immigration/?hpt=T1
As I said we are about to find out how the other 95% lives as they are going to be our neighbors.
memmel. I totally agree with you. I have spent a lot of my time trying to do solar thermal energy, and have got some good results, but then I think- what are people gonna do with it, and I come up with the obvious answer- what you say- they are gonna do what they have already done with it- ruin the planet by every suicidal game you can think of, most important being overpopulation.
I remember that taxi driver in Calcutta, obviously a very intelligent person who spoke all the languages of the 5 people shoehorned into his taxi. I was the last one, and he turned to me and asked " can I drive my taxi to the united states". I responded "Only if it floats very well". He sighed and said, "Oh, well, maybe some other way".
No doubt that driver would be a big gain to the USA, and a loss to India, but the fundamental problem remains --WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE.
So, I have decided- let somebody else pick up the banner of solar thermal energy- and good luck to them. I'm going to take up full time what I have done recently only in little dribbles- preach population reduction, especially to little kids, who will inherit this mess.
I don't know where the Peak Oil doomsters come up with this drivel about "This is important because we are using inflating fiat currencies backed by cheap energy to eventually measure the costs of renewable energy.
You can see that the basis for measurement is in and of itself incorrect. Thus the results of articles like this are effectively meaningless."
Have you ever studied price indices?
We can measure how the price of energy evolves over time relative to the price level.
Gail,
If the cost for the installation is stable on 8 dollar per watt (and installation being most of the cost),
but the panel cost is downward trending,
although the EROEI might (according to Ugo's post) be upward trending,
then:
solar panels should be an even better option for society for every
year passing?
i.e. for same buck, more and more energy reurned.
------------------------
Ps cherenkov: I am not saying this is good for the Earth in total,
just discussing this particular issue at the moment.
Cheers
S
Rephrased:
Solar panels: stable cost - increasing EROEI
compared to
for instance oil: increasing cost (oil price, exploration, development) - decreasing EROEI
First option looks better.
Wikipedia on the topic of
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin films
This may be true, but tellurium *on earth* is as rare as platinum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellurium#occurrence
I always find it comforting when the record efficiency is something like >40%, yet we get excited when we hit 11%. I know the 40% is likely crystalline and the 10% is amorphous or poly and that accounts for the difference in expense, but I do see a lot of slack that somebody genius can take up here.
Low cost 10% efficient panels that work in the real world and cost much less to manufacture and install than extremely expensive 40% efficient ones are an example of not letting "perfect" be the enemy of "good enough".
In a way its analogous to wanting a high end sports car that can do 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds when all you really need is a nice, inexpensive, solid little econo box to get you to the supermarket. If it can do 0 to 60 in 8 seconds I'm pretty happy with that!
No, no, I am attacking this from a purely theoretical perspective.
Even though I have spent years of my life working on high-end UHV systems trying to produce perfect single crystal semiconductor layers, I still think some breakthrough will occur that may allow us to create low-impurity (or better yet, tightly controlled impurity, i.e. dopant levels) materials with low dislocation counts. Consider that over the course of a year, I imagine my experiments have produced on average 250 microns of crystalline material on a 6-inch wafer. Per volume, this amounts to 0.36 cubic inches of material at a cost of millions of research dollars. You might as well go prospecting for diamonds at that cost.
We also know that we can pull bulk single-crystals more rapidly out of the liquid phase than we can from vapor deposition but this does not give the abrupt control that we need for junctions.
So there is a type of exclusionary principle at work. We can get the high rate and we can get the fine control but we can't necessarily do both at the same time. We can try spraying the stuff on, but you get crap, and then if we feel that 11% is good enough, well so be it. But therein lies the challenge: how to turn crap into diamonds.
It just occurred to me a good analogy is that of a highway cleaning crew trying to do as good a job picking up strewn garbage from a low-flying jet aircraft as they can by working it manually. That is the kind of process throughput scaling efficiencies you need to imagine. When you think of a clean-up crew you realize the only speed-up efficiency is the size of the crew and of the process of working in parallel. That leads to the obvious long-term strategy of using nanobots or some kind of self-organizing process to create the precise layering in bulk. It will happen someday, guaranteed.
Agreed, WHT. I second your general direction entirely. (And really like the cleanup crew analogy).
Economic efficiency is not the same thing as thermodynamic efficiency or physical efficiency.
Bulk silicon as typically used today runs maybe 14-18%. I bought 14% for my installation because the overall system cost was lower than for 18%, and because I'm not close to using up the roof area (plus I fugure shading will cut hte AC demand). The circa 40% cells are multi-junction. They were developed to power satellites, where component cost isn't much of a driver of overall system cost. They can be used with high quality optics to make concentrating PV systems. Unfortunately the high efficiency cells are pricy, otherwise we would use them exclusively.
I think the issue of EROI becomes not so important once EROI is greater than 5 or 10. After that it is overall economic costs that matter. With patience you could bootstrap an economy that runs on stuff with an EROI of 1.1, but it would take a long while.
Precisely, and if I have a large enough roof area and I can get inexpensive 10% efficient amorphous panels that I can pretty much glue to the roof thereby reducing my installation costs, as long as my system is producing my requisite KW hours, that's all I need.
The only reason I'd want the expensive monocrystaline high efficiency panels is if I need the power but my space is at a very high premium.
Of course if I need to power a multimillion dollar satellite the 40% efficient panel is the only way to go. Not that I'll complain, mind you, if WHT can get me the good stuff for the price of the amorphous. I'd be able to live under a much smaller roof with a lot less need for electricity in the first place.
Just curious what is the price per watt of a 40% efficient panel nowadays?
FMagyar -
To amplify what you've just said, I think it is worth repeating that efficiency and effectiveness are not necessarily the same thing, and in many cases, are in opposition to each other. Your sports car versus econo box analogy is a good one.
Being that the amount of solar energy available is directly proportional to the exposed area of a collector, PV efficiency is typically expressed in terms of the percentage of incoming solar energy captured. The greater than percentage, the more efficient the PV system is said to be.
However, the cost of a solar collector is directly proportional to its surface area. If the incremental cost of a super high-efficiency collector is a greater percentage than the efficiency gain over a run-of-the-mill collector, then in my view the super high-efficiency collection is less 'effective' in terms of providing affordable energy.
So which is more desirable: a 900 sq. ft. collector that is 8% efficient and has an installed cost of X, or a 600 sq. ft. collector that is 12% efficient but has an installed cost of 2X? Both deliver the exact same amount of electricity.
The more efficient collector would be more desirable only if available surface area was a constraint (as it would be on something like a space station or solar powered vehicle), but that is rarely the case for stationary applications, as we are hardly running out of surface area upon which the sun shines.
Area is usually quite cheap, and in many cases free, as it usually already exists, such as in the case of the roof on an existing building.
I don't think that is really true. The solar panels need to be protected from wind and hail etc. So a certain amount of structural integrity is needed, which is going to place a lower limit on the cost per square meter. Balance Of System issues, and installation costs will be reduced by higher eficiency collectors. The effort to raise efficiencies is still an important one. You basically just got to run the numbers with what is available at the time of installation. If other things ar equal, I'd choose the more efficient system, as that leaves more unused area for future expansion. I'd hate to use up my entire roof with a say 6% efficient collector then a couple of years down the line discover that 18% efficient panels are now available at the same cost.
I don't think it is all that important that solar cells get better EROEI than oil! That isn't necessary to make a transition NOW, already quite late. This is a matter of making homes more efficient, upgrading the grid and eliminating the VAST waste of the military industrial complex--all policy issues, all matters of advocacy. As ever, I point out the biggest savings will be in the reduction of energy use. A lot can be learned from people living off the grid.
What can be learned from people living off the grid? That it's better to use crappy technology than new more-effective technology? Decades ago you could have asked, "Why live off the grid with solar cells when you can just chop wood?"
And anyway the two things aren't mutually exclusive. We can build alt-energy and focus on reducing demand.
What can be learned? ..
No, not that it's better, just that it's entirely POSSIBLE for many to get by with (what you call) Crappy Technology. The watts coming from a dingy old panel, or a squirrel-cage hydro setup are just as good as the ones from anywhere.
All those calculators in the dusty hinterlands of our desk drawers will still dutifully turn on with that crappy technology.. and a cheery woodfire isn't too bad, either.
.. so yes, they aren't mutually exclusive, as you say, but there are all sorts of things to learn, that people in independent setups have figured out and would be worth piecing into this puzzle.
Actually a lot.
Having to make do with a limited amount of energy really sharpens your mind as to where you can save and what you really need. (That would be, in this order: (small) lights, washing mashine, fridge. Everything else is more or less a luxury. Cool stuff like cell phones and notebook computers need very little power and are easy to run on a tiny DC PV System.)
I know a guy in spain who makes do with one solar panel for a 200sqm house (to run the washing mashine he fires up a generator, the fridge runs on propane somehow). Its such a nice place to live, that I would change anyday with him if I could.
Unless propane fridges have really improved I'd go for more panels to keep from hauling that stuff in. Seem like back in the day I was hauling the 90 lb? (about 4 ft. tall) propane tank in every few weeks for one sparsely used gas light, a medium small fridge and a couple burner stove, and that was using the wood stove to do a lot of the cooking half the year. But then the up front cost of more panels might just not fit into a cheap off grid game plan...yet.
They haven't improved that much. Unless you already have one, or have a source of free gas (e.g. biogas), you are better off with an efficient electric fridge. The 12V marine fridges are phenomenally efficient, and run for decades with no maintenance. The propane(or 3way - propane, 120V/AC/12VDC) fridges use ammonia and are very maintenance prone - just ask a marine or RV service centre.
Same sized RV fridges, when running on 12 V, the electric ones uses 1/4 of the amp draw of the 3-way fridge.
I've been too busy the last couple of days to jump in on some of the threads. Now I find myself frustrated by so many posts by people that don't know jack about living off grid (not you Paul, just a good place to jump in).
For years now I've listened as folks explain to other folks all of the "issues" that make off grid living not viable. I recently listened to a guy at a political rally trash renewables, especially PV, to the point where he said that "anyone that says they can live off grid without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars is a liar. Even then, it doesn't work". Eventually the candidate (a Republican, actually) piped up and told the guy "the fella standing behind you has been living off grid for years. I've been to his house. It's pretty much like yours, Pete." When he looked at me, I couldn't hold back: "You're an ass, Pete. You should shut up."
My refrigerator is an 8 year old Whirlpool energy star, 19 cu/ft. Our dishwasher is a Kenmore. Washer and dryer: Maytag. Range is Kenmore (propane/electric). 52" Samsung (POS) TV. Microwave, toaster, electric can opener, all here. Hot water: solar with propane backup.
One thing my house has that Pete's likely doesn't is lots of switches that actually get used and actually turn things OFF.
I (and others) have posted that living with intermitancy, adapting some, powering down some when required isn't the end of the world. It's not even a big deal. I grow weary.........
/rant
Oh, sorry! I forgot to mention the small chest freezer, the ceiling fans, the electric iron, the dog dryer, the..........
Nah, Good Rant, Ghung! Tell em!
It was worth it just for my now having the chance to imagine what the heck a Dog Dryer would look like.
(I'm thinking probably just a regular dryer, but with a seatbelt and a barf bag. :V Barf, Barf! )
That was rich, best laugh I've had in a couple days ?- )
Thanks, kuhl. Actually, the best dog dryer on the market (IMO) is actually a cattle dryer:
It'll turn a Husky into a cotton candy machine, make the fur fly! A must have for the groomer who does the big, heavy-coated (shedding) dogs. It'll also give your inverter a run for it's money. Great leaf blower too! Who says you can't do stuff on solar power???
...and for your little frufru dog:
...the Rapid Electric "Speedy" (lifetime warranty).
Both quality made in the USA!
What would you suggest for someone who just wants to dry their Shetland Sheepdog once every couple of months at home?
I think jokuhl had that worked out above
"(I'm thinking probably just a regular dryer, but with a seatbelt and a barf bag. :V Barf, Barf! )" ?- ) I bet if you are really creative you could come up with a small dog drying solarium, might even be money it.
Hi Nick. A velocity dryer like this: http://www.petedge.com/product/Grooming/Grooming-Equipment/Dryers-Dehumi...
Works great on Shelties. It uses high speed air to blast water from the coat and heat from the motor to finish drying your dog. They also blow out dead coat and dander. Use cotton balls in your dogs ears to protect it's hearing. Get a good "slicker brush" to keep the tangles out as you dry. For shelties I recommend a 4" (large) Doggyman slicker, available from Cherrybrook.com, and other places. http://www.cherrybrook.com/index.cfm/a/catalog.prodshow/vid/404291/catid...
Be gentle with the slicker....brush the hair, not the skin! Have fun!
(and don't forget to remove the cotton balls when you're done.)
Thanks.
I think that would scare him - he gets scared at loud dryers. We've been using a small, quiet dryer, but of course it takes forever.
If you take the nozzle off and break him in slowly, he'll get used to it pretty quickly. Shelties are tough, courageous little dogs (even if spoiled rotten) :)
Thanks!
A lot more of us need to tell the Pete's of the world exactly that!
In reference to the Charles Hall balloon graph, I think the x axis is just as important as the y axis if not more so (x axis = energy express in Joules, y axis = EROI). Correctly me if I am mistaken. I interpret x-axis to be scalability: no matter how high your EROI is, if you can't scale you don't have a viable source of energy. For example, 1930 oil has hight EROI, but the scale (production rate) cannot support 2005 America.
If you look at the graph, wind turbines and solar PV are to the far left on the x axix, indicating they are very small in scale. The cost of scaling them up will be an issue, especially if their return does not come very quickly. If renewables cannot really be used independently of the grid (especially true for wind), then problems with the grid may reduce their actual life, and thus their true EROI.
IMO as well as a high efficiency and low cost (good EROEI) solar PV needs adequate amounts of sunlight and some way of storing the power until it is needed (maybe six months or more?) - this is not a trivial task at mid to high lattitudes.
To give you some idea of the task in the UK:
If the future is mostly electric (IMO it is) then the daily BAU requirement for total primary energy has to be met - for the UK this is on AVERAGE ~130KWh per day per person (for the US ~double that) or ~47000 KWh per person per year.
Our need for energy in the UK is much higher in the winter with very short day length and very little direct sunshine. My solar hot water system generates very little hot water in the winter months.
To generate just the average amount of power consumed by my 3 person family, even at 50% PV efficiency, would require ~200 square metres of PV panel - to meet midwinter needs it's way more than that!
I would say ... "get real!"
(PV might meet Bangladesh's needs at 0.2 KWh per person per day!)
If you'd be happy to use energy from natural gas shipped in from Russia, what's wrong with electricity shipped in from N. Africa? (Dessertec).
Electricity kwh's aren't necessarily equivalent 1 to 1 with fuel kwh's, eg. even air source heat pumps in UK should be able to multiply heat out from electricity x 4 at least.
Stop fighting it so hard, open up a little.
I'd say the 130 kwh/person/day is the disconnect from reality here. Clearly, converting all our energy usage (which is hugely in excess in the West, as we all know) into KWH and then tasking PV or Wind with the arduous challenge of meeting that is simply a setup for a fall.
There are countless ways that we use electricity that could be moved over to other sources (Solar Heating probably the greatest of these, refrigeration as well..), or simply done away with by applying more conscious design ( IE, Interiors lit directly by daylight sources, and not electricity, turning refrigeration right off in the Wintertime.. with appropriate, simple, alternate ways of moving the warm and cold of the season around. )
Bangladesh? Not even helpful, when you chat with people right here who are generating a good bit more than that every day. Yes, we're priviledged 'moderns'.. but it's not like this is the Rockefeller compound.
You really don't get it do you? - without FF, in my part of the world all the nation's primary energy will have to be electricity. This is most certainly NOT BAU, at least you get that bit!
Even if it were affordable (which currently it most certainly isn't - why assume it will ever be affordable?) PV isn't a viable alternative for everybody - the reason is you need the sun shining when you need the power.
I live at 51 degrees North - that's 74 degrees North mid-winter - typically the sun is shining above a thick layer of grey cloud. In the winter the amount of energy available from the sun is trivial - trust me, I know 'cos I have solar panels.
For the UK solar PV is not a viable solution even for current domestic electrcity needs, which are a very small fraction of total primary energy.
I do get it, and am not suggesting that Solar is your solution.. but the more central problem is what you're accepting as 'needs' .. your location will surely define what is possible.. and YOUR location is as defined by the Gulf Stream as it is by today's FF availability. But your energy demand can be mitigated in large ways, if people are willing to shake off the traditional home setup and consumption patterns. Those might look like really ornery dragons to fight, but they are at least fightable on a house by house basis, unlike the FF, Gulf Stream or Solar Supply.
Cut your household demand in half, and your Solar panels just got twice as helpful.
Of course, electricity is 3x (or more) more useful than primary energy, right?
An EV can run on .25KWH/mile, while an ICE vehicle may use as much as 3KWH/mile of electricity equivalent in the form of liquid fuel.
this is why wind turbines are a better option in the uk.
However my primary concern (as it is for most people)is cost.
Installed domestic photovoltaic has a 20 year payback period.
Installed solar thermal 15 years.
Domestic turbines are a bit of a non starter.
Heat pumps are 400% efficient, but use electricity, which is 4* more expensive than gas.
Nobody is going to make those investments while gas is so cheap. I think they're a good idea, but i'm not going to do it.
Having said that, i have an idea for solar which might cut the installed cost by an order of magnitude. So going to build it and test.
wind turbines and solar PV are to the far left on the x axix, indicating they are very small in scale. The cost of scaling them up will be an issue
Perhaps, but there's no risk of the lights going out. We have plenty of coal to get us through any length transition. So, there's no real risk of Peak Energy - instead, we're dealing with Peak Oil and Climate Change.
Wind power is primarily a solution for CC; the primary solution for PO is electrification of transportation and heating.
If renewables cannot really be used independently of the grid (especially true for wind), then problems with the grid may reduce their actual life, and thus their true EROI.
I'm puzzled by this. Nat gas, coal, nuclear...these all require the grid. Why would we hold renewables to a higher standard?
I have to question the premise in the first place.
"Cannot really be used independently of the grid" -
Of course they can.. it would require matching them to a local load, and that doesn't have to be an exact match, either.. but there are ways to take and use that power without the grid.. ways to bypass the original Grid-based control systems.
In fact, a dedicated load, perhaps an adjoining factory that used it for creating and storing process heat, or refrigeration (for arguments' sake), so that it could be storing up while wind is available.. could be using a greater portion of that generator's full output, and thus achieving a better eroei than a unit that is feeding a national system from a distance of many miles, and incurs steady line losses.
I agree - any form of generation can be used locally, and PV is much easier than most.
Heck, wind can be used locally - Guantanamo gets 1/3 of it's power from wind. It's much cheaper than diesel.
One quibble - line losses average less than 7%, so grid services are pretty cost-effective.
Don't some factories now use off peak power for creating ice and then use the ice to cool the facility during peak power price time? So there would be lots of ways to use wind that wasn't grid connected, just that if the grid is available it would seem you'd be better off hooking up to it. The options are then increased manifold, or at least they should be if the grid is operated in an enlightened fashion. There can be downright obstructionist action taken by some power companies, I believe I read that Colorado has a bad case of that.
Exelon just blocked wind power plans in Illinois, because wind power would compete with their nuclear and coal plants.
Entrenched interests are the main barrier to getting rid of FFs.
Quite the battleground. I knew I was reading something about CO a while back, I guess it was Xcel that was in the news that time. That one is actually a fairly dicey issue and as more private renewables come on line it will have to dealt with, it costs money to maintain and run a grid. Apparently other approaches to operating grids create their own issues.Sweden's SvK (national grid) has raised a few hackles about the way in which it treats neighboring countries.
Do you have a link on Exelon's IL action.
Colorado new Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act has just changed the game there but hasn't left every one a happy camper as this article explains.
http://www.progressillinois.com/posts/content/2010/03/30/exelon-attempts...
Correctly me if I am mistaken. I interpret x-axis to be scalability:
That's not correct: it simply represents it's current size, not it's potential.
Interesting times to say the least, Ugo. Since you mentioned it again, do you know the current status of the Kitegen project? I am anxious to see how the prototype fares.
The second Kitegen prototype (and the first one "to scale") is being built in Italy on a hill not far from Torino. The problem is that the forest service ordered a stop to the work and fined the company because they say that they had cut a few shrubs too many along the sides of the road that leads to the top of the hill. Of course, that has been the result of pressure by people who don't want the kitegen being built. So far, that seems to be only minor harassment. But if the kitegen turns out to be working as expected (which I believe it will) we are going to see things....
Just yesterday, the latest news on Kitegen were posted on NextBigFuture:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/04/kitegen-making-progress-to-3-megawatt.html
http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/Te.html#Who
Sources of Tellurium:
Obtained as a by-product of copper and lead refining. Annual world production is around 215 tons.
Is CdTe thin film really scalable to a degree that matters?
Good find, Hedmark.
So now what we need to know is how much Tellurium is needed per mega watt. Then we can work out a top bracket for most optimistic roll out.
Anyone know how much is needed per MW?
It is a mugs game to claim that solar PV may be limited by available Te. Just today I read a new article on Physorg.com which summarized another new technique being developed for capturing sunlight by chemically attaching hooks (carbohydrate molecules) to the edges of sheets of graphene (carbon) which allow them to be accurately and cheaply spread out over a layer of TiO2 to enable very high capture rate. Closing in on a carbon-based solar cell - Physorg - April 9, 2010 [QUOTE]To test the effectiveness of their graphene light acceptor, the scientists constructed rudimentary solar cells using titanium dioxide as an electron acceptor. The scientists were able to achieve a 200-microampere-per-square-cm current density and an open-circuit voltage of 0.48 volts. The graphene sheets absorbed a significant amount of light in the visible to near-infrared range (200 to 900 nm or so) with peak absorption occurring at 591 nm.
The scientists are in the process of redesigning the graphene sheets with sticky ends that bind to titanium dioxide, which will improve the efficiency of the solar cells.
"Harvesting energy from the sun is a prerequisite step," Li said. "How to turn the energy into electricity is the next. We think we have a good start." [/QUOTE]
This sort of stuff is only getting started and progress should be relatively rapid.
I think not scalable to the level of terawatts of PV power. But, for the time being, there seem to be no constraints in producing around 2 GWp of CdTe cells per year. The point of my paper is that CdTe is a start. I am sure there are other ways of making thin film cells that will turn out to be even more efficient
What else is Tellurium used for? Would a mass roll out put pressure on other necessary sectors?
Hedmark asked
From wikipedia:
I do have a concern about potentially attractive technologies that have limited scaling. I'm not saying that definitely is the case here, we have not tested the potential supply of Te, nor of our ability to make the thin films get thinner. But these thinfilms are taking some of the development finances away from silicon, which at least doesn't have a limited material supply. If thing films are indeed limited in scalability, we may need cheap, optimized silicon in a few years time. The current PV market is already about 10GWp per year, so something that may only scale to less than that size just isn't going to be a game changer.
Of course there are other sorts of thin films. CIGS is pretty popular (Cadmium Indium Gallium Selenium) (I think). That is probably also limited (by Gallium I think), but because the limiting materials differ we can get the sum of the limits.
Dear Ugo,
Could you please quote a reference that can prove your cheering statement that CdTe thin film cells have an EROEI of 40?. And if it is possible to know the methodology used and the data collected, even better. Because in EROEI of renewables, let me say it, I am becoming very much like St. Thomas: I need to introduce my fingers into the sore spot, to believe it. There is too much fuss and circular references of a bunch of 'experts' that probably have seldomly left their labs or offices and gone very much into real life to doublecheck.
Bests.
Dear Pedro, the references are at the bottom of the paper. You can also ask for a reprint to Marco Raugei who, incidentally, is not far from you; in Barcelona. You may write to him at marco.raugeiATesci.es. And you are perfectly right that one should be like St. Thomas in these things. At the beginning, I didn't want to believe these numbers; but after several letters and exchanges; now I am convinced that Raugei and his coworkers are correct. We do have this kind of EROEI for CdTe!
Well, all I can say is OH MY. OH MY....
Ugo Bardi, you are to be congratulated. At last, an article on renewable energy that does not attempt to crucify the industry on the cross of EROEI, at last an article that sees just the glimmer of what can possibly be done (we do not know that it will be done, and we do not know if it can live up the dreams of renewable cornucopians, I am not sure any technology could, but at least we see a glimmer of what may be technically possible). I was losing hope that even consideration of the possibilities of renewable were to be allowed to be discussed on TOD (well, at least TOD US, different in tone than TOD Europe, which may tell us something in itself).
I am always fascinated by how the sense of scale has been warped in the modern age by the addiction to the MASSIVE, and how for all the creative thinking they are capable of the TOD folks can fall into the same addiction. Allow me to elaborate (you knew I would):
In the early 1950's, the Volkswagen Beetle began to appear in large numbers in the U.S. They were great transportation for so many purposes, easy to use and easy to love. The first generation of Beetles in the U.S. had an engine that developed 36 horsepower (!) (about 28 kilowatts). Today folks say that electric cars simply cannot compete with todays 300 plus horsepower cars and SUV's. That is probably true in most cases, unless one is willing to spend massive amounts of money on batteries, but here is the revealation: The electric cars do not have to compete with 300 horsepower cars IF you accept peak oil or resource depletion, because for the most part (excepting a small wealthy minority who will keep them as recreational vehicles) the 300 horsepower car will be GONE.
Gee then, does that mean we will return to the horse? Why would anyone jump to those kind of hysterical conclusions? The Volkswagen Beetle was a truly advanced automobile, the refinement of 65 years of automotive development. It may not be all that is wanted, but to maintain long distance efficient transportation, about 28 kilowatts is all that is needed. The Beetle is such a huge leap over the age of horse and bicycle for long distance travel or for commuting it is easy now to dismiss them as not practical, not salable. Compared to walking? Compared to a horse? In my teenage years I was to learn that in Europe a 36 horsepower car was actually fairly average. The beautiful comfortable Lancia Appia was about 36 horsepower, and while not fast it was used to roam about the Alps in all manner of weather. The first Porsche sportcars were regarded as high performance at 55 horsepower!
The same is true in homes. With modern efficient household appliences, efficient lighting and hot water heating, a households energy consumption can be greatly reduced with no real discomfort. The house would still be a fantastic luxury compared to the wood heated non electric homes of the 18th century. The waste is the problem, the waste of energy that produces NOTHING for NO ONE.
Renewables can easily provide the energy needed for a truly well designed, elegantly designed culture. There would be more than enough energy if you remove waste and stupidity, which no energy source, no amount of technology, no renewable can overcome. Frankly, even microbes fed endless amounts of energy can suffocate in their own shit. Lack of energy is not the problem.
On EROEI, once more, I want to point out a few things about that ("Oil, domestic, 1930") on the ballown graph. I can only say one thing: How idiotic. Oil circa 1930 can only be given this fantastic number because almost every cost, every imput is EXTERNALIZED away from the calculation. Does anyone believe that the folks who drilled, refined, produced and consumed oil in that period spent one joule of that precious EROEI on environmental concerns? Do you think that costs of the rail and the road and the barges used to haul it to the consumer is considered in the EROEI of ("Oil, domestic, 1930")? Do you believe for one moment that the hours of back breaking labor in the primitive oilfields or in the ancient refineries is calculated into that ("Oil, domestic, 1930")? I actually once posted on TOD links to photos I once had of sailing ships used to haul barrels of oil...think of that, the EROEI of fossil fuel enhanced by the EROEI of a wind powered ship! Pull up some really old pictures of oilfields and see the number of men and the number of horses used in the oilfields! And yet we are told that oil was from the first day "self feeding", or at least renewables are expected to be. It is mathematical hocus pocus of the worst order...EROEI (which when used properly, more in the way Gail was describing can be a useful tool) is reduced to pseudo-science.
oh, that other little thing...CARBON RELEASE. Do you think the calculations of ("Oil, domestic, 1930") include the costs of contribution to carbon release? The EROEI for oil would then look something like this:
(Energy returned: Enough to push a Flathead Ford/Energy invested: Trying to avoid the end of the world as we know it). If you accept carbon release as a serious issue, and seriously accept the Hansen models of climate change (or some even more dire scenarios out there) it pretty much junks EROEI as a calculation for fossil fuels because the benefit/cost equation becomes (benefit 150 years/cost infinite), do the calc on that math geeks.
On another string on this subject on TOD, I finally got one of the contributing TOD keypost writers to simply say that EVEN TODAY, no, the carbon release and the costs of trying to avoid carbon release are NOT calculated into the cost of oil on an EROEI basis. Essentially this has a fantastic effect, making the cost of carbon release a mathematical "freebie". It is idiocy on the face of it IF you take carbon release and climate change seriously.
Ugo Bardi is correct that what is needed is an ability to actually visualize, his parable of "satori". Mine came years ago when I was reading about the power produced per acre at one of the California concentrating mirror plants, and the calculations (I am doing this from memory, so the stats are not exact) was over 5,000 horsepower or 6.5 megawatts per acre. The return per mile was even more stunning to me, all from sunlight. I then looked up the production for our local utility plant, the Mill Creek plant just outside Louisville KY, and sure enough, the Mill Creek plant using coal produced MUCH MORE power, at that time over 750 megawatts (I think it is now larger). I was heartbroken. There is no way solar can compete with that.
A few years later my sister got a job there and I had to drive her to the plant. I was astounded by the acreage the facility occupied, it had to be at least a two 5 square mile facility. The barge docking and coal facilities were equally gigantic, with massive machines used to auger the coal off the barges where it stood in giant mountains behind the plant. Clever I told my sister, that they keep enough coal onsite to last through the winter...she quickly corrected me, "No, they will go through that pile in about 4 days, maybe a week."
Mountains of coal swallowed in a week, the carbon spit out stacks as tall as skyscrapers, the massive facilities used to pump river water water into the turbines and the cooling system, and I wasn't even seeing the giant coal mine facilities in Eastern Kentucky where whole mountains are blasted to bits and some of the most diverse ecosystems in the temperate zones of the world are wiped out in one of the most ecologically distructive methods known on the face of the earth, the huge locomotives running on 4 main tracks (2 in/2 out, running 24/7) into and out of the mining areas, the thousands of coal cars...what a moment of revealation, of Bardi's description of "satori". And yet on the "bubble charts" of EROEI coal is always shown very cheap isn't it? Suddenly that acre producing 6.5 megawatts of clean energy from the sun, without the ever depleting giant coal stack that must be fed daily, and the ever carbon belching smokestacks with carbon release that can be measured 3 states away seemed like a fantastic dream, a quantum leap forward...suddenly my ability to actually "see" was enhanced in a way it had never been. Now I see differently...I see the thousands of flat roof big box stores and shopping malls absorbing the suns heat only to be driven off by the air conditioners, the miles of abandoned "grey belts" surrounding every major city, the thousands of homes with air conditioners battling the sun daily...I see differently, I see the millions of kilowatts of "stranded sunlight".
A goose in a bottle? No, this is an elephant in a bottle. But as I have warned before: The successes very well could be more disruptive than the failures. It is not called "disruptive" technology for nothing.
(P.S. One last question: When are you guys on TOD US going to start seriously reading my posts so you will know what the hell is going on? :-)
Roger Conner
RC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2CV
If we ar etalking about the beetle, I do not know if people know them in the US, but do not forget the other post WWII vehicle the 2CV exactly what we need if the roads are not so good any more, not quick but light and versatile. Only requires a small redesign to make it electrical.
I like the 2CV. Though the fact that the beetle has an air cooled engine in my opinion makes it the superior choice. No coolant running through the engine block, no water pump and no radiator hoses to burst.
I used to drive Alfa Romeos and learned to hate cars with radiators...changing a water pump in a Milano on a dirt road away from the city will make anyone understand that hate!
Of course if you are talking electric propulsion then it won't make any difference and either the 2CV or the beetle will work fine...
Ah I remember my aircooled 1967 bug. Started in any weather, just open the engine compartment and set the step on the throttle. Of course at colder than minus 20 F seeing out the windshield was a problem. It was an old Chicago area bug that I'd taken to the UP (about 20 miles south of Lake Superior) and the heat ducts had long ago been corroded away by the winter road salt, I used a couple old licensec plates to patch the holes in the floor. Driving to the sawmill in the dark was a challenge because there was always a little blowing snow and it made the headlit road and the frosted windshield all the same color. Navigation was more a Braille operation between ditches.
One morning I managed to go in the ditch twice in the first half mile from my house, luckily the county plow came by right away and yanked me out both times. After the second time he suggested an old trick, filling a sock with rocksalt and keeping a small spot of the flat windshield open with it. My neighbors, Mother Earth News types that had relocated from Detroit, had a light on and were happy to supply me with rock salt and an old sock. I never had to drive to work by Braille again, that little ten square inch hole in the frost was a life saver....
so in some places water cooled did have advantages and electric will be somewhat more problematic in those same locales. Resistance heat chews up a lot of electricity, but I'm sure something will get figured out.
The other alternative.
Got stuck in an ice storm in South Carolina in a TR-3 with no heater (Calfornia car -- the heater leaked, so I took it out and threw it away). No windshield washer either.
I discovered you can melt enough ice off the windshield with the heat from the palm of your hand that the wipers will clear a hole you can see through long enough to warm your hand up for the next round.
And I agree with the ridiculous horsepower requirements these days. I started out in a Bugeye Sprite, 948 thrashing cc's, 43 HP. And that was new. The one I had only had 2 cylinders that worked reliably. 0-60 in 45 seconds. Out of my way, bitchez!!!
Yes we had fun. The fifty-four Ford with the glove on the vacuum motor operated wipers that cleared snow...whenever you backed off the throttle. And the fifty-five couple ton Chevy with a hay rack and split axle that didn't work (max 30 mph) with the inch and a half stick wedged under the back side of the hood to let enough engine heat to the windshield to clear a patch with a window open (after the heater fan went out in the below zero).
Never forget the day I forgot I'd ripped the brake lines to shreds when the snow chains broke lose the last time I'd driven that truck a couple months earlier. The local bar/grocery store owner and his family never had any idea of how thin a thread their lives hung on while they smiled and waved at me from their dining room table as I pulled up on the old driveshaft grabbing hand brake for all I was worth with two hands...finally stopping a foot or two from their big window.
No reason to think the young folks coming up will be a lick less inventive or reckless than we were. You can have great adventures on low bucks, at low speed, with low horsepower.
I'm with you, Roger! I grew up
drivingflying those little wing shaped "folks wagons", in Brazil.Agree 100% :-)
Well done.
And, of course, many of those same zealots will now claim that the economic cost of fixing the mess is far too expensive.
RC,
My hat is off to you.
Of course you do realize that a prophet has no honor in his own country and or time , don't you? :)
We won't change until we have to, forced by necessity, of course.Too many jobs and tax rolls and retirement portfolios are based on "bau today".
But personally I have no doubt that "bau tomorrow" will be just as heavily invested in renewables.The only real question is whether the economy as we know it will hold up long enough for the transition to occur without a truly awful crash.
I see serious figures thrown around here indicating that oil has a present day eroi of only ten or twelve, max.That eroi is obviously going to continiously decline as the industry is forced to utilize ever poorer quality reserves.Ditto ng and coal.
Now I want to digress and talk about a conservative old farmer world view-the first piece of folk wisdom that comes to mind is that when it comes to the price of land they ain't making any more; the long term trend is up, and in relative terms, will continue to be up, compared to other investments.ditto oil and gas and coal, none of which are reusable year after year..
The only real cap that can apply to the prices of these nonrenewable fuels is the one imposed by the inability of the economy to pay for them.The electricity generated over the last half of the life of a solar or wind system is going to look to the owners of the individual sized systems bought today like the greatest investment they ever made.Not only will the base rates for purchased electricity go thru the roof as fuel and environmental compliance costs rise; it is only reasonable to expect punitive level energy consumption taxes will be enacted as well.
The cost of installation that is the current deal killer will fall as the systems become more widely marketed;my personal bet is that I will live to see the components for various turn key packages stacked on pallets at the big box stores. Other products commonly used today were once only handled by specialty marketers.
As far as installation costs go, nothing is built from scratch today to purposely accomodate small scale solar or wind, and the installations currently being done on the large scale are still so new and so few that there has as yet been no real standardization and economy of scale realized, of all the variuos processes involved, except in manufacturing the individual component parts.Eventuallly that will change, and great savings will result.One reason I love my old Toyota pickup truck is that it came with tie down hooks on the edge of the cargo box;they must have cost only a few cents apiece, installed, at the factory.Ditto the hard points and wire conduits needed to install solar on a roof-they will be installed eventually during construction, because the building inspector will insist.
A renewables installation will have no dismantling and cleanup costs; decomissioning is a mind fake in this case as in so many others. I will gladly pay any person within reasonable driving distance of my home one hundred dollars for any automobile in any condition whatsoever, as I can easily sell it to the local scrap yard for three hundred dollars within ten minutes and net a hundred twenty five after paying the tow truck.The old wreck on cinder blocks is a thing of the past;the only ones left are of considerable actual or sentimental value .
A wind farm once in service can be kept in service essentially forever by periodic replacement ot the various component parts of the turbines and so forth.As individual collectors go bad, ditto for a solar farm.Only a very little of the materials will have to be landfilled even with todays tech , and the recycling industry very reasonably can be expected to become vastly more aggressive and efficient as time passes.
If your grand child needs new panels installed thirty years from now on the house he or she inherits from you, the installer will replace the panels, not the system.The panels themselves, if they are still functioning but at a low output,as will be the case most often, will probably be reinstalled for a few more years someplace where space is not at a premuim, and the work is all at ground level before they are finally recycled.
As for the storage bugaboo, it too is grossly exaggerated.Eventually it may become a real problem, in terms of adjusted expectations, but if nobody solves it , reality can adjust our expectations for us easy as pie.
For now and for the next decade or two, which I see as the critical transition period, we really don't even need any stinking storage.
A few simple regulatory orders can take care of the problem, by making the utilities do what is necessary to utilize whatever is available, such as shutting down a gas fired facility. A smart meter system can be used to enable home owners to turn down thier ac a little early before they get home, thereby creating storage in effect .A refrigerator can be built with a dedicated ice reservoir sufficiently large , at very little extra expense, in such a way that it will hardly ever run except when the smart meter tells it to.ditto a heat pump- A really well insulated house can be heated up a couple of extra degrees when the juice is free from the wind or sun, effectively storing it for the night hours.
Make no mistake-the problem later on is not going to be the financial consideration of balancing grid tied renewables with the loads and the existing ff powered generating plants-the problem is going to be keeping the plants running at all in the face of ultra expensive fuel that will not be consistently available as needed.
We have never had much money at our house, and we have always been satisfied with material goods and machinery sufficient unto the need-we swim when the sun heats our pool, we shiver a little sometimes before we put more wood on the fire. We really enjoy each fresh fruit and vegetable as it comes into season,because we will mostly be eating it frozen, canned, or dried for the rest of the year. We have all so far lived to ripe old ages.
Methinks the typical reader of this forum is due for a reality based downward adjustment of his expectations in the not so distant future.
I think you underestimate the average TOD reader. I would bet that many accept hard-form demand management (like you describe). At a minumum Soft-form demand management which is stuff like smart refrigerators where the user doesn't even have to know its happening. But I think the transition to demand management will be gradual over at least a quarter of a century. So perhaps the average citizen will barely notice the changes.
Yep. Once you've lived off-grid without fancy renewable electricity for a few months it isn't that scary anymore.
Also, I suspect that most of us don't expect a fast collapse scenario (though it is a possibility to have a plan for, I personally don't think it's that likely).
“How idiotic. Oil circa 1930 can only be given this fantastic number because almost every cost, every imput is EXTERNALIZED away from the calculation. Does anyone believe that the folks who drilled, refined, produced and consumed oil in that period spent one joule of that precious EROEI on environmental concerns?”
You are probably correct that little attention was paid to environmental concerns at that time. Not much attention was paid to the long-term consequences of smoking tobacco at that time either. However, we do learn and we now know that smoking is not good and thoughtlessly exploiting our environment will eventually come back as a cost. The costs of those consequences were shifted forward in time and left for somebody else to pay. The reason folks so fiercely fight against environmental concerns and legal constraints is that it does cost and thereby drives up the cost of doing biz for those selling petroleum products and tobacco.
Maybe when you stop writing small book comments without enough signal to noise to bother with? Really, Roger, I see one of your comments and think "he often writes interesting things", but then look at the length and decide to see if the replies indicate it was worth reading. For grins, I copied your comment into Word, where it ran to two and a half pages, and found that it was 1,600 words. You've made some good points, but not really 1,600 words worth. And that's from someone who agrees with most of what you wrote.
That's what your scroll-wheel is for.
I don't think there's a signal/noise issue with RC.. just a lot of signal.
Memmel is the Novelist, and OFM does a fair job too.. but I'm not complaining, or telling anyone their hard won ASCII text isn't worth it's bandwidth.. unless it's demonstrably WRONG or ANTISOCIAL. Then I'm happy to start tearing it up.
He asked when people at TOD USA will read his comments. The scroll-wheel doesn't help with that at all. That's the problem, he often writes useful comments but people just scroll by because the comments are so long.
Yeah, I wonder how much really useful stuff I've missed because I couldn't afford the time to read all of what OFM or Airdale wrote. It's kind of a peak-oil conundrum: if you take this problem seriously and take measures to protect your family, community, etc. from it, you have less time to read comments at TOD.
I only answered Roger's question because I often value his comments, and thought he might really want to know.
I take the James Joyce position..."I ask nothing more of my readers than that they devote their life to the study of my work." :-)
Or one of my other favorites, "If you want brevity, read bumper stickers." Okay, enough fun, now I have to go to my paying job! My problem is that I tend to work a lot of thoughts through by writing through them and then figure what the hell, I'll post it...you folks are saints for even allowing me the sounding board, and the feedback is always priceless...thank you all, it's fun! :-)
RC
I hear your point.. I'm time-constrained, too.
But the fact is, this is really never going to be a 'bumper sticker' site. The answers and the issues are complex, and the audience here is not the masses who average a little less into the heavy reading than we here.
Roger puts a lot of good meat onto the bone. When I have the luxury, I'll chew those bites 25 times and swallow. Often enough, though, I have to grab a handfull and run with it.
Anyway, sorry if I was snotty above.. part of being rushed. I want to be part of the Earthday stuff outside, but I'm running around trying to get things done.. and it's just lovely outside, too. Kills me.
I owned a 1963 bug and had a love hate relationship with it. Lots of maintenance and poor performance. For the horsepower, the efficiency was horrible compared to cars today, especially the Prius. Much more preferred my 1970 Karmann Ghia to the bug. The point is still well taken, however. Instead of making any progress, we just upsized the size of the vehicles and took horsepower to absurd heights. I have no problem with 36 horsepower, but would want it with current day efficiency. Further, we could never build something like a 63 bug today with all the extra weight required because of safety and other issues.
Around here, some people use golf carts, which work fine and are legal on our 25 mph limit roads with little traffic.
Well, actually, we could build a lightweight car to meet the safety standards. Indy and Formula one cars are extremely lightweight, but their drivers regularly walk away from a 100mph+ crashes. I wouldn't trust any passenger car to do that.
The Smart car is probably the closest to the BUG, but it too could be built lighter.
The automakers are not really interested in this, because they can, and do, make more money selling bigger cars, that's all
Yes, yes, yes!
The difference in tone between TOD:US and TOD:Europe is often very striking, and the keypost here is an archetypal example. I'm not quite sure when the US became the country of "can't do anything"; maybe it's one of those things that sneaks up on you. I do think it's related to the apotheosis of shiftlessness and stupidity that over the last few decades has rendered the US basic-education system useless in the name of a supposed "fairness", but I suspect it's not that the relationship is causal, but that both are symptoms of some serious underlying disease.
Nor do I "get" the pseudo-nostalgia for bygone centuries, what with the nasty social and physical conditions people were forced to endure, and all that. Even less do I understand the repeated suggestions that we should just give up and leave behind at most a small remnant living a pointless existence in which they function only as mere soulless beasts. Not that the nostalgia-for-Arcadia meme is new; we can surely trace some part of it back to the magical mystical maunderings of Aldo Leopold, or, further back, Henry David Thoreau - or even further back to charming but fatuous English madrigals about romping in woods that may have been poetically Arcadian but in reality were brutish hells infested with mosquitoes, poisonous pseudo-food plants, and deadly vermin. (That we can trace this addled nonsense only back into the dead past, never forward into a future, must tell us something, though I'm not sure what.) But neither the meme's age, nor the angry but utterly unsupported assertions of its self-evident Truth which are posted every time it is questioned on the US side, do anything at all to clarify why it even survives, much less how any sane person could possibly ever embrace it.
"..but in reality were brutish hells infested with mosquitoes, poisonous pseudo-food plants, and deadly vermin..."
Dang, Paul! Shut the window, they'll get in! Do it now!
You think that NATURE is full of Pseudo-foods? No more Quickie-mart for you!
Absolutely, except that screens provide better ventilation than closed windows in summer heat. That's why people use them, and it's why NGOs supply bednets and the like in places where people can't afford housing impermeable walls and proper window screens. Raw nature in anything but well-controlled doses is often highly dangerous, suited only for those wishing to die young as the vast majority did before modern times and as many in poor places still do.
Absolutely. Nearly all plants that we eat in any significant quantity have been artificially bred for millennia - i.e. extensively genetically modified the long, slow, hard, inefficient way - in order to be somewhat less toxic and more edible than their poisonous wild predecessors. That's not in the slightest way inconsistent with the Quickie Mart also harboring pseudo-foods of a different sort. Nor is the fact that both the woods and the Mart harbor pseudo-foods inconsistent with the fact that the keypost here today is refreshing compared to some of the unsupported doomishness-for-its-own-sake that often seems a little too popular over on the US site.
And thanks for re-making my main point for the umpteenth time: yet again, the angry snark does nothing whatever to demystify the foolish, silly nostalgia for an imagined past that's constantly indulged in by the, well, go-backs.
Nice try, but if you know the woods and the plants where you live, you can eat. Your fantasy of Vermin and Poison is Hilarious.
Yes, we've rebred Tomatoes so they are not as toxic.. you need to know your mushrooms (well!) .. and there are plenty of examples of stuff you don't want to eat.. just like there are lots of ways not to cross a street. You do have to have knowledge, but it's there to be had. http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Edible-Wild-Plants/dp/039592622X
It's fine. Maybe you're a city guy. Or a Suburb guy. I'm not one of the ones who thinks the cities are altogether doomed. You'll be fine.
Bob
You are reinforcing his point nicely.
There is a lot of stuff in the woods that looks like food but isn't. The well-intentioned city folk headed out to the wilds will eat the wrong mushrooms, improperly prepare acorns because they heard "the Indians ate this", and all sorts of other things.
They also won't know how to deal with snakes, bugs, and scorpions.
Heck, there's nothing like watching a 2m tall macho man reduced to a jumpy coward by an adorable little bat. City folks just really have no comprehension of nature on the whole.
Roger,
I read them, but it at times is like a voice crying into the wind. The land of the free and the home of brave is only that because of the people long gone now that did all they did to get us where we are today. There are still brave and partially free folks around today, but the country has morphed into something else as well. The land of the Not in my back yard, you can't possibly think I am going to do without a 40 gallon hot water tank in my basement, to live in a dirt shack and eat out of the yard ARE you?
I am 46 and my parents are 74 and 80, they grew up in a time when you had to stuff the bed with new straw about every 4 or 5 days to make it soft again. My dad had relitives in the coal mines, and he worked in the oil fields of southern Ill, around Benton. They ate out of the fields and hunted game for dinner, not just for the fun of it.
The US of today doesn't even understand for the most part where food comes from, unless you catch them growing a garden of more than green grass. I am almost always teaching someone about what is good to eat while treking in the wilds, or even walking down a city street (the weeds are edible in more than one sidewalk crack in town).
Just sitting here thinking about your post I see the things around me and wonder how much oil did it take to make them. How would I replace them without out oil, and then I think about most of the simple things having been around longer than Oil was being mined. Forks, and Clocks, and Glass jars(drinking glass with herb tea in it).
Everytime I see a yard I think of all the things I could grow on it, everytime I see a farmers field I wonder what I could do with that much land and how many different things I could grow there that no one thinks I can. Yet just next door the wild landscape is growing so much more than the tilled dusty farm land with it's row on row of MONO-crop.
Waste not want not.
Something we need to start living by again.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed future.
Free Energy (in the thermodynamic sense) is the sum of three services : Extraction Service (get the Energy), Storage Service (Keep the energy that we gathered in the Extraction step for later) and Transportation and delivery Service(Make the Energy that what gathered in the Extraction or Storage Steps available where it is needed). EROEI computation must include the 3 services : Energy that can't be stored and can't be moved is only of marginal utility. On that measure, "Renewables" have still a long way to go. Intermittency is not a small matter that can be evacuated by one or two paragraphs at the end.
Fossil fuel are attractive because they provide all the service at the same time : oil or coal can be, for a small cost compared to Extraction, stored and moved at will. EROEI of Extraction is therefore close to EROEI of Extraction-Storage-Transportation. It is unfortunate because it leads people tend to think that it is the same concept. Nothing is further from the truth once one looks at energy sources other than fossils.
Hydro is the second best as it ticks two of the boxes (Extraction and Storage). The only problem is that the number of sites are limited and not equally spread over the world. The other limitation is that it generates principally electric energy, which is not always the optimal choice, especially for transportation.
Nuclear also ticks the same boxes with flying colors once modern methods of enrichment are taken into account. It is even better than fossil hydrocarbons in the storage dimension (1 million time more compact to be precise...). It is also mainly circumscribed to electricity production even if it could also be extended to industrial heat and shipping propulsion in the future.
Both Nuclear and Hydro have satisfactory EROEI.
Wind and Solar indeed reached, or will soon reach, decent EROEI, but it is for Extraction only, so one needs to integrate the cost, (including energy costs), of the Storage solution. There are three ways to do this :
The first way is to piggyback on Fossils, Hydro, or Nuclear Storage capacity and ask them to stop delivering power when Wind and Solar work, and vice versa. The renewable lobby maneuvered very well to get this storage service for FREE by forcing, through political means, feed-in agreements to utilities at fixed prices, regardless if their production is needed or not at that time and place. This amounts to taking EROEI from these energy sources. What should be compared therefore is (a) The EROEI of the "System" made of Renewable Energy (Wind solar) and Storable Energy(Fossils, Hydro, Nuclear) and (b) The EROEI of the Storable Energy alone. I believe that Fossils + Renewable have a good EROEI now, but it won't last forever (this is the main point of TOD, right ?!) Very good EROEI on the Renewable component will compensate poor EROEI on the fossil component however. This is why one sees more and more renewable enthusiasts in the oil and gas industry, as renewables will keep their industry relevant longer. Hydro + Renewable is a marriage made in heaven, but is limited by hydro capacity. Nuclear + Renewable is almost surely less efficient than Nuclear alone, because they share the same "all investment upfront" energy pattern.
The second way is to build specific storage infrastucture, but we are very far from an efficient solution as of today :
Pumped Hydro is limited by the number of available sites.
CAES consumes a lot of energy, so decreases the EROEI dramatically.
Batteries are still horribly expensive, a sign that something is wrong in the energy equation. Considering that their number of cycles are limited, the cost of storing a certain amount of Joule in their lifetime is today way higher that the cost of getting this energy through fossil or nuclear fuel. Even if renewable energy was free (EROEI infinite...), Renewable + batteries EROEI would still not be satisfactory as of today !
Same thing for hydrogen and hydrocarbons generation coupled with fuel cells.
The third way is to adapt our consumption patterns to the intermittency of renewables. I.e. the "smart grid".
I think there are less opportunities in this domain than what smart grid proponents are believing. Sure, we have flexibility for charging our EV and wash our laundry, but there are many human activities that are not flexible (lots of factories work 24h a day, Labor day WE happens for everybody at the same time (so everybody will want to have his/her EV fully charged the day before), etc...). "Vehicles to grid" schemes are condemned by the high cost of battery storage : why would anyone accelerate the depreciation of his own vehicle battery pack to give back some power to the grid ?
There is also less than meets the eye in "spatial averaging" : one has structural correlations across continental scale for energy production (if only by the day/night cycle), and placing facilities in foreign countries creates enormous political risks. Developed countries are fretting today about dependency on foreign oil, for which they have 3 to 6 months strategic reserves, what are they going to think about dependency on a non storable foreign energy source ? We are back to the storage problem...
So congratulations to renewable engineers that are getting close to good EROEI on Extraction. However, unless efficient and independent storage solutions are found (I.e. EROEI (Renewable + independent storage solution) > EROEI (Nuclear)), it would be premature to engage lots of our resource on massive deployment. The bottle is not made of disbelief, red tape and not enough financing, it is made of the lack of storage. As Ugo mentioned, we don't have much time left, so wasting resources in what would be a dead end could end up to be very costly.
Side note : When the bottle is made of the thermodynamic second principle, just saying "the goose is out" doesn't work. Zen monks maybe good at mind tricks, but in real life, they are either living as rich rentiers or poor beggars. In both cases, they are piggybacking on real work performed by others. Your metaphor may be more accurate than you imagined after all...
A source I have seen for the goose in the bottle is Alan Watts (can't remember which book). The story starts with the phrase, "Let's say there's a goose in a bottle...", so saying "the goose is out" does work, because the goose was only put in the bottle by "saying".
The point of the story is not to worry about problems created by language, e.g. "how can we solve the mind-body problem?" should not be worried about because mind and body were only produced by our particular way of distinguishing bits of the world; they are not real, separate substances which need to be joined together in some fashion.
So, whether the tale of the goose in the bottle has much relevance for renewable energy, I'm not so sure,
Peter.
That was my point, the second principle is NOT a problem created by language, but a constraint coming from Nature. As Feynman said "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
Yes.
I had vaguely wondered at the start of the article whether the point was going to be that the problem is that we say we need so much energy, but we can actually live with far less, or some such,
Peter.
Yes, I read that a lot, and I think it is not true. People riot for losses of 10% or 20% of their disposable income (see Greece). We can do with less, but not with far less. Divide by 2, yes, and with a lot of pain. Gain an order of magnitude, no.
You are right only in a narrow sense. What you are doing is comparing the present infrastructure that has been built around fossil fuels with the new infrastructure that will be needed for renewables. The two infrastructures are different - the present one has been built around "supply management" without the need of storage; the new one will be built around "demand management" and will need storage. But it is not at all obvious that the new infrastructure will have to be more expensive than the old one. Just think to the need we have now for very expensive technologies of pollution abatement - to say nothing of the folly that is leading governments to seriously entertain the idea of carbon sequestration and storage. How much would THAT cost? And we don't normally take into account that the present energy infrastructure is heavily based on a military infrastructure built in order to "secure supply". And how much does that cost....? it is mind boggling. All these costs will not be needed for renewable technologies.
In the end, the problem is that the present infrastructure has already been built, so we don't have to pay to build it, only to maintain it. The new one is to be built, and the costs have to be paid.
Ugo Bardi -
Nicely done post!
(By the way, how DO you get the goose out of the bottle? Or do you just add digestive enzymes, wait a day or two, and then 'drink' the goose with a straw?)
As you know a lot of smoke has been blown by certain individuals about the poor EROEI of renewables. But when one shows that 'first order' energy inputs for things like solar and wind are not all that large, then one gets the argument that it would be a lot worse if one extended the boundaries out further to include second order or third order inputs.
Well, when it comes to fossil fuels, and oil in particular, one of those 'extended boundaries' that is conveniently neglected by the anti-renewables crowd is the amount of military spending directly related to securing oil supplies. The last time I looked the US is spending something like $100 billion annually on its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, plus probably at least another $50 billion to maintain a permanent presence in or near the Middle East.
The test as to whether these military expenditures would be incurred regardless is to ask: if Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia had zero oil and were still cooking with camel chips, would the US even be there? I think the answer should be obvious.
While I don't have the exact figure at hand, I don't think I'm too far off in stating that the US gets roughly 4 million bbl per day of oil from the Middle East, which is equivalent to 1.46 billion bbl per year. If one then divides $150 billion by 1.46 billion bbls, the result is $68 per bbl of additional hidden cost due to military expenditures directly attributable to securing said oil.
Thus, when the military component is added to the current market price of roughly $77/bbl, the real cost of that oil to American citizens is more like $145/bbl. And that is being conservative, because when other 'security related' costs are factored in, the military component is probably much higher. Talk about a neglected externality!
You're seriously off on a couple of points:
1) US military budget = 5.5% of GDP ($11 trillion) = $565 billion / yr. Most presently going to ME oil extraction support, including Afganistan. eg. for present usage "terrorist" substitute "non-uniformed soldier" (Palestinians displaced by Isreali settlers, French underground in WWII, vietnamese peasants, India's revolutionaries in 1945-49, Mandella's ANC fighters in SA officially declared terrorists by US state dept. at the time, US revolutionaries in 1775-80, etc.). Don't mistake, I'me fairly sure that Afganistan is a problem that needs to be fixed, we can't just walk away from it now its broken. However, at the outset, there were much more rational means of avoiding breaking it so badly. x10 for Iraq.
2) US itself actually imports very little oil from ME, perhaps 5%, eg. 1 mmbbl / day. The military expense is not even to support average joe's consumption, but to reduce large MN oil companies costs of extracting and shipping to other countries. It used to be called colonialism. Now, I guess it's simply "how things are done".
Lengould -
My $150 billion figure is merely a conservative guess of the fraction of the total defense budget that could be directly allocated to protecting the supply of Middle East oil. It could easily be more. By the way, your $565 billion figure is the 'base' defense budget, which excludes the cost of the Iraq and occupations, items that are handled via supplemental funding. When that is included, the figure balloons up to something like $664 billion. Then, if you add in Homeland Security, a goodly chunk of the Department of Energy (nuclear weapons programs), NSA, CIA, and other alphabet-soup agencies having to do with national security, you're easily over the $750 billion mark. This doesn't even include Veterans Affairs.
Yes, I was off on the amount of Middle East oil actually going to the US, but that would actually make the military component even more expensive on a $ per bbl basis. However, I suppose it could be argued that with oil being fungible, if we didn't protect the oil supply going to our 'friends', then they would be competing more heavily for the oil from Mexico and Canada that is currently going to the US.
Regardless of how you play with the numerator and the denominator, I think it should be clear that the military component of the real cost of supplying oil to the US is right up there in the same ballpark as the current market price of oil.
Agree. The fungibility of oil makes the geographical location argument moot.
One can argue that the US subsidizes the oil consumption of the rest of the world. If we weren’t patrolling the strait of hormuz,Malacca etc prices could easily be higher / consumption lower.
Rgds
WeekendPeak
Are you seriously proposing that the US patrols oil shipping lanes simply as a gratuitous favour to the rest of the world? Nothing at all to do with the desires of US oil companies?
Not at all. The 700bn of military expenditures or so the US spends is a relative bargain to having no significant disturbances in supply lines, and therefore an absence of "war premium" (remember that BS from a couple of years ago). That benefits the US as a whole, not just the oil companies, as well as the rest of the world. And a relatively stable ROW is good for the US as well because we need places to borrow from and to sell stuff to, like synthetic CDOs.
Sorry - long day, no coffee..
Rgds
WeekendPeak
Two of the biggest, BP and Shell are doing pretty well by the US patrols, but they certainly aren't US oil companies. I'd be happy if Canada, the EU and Japan would pick up the tab instead of us US taxpayer, we might actually have a decent health care program here then. But then when Europe and Japan were helping do the patrolling things did tend to get a little out of hand from time to time. It's messy and ugly the way we do it but it beats the next best way its ever been done, which ain't saying much.
You are right only in a narrow sense. What you are doing is comparing the present infrastructure that has been built around fossil fuels with the new infrastructure that will be needed for renewables. The two infrastructures are different - the present one has been built around "supply management" without the need of storage; the new one will be built around "demand management" and will need storage. But it is not at all obvious that the new infrastructure will have to be more expensive than the old one. Just think to the need we have now for very expensive technologies of pollution abatement - to say nothing of the folly that is leading governments to seriously entertain the idea of carbon sequestration and storage. How much would THAT cost? And we don't normally take into account that the present energy infrastructure is heavily based on a military infrastructure built in order to "secure supply". And how much does that cost....? it is mind boggling. All these costs will not be needed for renewable technologies.
In the end, the problem is that the present infrastructure has already been built, so we don't have to pay to build it, only to maintain it. The new one is to be built, and the costs have to be paid.
I am with you on the hidden costs of fossil hydrocarbon, and I am no strong supporter of them.
From a security standpoint, lack of long term storage is really an issue. For instance, if a significant part of Europe's electric energy came from Maghreb, as the Desertec Project plans, it would practically require a military on-site to guarantee no power disruption and safeguard the huge investment involved. As the Suez Canal events demonstrated, it is not easy. Actually I am not surprised that the main sponsors of this project are in Germany. The French already lost a colonial war there and are not keen on risking a new one. Locating solar plants in Spain, Southern Italy or Greece would improve things a bit, but would still leave some problems. Just try to imagine the current financial predicaments of Greece together with significant German-owned solar farm assets located there. What would prevent the risk of Greek deciding to levy a tax on solar farm to essentially repay debt to German Banks using German money ? China and US may not have this problem, but for other part of the world, it is very real. I live in Singapore, the whole region has plentiful resources of water (equatorial climate + low population density), yet the government pays billions to promote local water sources. because they don't want to be dependent from their Malaysian neighbor, for whom the water is practically free. Insane ? No ! It is the price to pay for independence.
Regarding building an industrial society around "demand management", I think you underestimate the amount of demand that cannot be time shifted without important costs. Industrial assets frequently have to be used 24 hours a day to be profitable, or to even be able to operate (for instance a steel mill).
I'm convinced, as Noam Chomsky, that the security concerns you cite would be greatly reduced by simply treating those neighbours across the mediteranean as friends rather than as colonies.
I could not agree more!
The Desertec Initiative has the potential to bring the countries around the mediterranean closer together and help the economic development in the south, or as in the example above of Greece and Germany: If Greece could export electricity to Germany, that would help reduce its trade deficit with Germany. This should be a win-win situation for everyone.
I find all these national security concerns wildly overblown. In Europe we are for obvious historic reasons very aware that treating your neighbors or trade partners as enemies does not work well in the long run. In my opinion, the US is about to realize this too. In a globalized world, independence in anything is an illusion.
About Greece and Desertec: The idea would not be that Germany colonizes them by owning untaxed(!) solar farms there, but rather that the greece can export electricity to the north and earn money from that. If they use these profits to repay german banks that would be a positive side effect.
Also: "What would prevent the risk of Greek deciding to levy a tax..."
Probably the fact that they need german funds to stave of state default.
The risk of energy delivery being withheld for political reasons has historically not been very high unless there was a war involved. Even Venezuela has never stopped selling oil to the US. If they would, they would very soon be bankrupt, so Chavez has to stick with the empty threats.
"The risk of energy delivery being withheld for political reasons has historically not been very high unless there was a war involved. Even Venezuela has never stopped selling oil to the US. If they would, they would very soon be bankrupt, so Chavez has to stick with the empty threats."
No, it is just that the US has the upper hand : Thanks to internal production, strategic reserves, and import diversification, it can afford to stop buying oil to Venezuela longer than Venezuela can afford to stop selling.
The OAPEC oil embargo in 1973 was real, and it was the US that had to fold, by essentially using his diplomatic weight to force Israel to do concessions. Wars in the last 150 years were all linked to access to energy assets (Why Alsace and Lorraine were kept by the Germans after 1871 ? Coal mines. Why Japan went on the Pearl Harbor attack ? Oil embargo. Why the third Reich threw all his strength to get Stalingrad ? Access to Caucasian oil, etc...)
In a world of rising population and dwindling high EROEI natural resources, thinking that we can just all be friends is a dangerous delusion. I am no Dick Cheney but security does matters.
Though I will be first to admit that energy resources have underlain all of our recent major conflicts it is far more complex than that. If I remember Germany planned to finish up WWI in six weeks, the rail logistics involved were masterful and had been long in the works. Yamamoto and his command were planning the Pearl attack in early 1940 (the oil embargo was put in place in mid 1941) even though Yamamoto himself thought it was a most foolhardy move for Japan to go to war with the US. And talk about bedfellows without much future and its hard to beat Hitler and Stalin.
The national mindset is a weird thing and often offensive action is framed as a defensive move absolutely essential for the nation's survival. Rivalry for resources is always there. Some other ugly seeds must take hold and flourish for war to break out.
[Emphasis added.] Either way they need to keep selling. So where in the world does the "no" come into play?
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Your mentioning of the OPEC oil embargo and Israel just proves my point. I said energy delivery was not withheld outside of wars. Israel was in a state of war with several OPEC states back then, and it still wages a war in Palestina. The USA is rightly perceived as supporting Israel in that war, that is why it becomes a target of such actions along Israel.
If you plan on being in a war with your energy suppliers, you absolutely need to be "energy independent" or occupy your enemies oilfields very early in the war.
If you respect your neighbors and treat your trade partners fairly however they will be happy to sell you stuff for good money.
That is true, and you want to add the two Iraq wars and the occupation of Afghanistan to that list. But your point shows that having a high concentration of oil or coal resources puts you at a very high risk of being invaded by aggressive powers whether it was Germany in the 20th century or the US right now. Seen in that light, energy independence does not look like such a safety feature anymore.
What IMO would help against the proliferation of energy wars is decentralized energy generation. In this renewables are much better than fossil fuels.
I think you underestimate the amount of demand that cannot be time shifted without important costs. Industrial assets frequently have to be used 24 hours a day to be profitable, or to even be able to operate (for instance a steel mill).
Steel mills are a perfect example of Demand Side Management: they operate at night because electricity is cheaper then (I have one a mile from my house - it gets noisy at night...).
It would be fascinating to catalogue the things that could be deferred/managed.
Almost all industrial processes can be run when energy is available, the only gotcha is predictability so you can have staff on when the energy is available.
Very, very few operations need full true 24 hour access to energy (we are using one, and even this one could be reconfigured to deal with less reliable power).
In my opion we have not even started with Demands side management and there are a lot of oputtunities
Data centres could be cooled 1 or 2 degrees more then is required or could be switched of to another global location where there is more energy available.
Cooled warhousing could be cooled a couple of degrees further the abslulutely required creating a cold storage which can be used when the wind is not blowing
Hydro also has limits and in case of less flow in the river we can use hydro when the wind is not blowing allowing hydro to store energy.
Your fridge can turn itself of when temporaraly there is a demand in your region (voltage will drop a bit) or the local windmill is not running
Heat pumps for waterheating or space heating
I am sure I have not even started with ideas where you can save energy because it is not required to be used 24/7
Most important at the moment IMHO is reduce of energy use
Also smart metering / realtime pricing combined with a significant amount of PHEV's / EV's would make the intermitency problem a non-issue. IF EEstor actually has a product, the issue goes away.
I think that the storage issue is also moot, as it is relatively easy to convert the electricity from solar or wind at larger scales to NH3, which is relatively easy to store and transport, and is a useful supplement to some crops.
The US Army has for years done concept R&D for running trucks off NH3, and has found it to be acceptable. http://strandedwind.org/
Why then are companies spending so much money on developing Lithium batteries when converting electricity to Hydrogen, Hydrogen to Ammonia, and Ammonia to mechanical work is so easy and efficient ? I wonder ! The US Army is not known to be especially frugal regarding energy costs. Bring me a concept endorsed by Toyota or Daimler and I will be more likely to be convinced.
BTW, I tried to google "ammonia" in your website and it returned nothing. Could you do us the favor of giving a few references on the "relatively easy" ammonia economy ? People are skeptical here, but always eager to learn.
Why.. Guessing, but Possibly because the Li Batteries are a more appealing product to offer to the marketplace, while Ammonia doesn't inspire the NewTech pursestrings in the same way...
Ummm...actually, they're doing the lithiums because the end-to-end efficiency of the ammonia chain is worse than dismal; the military, OTOH, must tolerate inefficiency of that sort because it can't very well operate in the field tethered to a power cord, it needs actual portable fuel. [I think you got fuddled by the snark as I almost did, but go back and review the parent and grandparent posts...] Now I will grant that lithium batteries are probably more NewTech sexy than, say, nickel-zinc (even though the practical versions in laptops and cell phones stink to high heaven), but that sort of choice is a slightly different matter.
I think you need a double breakthrough for PV in areas with short days or cloud cover; a cheap enough system that will generate say 20 kwh on the worst day and store most of it in a comparably cheap, compact, long-life, non-exploding battery. The idea is that you cover most of your roof in these panels and save a lot of the energy in a wall mounted battery the size of a suitcase. That runs your TV and heat pump at night or maybe charges an electric scooter for the morning commute. In sunny weather the panels either switch off when the batteries are charged or export to the smartish grid. Cost for PV, inverter, battery and installation $1,000-$5,000 per house. Are we even close to that yet? Don't think so.
I understand there may be grid stability problems if too many rooftops export electricity at the same time. Since this mass produced winter-proof PV system has to be cheap that would also seem to rule out exotic materials.
Boof, that would never work. We need to integrate PV plants in the grid and a good fraction of the plants will have to be relatively large scale. Rooftop panels will be a big help, but we can't power an industrial economy with that.
Not sure PV will ever work in Britain in the winter months. Maybe Spain, but not here. Even in the summer it would probably not be very effective. I think wind is much more the answer for the UK.
Here I toss in my standard remark, which is:
solar-thermal in the deserts- combustion boost as needed
HVDC to population centers
pumped hydro store both ends, and all over the place (please remember that holes are as good as hills)
wind pumping water to the hydro stores (much cheaper than gearbox and alternator)
And now I add another- PV pumping water to hydro store. Way better than batteries.
BUT- real problem is not energy- it's population and pollution and climate change. If we use clean energy to overpopulate and dirty up the planet, we deserve what we will get.
Many thanks, Ugo, for all this fun stuff. Now how about vacuum tube trains running 4000 klicks/hr all around the planet--zoom-zoom! And so much for airplanes, volcanoes, vapor trails and superfat seatmates.
Wimbi, many of these ideas look good on the cover of Popular Mechanics Magazine, however they fall apart when you try it in the real world. Take hydro storage, to supply .222 gW a “hole” 100 meters deep would have to be created of about 5,000 ha, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Luis_Reservoir A matching reservoir of another 5,000 ha would be needed on the high side. The amount of excavation would be mind boggling about 2.5 km^3. Now replicate this say 1000 times around the country.
Again look at the practical problems. For direct pumping the wind source has to be close to the water supply, however the best wind is on ridge tops where the water is to be stored not where the water needs to be pumped from. If you decide to install the system in say Kansas where there is lots of wind power you need huge shallow reservoirs with high evaporation losses or the above multi km^3 excavations.
PV already has a poor economic return compared to other energy systems without adding another 30% energy loss with a hydro storage system.
We need solutions, but we need economic ones.
they fall apart when you try it in the real world
Not really. Pumped storage is old, and pretty cost effective. Take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant , which uses Lake Michigan.
For direct pumping the wind source has to be close to the water supply, however the best wind is on ridge tops where the water is to be stored not where the water needs to be pumped from
Much of the best wind is just offshore. The best wind in the Great Lakes area is in Lake Michigan, right off the west coast where we find Ludington.
30% energy loss
Better installations get about 20%.
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Now, while I think it's useful to know that pumped storage is feasible, I don't think it's really competitive with Demand Side Management (aka demand response), which has enormous potential, and is dirt cheap.
Thanks, Nick for that good info. I agree that DSM is great, So, here's the total solution;
1) population reduction
2) true full costing
3) DSM and other intelligent group behavior
4) solar/wind/storage
Done, then we go on to live on this paradise-planet for a billion years, after which something might turn up
Now, true to my pledge to quit fooling around with trivia ( solar thermal widgets), and get on to the important things, I go back to no.1 above.
Your welcome!
Regarding population: all of the major affluent countries have fertility rates below replacement. The US is at 1.9 (replacement is 2.1), and most of Europe (and Japan) is desperately trying to get back above 1.5. Even in places like Mexico fertility rates are falling very close to replacement.
Doesn't it seem like the priority on the population side would be helping people in Africa and India to educate girls and young women, to lower their fertility?
".. at $1000-$5000 per house.. the size of a suitcase ... "
Boof, I don't know where your expectations came from, but this is like insisting that we need to improve cars or home plumbing systems so that they cost $1000-$5000, and will never need maintenance.. economies of scale only go just so far.
You're talking about a long-term power supply for your house, and yet you seem to think it's reasonable to make such demands.
I do agree that PV and Water Heating should just be built on as a basic part of the roof of any suitable home.. but I'm not about to expect breakthroughs that will 'make it easy' .. it's going to be an investment, and often a sacrifice.
I understand Ugo's defense of industrial sized systems as well, but privately owned generation could be critical in letting families develop more resilience and independence from the energy market.
I think Congress should pass a law banning coolant in engines. That would force the 300 hp engine into extinction. Without coolant these beasts would die. Industry would be forced to concentrate on the small powerful engine.
Yes, yes, and yes!!! They are REal!!!
New wind energy here in the States is as cheap as natural gas and getting cheaper as the cost of fossil fuels inexorably rises. Nobody can treat wind or other renewables as a joke anymore once they become cost competitive on their own terms. And guess what? They are!
I'm a little low on personal energy today myself, but thank you for posting this.
Roger,
Thanks for your very good lecture. I feel like a bear has growled in the cave I am trying to explore. It is true I think that the full costs of what we are trying to do at present and hope to do in the future are hard to quantify, but that does not mean that we should not try. And that includes back-casting as well as we can costs that are now recognized and standard upon systems and processes of yore.
Best, though, is the remarkably new benefit - cost finding you etched in my mind: 150 years of gain : eternal (at least in human terms) costs. Ain't greater than 1.0, is it?
And as to some of the other posts: when I think of opportunities towards clean and effective energy gains, I think of small-ball. Big money and big headlines are made when scientists and politicians try to swing for the fence. The human condition is improved mostly via incremental improvements that keep chipping away at the problem. Continuous, but realistic, investment in each enhancement moves us towards better systems. Waiting for the big breakthrough, however, like for example the goofiness in assuming the imminence of advanced biofuels, is sheer idiocy.
Thanks to Ugo for this excellent article. It is so refreshing to occasionally see a potentially positive take on our dire situation.
Ugo (or anybody)
Have you run across any EROEI evaluations of Solar Heating systems, and in particular (and it's a long shot, I know) any calculations for HOMEBUILT SOLAR HEATERS, made from recycled glass and metals.
With a fair credit towards the initial uses of the recycled materials, and the often cheap cost of acquiring these materials, I would be shocked if the Return, both Energy and Financial for these humble setups isn't far beyond that of commercial equipment.
It would be quite difficult to accurately gauge the Labor inputs by a homeowner who was making such items, but since these are projects that can be done, and ARE being done by ordinary people in their spare time, I'd argue it's also fair to count that input as 'hobby time', 'lawnmowing time..' and doesn't really detract from the real gains that such equipment is offering to the household, which is ultimately why we would be measuring the EROEI in the first place.
There is such an abundance and range of viable scrap material around that could be usefully reinvested in such systems that we've already invested the process energy into manufacturing, I would think that this kind of Energy Return calculation would offer people a considerable 'Satori' revelation in recognizing such treasures, hidden in plain sight.
Bob
(Thanks for this Post! Great to see such positive energy!)
I’m all about enthusiasm for renewable energy, and I believe that we should be pushing very hard for implementation of renewable energy systems as much as possible (although I tend to think more of small, locally managed plants) . When I close off my mind from other considerations and think strictly in terms of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, I can maybe begin to see an apparition of the goose out of the bottle. I just have to wonder how different an industrial economy powered by renewable energy would look from the current version of BAU, and how in the world we would get there.
There was a really good paper posted on TOD recently which discussed the reality that it is really not possible to decouple energy growth from economic growth. If this logic is accepted as sound, then we are talking about asking renewable energies to continually increase the energy flows available to the industrial economy at the same time that the contributions of fossil fuels begin to fade, or else we face economic contraction in a growth based economic system and all of the associated positive feedbacks for some kind of collapse. Is this kind of build up really feasible for this time frame? Even if we do pull this off for awhile, a continually increasing supply of terrestrial energy isn’t physically possible, even from renewable sources. I guess for me to really see the goose out of the bottle, I’d also have to see a relatively simultaneous shift to an economic model that could handle physical limits.
Since we can’t produce potassium and phosphorus from electricity, we also need shift to sustainable agricultural practices within relatively the same time frame to mitigate serious food supply problems.
Also, I think about social justice and the idea that without relatively equal distribution of the lifestyle benefits of renewable energy, destructive conflict and constant threats to the centralized electrical grid that would underpin even more of our daily lives would be a reality. Can renewable energy provide enough energy to allow everyone in the world to live at the standard of living of developed nations?
Probably it would have fewer cars, and we could get most of the way there by giving up our cars.
Can it allow everyone to have a standard of living higher that those in the poorest countries do today?
Can fossil fuel energy allow everyone in the world to have the standard of living of developed nations?
I think that a transformation could occur that would allow us to have a satisfactory life but we would have to take the whole reuse, recycle approach to its ultimate limit. An overwhelming focus on basic needs provided as locally as possible and a minimum focus on the unneccessary shiny extras would perhaps create a viable world.
But this world would not be possible with the current mass disparity between the rich and everyone else. While the vast majority would be living at a very simple, sustainable level, they would not be able to accept the lifestyles of those with the tens of millions and billions of dollars.
But the vast majority of us will not be denied our mass consumer pleasures even when we are the on the brink of bankruptcy and have been without a job for months. Not having a lot of new clothes or a shiny new gadget is denial and denial is not part of our vocabulary.
China and India, however,are proceeding forward under the implicit premise that they can catch up with the western world and not destroy the planet in the process or run out of energy whichever occurs first.
We in the Western world refuse to give an inch so these discussions are merely interesting intellectual speculations.
Anyway, no way forward is going to suddenly allow us to create the several additional planets necessary to continue this madness of economic growth.
The Lorax:
These are good questions about what renewables will actually contribute to the future. Once one realizes that there is plenty of renewable energy available, and that the EROI is high enough for these to support our current energy usage long term, then your questions arise: 'How in the world we would get there' and 'Can renewable energy provide enough energy to allow everyone in the world to live at the standard of living of developed nations?'
The glib answer to the first one is clear--you start building renewable energy systems as aggressively as possible. The problem is that it takes decades and huge upfront investments to build renewable energy systems to meet a large part of our energy usage. And since our society seems to be unable to plan beyond half a decade into the future, we never build more than symbolic renewable energy systems. So basically we are going to start building significant renewable energy systems when the current system destabilizes, either through fossil fuel depletion or climate change. The question is whether we will have the social stability, financial resources, and raw materials necessary to build a renewable energy system on the downside of the fossil fuel supply. As far as I can tell, no one knows how we will come through the transition because it is determined by human responses to inconvenient constraints much more than it depends on resource or even economic fundamentals. To me, a large part of this question can be more precisely focused: Will people go to war to control a declining oil supply or will they install renewable energy systems?
The second question might be asking whether renewables can supply 5 times our current total energy usage (5% of the global population in the US uses 25% of global energy so we need 5X current power to get everyone to US levels). The answer here is almost certainly no, at least not for centuries. But if you note that the developed world's 'standard of living' can be achieved with much less energy if society is designed with energy efficiency in mind, then the answer becomes debatable. It is a race between resource depletion and ecosystem degradation on the one side and education, population control, renewable energy technology, and sustainable agriculture on the other. If I had to focus this question, I would phrase it (in terms most easily understandable in the USA) 'Will the tea party succeed in convincing people that rational planning for the long term future of society is a violation of their rights?' I think that if reasonable people working for the long term global common good were leading the planet with the strong support of the people, we could support 6 or maybe even 9 billion people with a comfortable standard of living. (with something like developed countries' level of comfort but not energy use and maybe not degree of travel) But since the 'if reasonable people...' clause is hopelessly naive, it will probably be pretty rough for quite a few people in the next 100 years.
It was a eureka moment when I realized that I had stopped equating standard of living with level of consumption. This is what we need to promote.
Please keep in mind that Europeans and Japanese live a comfortable life with half the amount of energy per capita as people in the US. Ans I am sure that even Europeans can live comfortably with half of their current energy consumption. I have no need for more living space (80 m2 for 1 and i'm looking for a #2), a bigger car, more gadgets...
Maybe we have to give up some important stuff like a new cellphone every year, de 52" television, 10 flights per year for shopping and holidays.....
It has seemed pretty plausible to me for a while that photovoltaics are liable to evolve to the point where they are cheap and high EROEI.
If so then as I see it there are three potential renewable sources that have the potential to provide cheap, albeit intermittent, electric power: wind, solar thermal, photovoltaics.
A cheap intermittent source is a necessary but not sufficient condition to provide a viable large-scale source of renewable power. A cheap and efficient way to convert and store large quantities of renewable energy is the other big challenge in my view.
Although renewables are still in an early phase of development, I think they have shown enough so far for us to conclude that the energy SOURCE will not be the show stopper in transitioning to a renewables-based energy economy. Storage is the big yet-to-be-solved issue.
Personally, I hope that as a society we put our heaviest focus on energy R & D in that area. I think it is what will determine whether we reach the promised land or wind up back in the dark ages.
Being in my 50s, I don't think I'll get to see how the story plays out though. As much as many of my fellow peak oil believers tend to be pessimistic about fossil fuels, I do believe the new unconventional natural gas deposits in the US will delay "the rubber meeting the road" for 2-3 more decades. I just hope we don't wind up in a situation where we are expending all our effort for 2-3 decades simply engineering natural gas cars and such, but also put a heavy focus on preparing for when the rubber really does meet the road.
Of course, as we make use of this new natural gas there will be a lot of tendency to believe the energy shortage was just a mirage, just as nuclear, alaska, and north sea lulled us into thinking the energy crisis of the 70's was just a mirage.
"Waiting for the big breakthrough, however, like for example the goofiness in assuming the imminence of advanced biofuels, is sheer idiocy."
That's a very good point. I agree advance biofuels is pie in the sky. By all means spend some money on research, and my hunch is that biofuels are going to be an incredibly important niche in our future energy economy, the niche of those applications where the only way to do it is with a hydrocarbon.
Renewables like wind or solar are in kind of an ambiguous situation in that regard. I believe the sources are far enough along in viability that there is no longer an issue of having to "wait for the big breakthrough", but I do think when it comes to energy storage we are very much in the situation where we DO need a big breakthrough or we are screwed.
As much as I would love to get into this discussion, today, unfortunately, I have an over full plate in front of me. I would just like to say that it has seemed to me, for a long time now, that an energy solution would most certainly involve renewable sources as long as they turned out to be truly renewable. The sun isn't the problem here, it is the fact that eventually all energy capture and conversion capital is going to have to provide a sufficient excess of net energy to support replacing itself as well as operating and repair work during its working life -- total life cycle self-sufficiency. And then the question (one of scaling costs and return on complexity) becomes just how much net energy is left to supply the demands of the rest of the economy.
A core problem with arguments from EROI (EROEI, ERoEI,EROeI, et al) is that we are so mired in fossil fuel based production that it is nearly impossible to determine where the boundaries ought to be set for the analysis of these alternative systems. Thus the arguments from numbers like 20:1 or 40:1 are really just best guesses based on some limits to measurement. The reason I like the Balloon Graph and it certainly needs updating, is that it provides a way to visualize the scaling issues from a relative perspective. Move the balloons around, of course, but what you are looking at isn't a claim about what is and isn't possible. It is a way of seeing what looks feasible given the current state of affairs.
The other side of the coin is the demand for net energy available to do useful work (exergy). I really liked FreeAndSustainable's comment up-thread, his analysis of the systems-level considerations for exergy production. Given various scaling and complexity costs and likely declining marginal returns long before we get to a point of supporting today's BAU, it seems clear to me that demand is going to have to meet supply in the middle somewhere. My fear is that that middle may be a lot lower than most of us are ready to want to accept (except the committed doom-and-gloomers). I honestly think that there will need to be a major move toward powering down, rescaling and reorganizing (esp. food production), and relocalization as the main social organizing structure. We are entering an era of declining exergy and no amount of improvement in EROI (limited by the maximum efficiency of any process) is going to compensate for the loss of fossil fuel energy densities.
What I fear most, however, is that the issues will not come down to technical feasibility as much as political and financial feasibility. The political feasibility revolves around the problems a democratic political process (especially one polluted by monetary interests) has in making the right decisions. I suspect that as we get closer and closer to more clearly feeling the effects of peak net energy those decisions are going to include higher tax rates to fund investment in alternative energies and restrictions on freedoms to enforce reductions in waste. The financial side is pretty much what Gail has been writing about. Under our current capitalistic system the only reason for investing in something is if you can see a profit sufficient to compensate you for taking risks with your money. In a declining net energy world there is no more profit to be made. Now we are talking about simply finding and settling into a comfortable steady-state at a practical level of net energy flow. Under the current model, investment in alternatives doesn't look good. I believe we will find that that is a main reason the major oil companies haven't really made the kinds of investments we sort of expected from someone whose business was to supply energy. They don't see the profit. Of course now that they are starting to suspect they are running out of product to sell at a profit they are also starting to re-think that whole scenario!
The biggest problems we face are not technical. They are social, psychological, and time. Always the big IFs in all scenarios for how we are going to save the world. If only the politicians would get it. If only the people would understand. IF, IF, IF. Focus on solutions to those problems and we might stand a chance. Otherwise I see nothing but wailing and gnashing of teeth as spoiled OECD citizens are brought into the harsh realities of energy.
I have been writing about these issues extensively under the category of 'Biophysical Economics' at:
Question Everything
George.Mobus -
I think the reason that the major oil companies have not heavily invested in renewables is much the same as the reason why the US railroads did not invest in the auto industry when it started to take off circa 1910.
At that time, the mighty Pennsylvania RR probably could have easily bought up every single automobile manufacturer in the US. But it didn't even attempt to buy one. Why? Largely because they were railroad men, and doing railroads is what railroad men did, not diddling with these silly little horseless carriages. In the same vein, the oil industry is populated by hard-core oil men, and doing oil is what oil men do, not diddling with these puny solar cells or goofy looking wind turbines. It has as much to do with mindset as it does economics.
Also, one does not need all the accumulated technical expertise of the oil industry to produce solar or wind power. The oil industry has no inherent technical advantage in these areas, bring little to the game except money, but evidently have other plans for that money, i.e., going after more oil.
If oil were infinitely abundant and still accessible by exerting little more effort than poking a deep hole in the ground and watching the black gold flow out, no one in his right mind would bother with either solar or wind power. But alas, those good times are rapidly drawing to a close. In the interest of our very survival, we are duty-bound to seek practical ways of generating by other means at least the minimal amount of energy required to maintain some semblance of a civilized society. If these means be less than ideal from either a financial investment or technical standpoint, so what ...... it may eventually be all we have got left.
There is still a huge amount of money available to start reconfiguring our energy supply system, but that will require a major and wrenching change in priorities. And in my view, one of the first places to start is the roughly $750 billion the US spends annually on 'defense', its various military adventures, and a growing security apparatus, little of which has enhanced our prospects for long-term survival, and arguable has rendered us even less secure.
As long as the US Congress considers a $5 billion advanced fighter plane program a good 'investment' and a $500 million wind farm a questionable investment, there will be little hope for the US getting out of hole into which it is slipping deeper by the day.
I am not optimistic we will start doing the right thing before it is too late to do anything.
I thought "peak oil" was good news as it would be the limiting factor on the growth of the cancer that is humanity? Now you tell me there will be plenty and we can keep going with this? good news?
I recently saw a pv array put in of modest size and the cost was 18,000 for 2 twenty foot trailers remodeled into a vacation rental
satori is not a shedding of old concepts with a replacement a new improved ones but an insight into the nature of concepts and a return to spontaneity .
My reaction to all this is twofold:
First, I'm totally against putting hope in new solar, wind, whatever ahead of retrenchment. There is so much room for greatly lessening our dependence on underground resources while still maintaining a comfortable if much different lifestyle.
Second, our dependence on underground resources is not eliminated by this route -- only on hydrocarbons and uranium. How much it is reduced, if at all, I do not know. Because of that, the destruction of our only remaining real asset, the surface ecology, will continue.
Ugo has played a role in educating me, us, to the issues in metals and mining. I'm a little surprised by the turn taken here in light of that. I suppose there's no chance this is a belated April 1 submission (like Nate's)?
I would refer people to Heinberg's Searching for a Miracle: http://www.postcarbon.org/report/44377-searching-for-a-miracle
How does 'this route' destroy the surface ecology, relative to any other route? I can just as easily imagine billions of people in a poverty-stricken post-peak world destroying the surface ecology in a desparate search for firewood. (It's not like that hasn't happened before on a local or regional scale.)
I think the satori is that we're the goose.
Still, there's something wonderful about PV; I laid a 75w panel on the roof and used it to power a 12v bilge pump to turn over and aerate the water in our large pond; which arc'ed 2 feet over the water's surface with similar volume to a garden hose. All day every day. It is hard not feeling that it's magic.
Now, is there tech which will still allow them, and bilge pumps, to be made in volume in 500 years? We tend to take for granted our complex and timely globe-girdling extractive infrastructure.
Yet from a human point of view, these higher-EROEI energy devices should be a no-brainer for the coming several generations and I'm delighted to see them moving in that direction.
Thanks for the upbeat post.
90
I've grown old working on PV and have enjoyed the experience greatly. It has been quite fun to see the technology go from being an object of general ridicule to one that is being taken serious today and will most assuredly play a role in whatever energy future we might leave to future generations. I can remember when the counter culture folks would lecture me about the wonders and powers of crystals and I would try to tell them about the magical things that my crystals could do. Hell they could run their stereos and play Led Zeppelin. Try doing that with quartz! Anyway, it has been pretty amazing seeing the change in attitude over the past several years. It is a little hard to take in.
Business as usual. Let's keep the game going with high EROEI solar cells. Why is it that engineers act like they have five foot opaque tubes strapped over their eyes? Their tunnel vision is spectacular. The idea that since we can do it and want to do it, we should do it is a pernicious and dangerous attitude that remarks on the limited global thinking ability of the average engineer.
To continue the current paradigm is to destroy the earth. It is that simple.
Let's say we perfect this solar film. Then what? How do we stop population growth? How do we deal with the poisonous aspects of CdTe? Where do we get food? How do we save the ocean from complete destruction? Will we simply stop producing all the other thousands upon hundreds of thousands toxic industrial chemicals? No? Where do we put the waste?
No one here thinks anything through.
Golly gosh, we can make asbestos and insulate the schools!!!! How wonderful. Look! We can make estrogen mimics and distribute them throughout the world destroying life. Yippee!!!!
The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again even though you get the same result. And, by that definition many of the people on this site may need a little mental health checkup.
On the other hand, I keep stating the obvious and the pocket protector crowd continues to ignore it, so I guess I fit the definition as well.
You have touched on one of the few things I am not worried about, that is the ability to generate too much solar electricity. The good thing is that it will be limited enough to constrain our ability to do many of the bad things that you talk about. But please keep that a secret. Otherwise, efforts at solar PV will be killed in the cradle by the BAU crowd.
Now fusion. That is something I hope we never figure out how to harness in large quantities.
How about deep massive geothermal for a nightmare?
'911 Operator..'
'Yes, I'd like to report a hit and run.. another one. It's the same guy, over and over, as if this time he thinks saying the same thing in the same one-way tone of voice is going to achieve different results! It's very disturbing!'
'Have any laws been broken, sir?'
'No. I guess not. Just a broken record.. or maybe he's going for an UNbroken record.. hmm,'
Cherie;
People here are thinking all sorts of things through. They just don't have the clean, homogenous and idealized answer that will suit your high standards. Stick around and dare to have a messy conversation sometime, instead of flinging high-minded droppings and then scooting. eh?
This monotonous approach of yours makes it really easy to dismiss you, since you have already dismissed yourself. Stay and stand up for your points a little.
+1
The arrogance of humanism meets the road to hell is paved with good intentions, until finally the big lie that we can ever control our destiny and life on earth (thru better and more applied science [and "nanobots", guaranteed even]) is revealed for what it truly is: a very big, very fat, and insane lie.
So it goes...
But even in the illusion of control there is some control. It isn't all or nothing.
You can't plant acorns and get apple trees, but you can choose where to plant the acorns.
Now, I don't think thats a realistic fear. We have a demographic transition working fertility rates downwards. Most of Western Europe and Japan is already below replacement rate. I'm not sure just where China sits, but with the longstanding onechild policy they gotta be close. The US is the outlier among developed nations -and a big component of our growth is immigration. So if we are able to swing the technotransformation, we have at least a fighting chance at working on the other problems. I agree that we are late to the game, we shoulda starting thirty to fifty years ago. But renewables aren't going to force us to continue exponential growth. But, they might enable us to avoid catastrophic dieoff.
Love your handle. Cherenkov Radiation. IIRC, thats when a high speed particle travels through a media (like water) at higher than the local speed of light, and generates a shockwave of photons. (Yes light in a dielectric media travels slower than the speed of light). Thats what the index of refraction is (the ratio of lightspeed in a vacuum to lightspeed in stuff).
Europe, Russia and Japan are far below the replacement rate. Roughly 1.3 children per women. To replace you'd need ca 2.2 . So it looks like rich people do stop breeding everywhere and western society will die out by pure force of demographics. Even in the US, the replacement rate is similiarly low amongst white people. Its the hispanics mostly that keep the average Birth rate up.
Let's say we don't perfect this solar film. Then what? How do we stop population growth?
That was my basic feeling as well: it's incredibly rare that some human-behaviour problem X is solved by the deicision to act/not act on some other problem Y rather than actually putting attention on solving problem X. (Alcoholics don't stop drinking when they lose their jobs and hence the easy income to buy alcohol, they stop when they decide they need to stop drinking regardless of anything else.)
The grandparent post wrote
"Tea, a drink with jam and bread!". And by that definition, most of the people in the world who've drunk tea today haven't done it right.
It's cool the things you can infer about people if you take catchy aphorisms and treat them as if they are actually accurate. In the physical world, it's amazing how often your aphorism seems to miss the point, eg, setting a snare and repeatedly not catching anything in it until the time you do catch something. Clearly it's a more complex world than you're painting.
'On the other hand, I keep stating the obvious and the pocket protector crowd continues to ignore it, so I guess I fit the definition as well'.
Well, pocket protectors are a well known method of birth control.
My belief is that the free market myth does not exist. Specifically, there is no optimality in the free market. People seem to assume that the best technology comes from a free market, I see very little empirical evidence to support this. I think the economy works by feedback loops which are far from optimal. For example for heating, the EROI of solar must be enormous, but solar water and space heating simply haven't won out without government intervention. For example 90% of the hot water in Israel is heated by the sun. The government started supporting solar hot water systems during the oil crises of the 70's, and kept up the programs even when the price of oil dropped in the mid 80's. I am sure that over the lifetime of the program, this was the cheapest method of heating water, but solar water heating simply hasn't gained traction in most places. I saw a video documenting a small Austrian village that decided to heat with solar. They dug a huge hole, buried an enormous, well insulated tank of water which is heated all year round by the sun. Very simple robust technology. The tank suffices for the heating requirements of the entire village and will last for decades. High initial costs, but over time clearly a very cheap solution.
Therefore a large part of getting renewables out of the bottle is getting projects rolling. As Ugo mentioned, many people have no idea what renewables can do. Working projects are the best way to convince people, but they have to get started to get the feedback loops rolling.
In a nutshell: How can a high cost energy source have a high EROEI?
To put it another way: How can an energy source have lots of costs that don't have large energy inputs? What are the odds that lots of labor costs or materials costs or transportation or manufacturing costs going into creating some product don't have lots of energy associated with them?
I'll believe solar has a high EROEI when solar is cheap. Expensive solar can't have a high EROEI.
Solar already has a financial payback (including total installation cost) in many markets. The problem is not that it's more expensive in the long run as much as its up front cost.
How can a high cost energy source have a high EROEI?
It's easy.
You see, for any energy source with a halfway decent E-ROI (say, better than 10), energy costs are a small % of overall costs. So, energy source A has energy costs which are 5% of overall costs, and B's energy costs are 20% of overall costs, but the overall costs are identical because B's other costs are only 16% less.
Look at old, dirty coal vs wind or conventional, scrubbed coal: dirty coal is dirt cheap, while new coal and wind are moderately expensive. All three have high E-ROI.
Another way of looking at it: once E-ROI rises above about 10, it becomes unimportant. The percentage of energy invested to net energy is very smal, so that the difference between E-ROI of 20 and 50 is trivial: the percentage of energy invested to net energy is 5% for one, and 2% for the other. Trivial.
E-ROI is only important when it dips below, say 5. That applies to ethanol, for instance.
Look at Saudi oil: it's E-ROI is very high, but it's costs are also high. Energy is really, really not the only thing that's important...
For sure solar PV has is now getting into a scale where they are starting to get some economics of scale. The industry is now getting into stage where it is competitive with retail electricity rates in Europe, production will double in 2010 http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/iSuppli-Hikes-Solar-Forecast-Installat..., combined with a reduction of feed in tariffs in Germany (16% in July, 11% January 2011) will result in lower prices for complete systems. As it becomes a more main stream industry investment in R&D will rise in absolute terms so we can expect some break troughs. Installed costs in The Netherlands is approximately EUR 3.25 / kWp this results in a electricity price of approximately 0.25 kWh for 20 years only 10% more expensive then retail electricity rates at the moment. Imagine what small step still has to be made to make it really competitive only some 20-25% price reduction and the market will lift of.
Thanks to Germany who financed the growth of the industry in only a couple of years
'How can a high cost energy source have a high EROEI?'
When you can factor in enough time.
In this case, when it lasts long enough that you have to really wait for much of that energy to be 'returned' .. you have to look at it in the long view, and if you're math is on, you get the benefits. Eventually.
I mean.. the sales cost does tell you a bit about inputs, but it doesn't tell you anything about outputs, (or externalities/liabilities either, as with FF pollution) so how can you make it the basis for your EROEI valuation? You're missing at least half of the factor for calculation.
This is an odd comment.
The 100:1 figure for oil in the 1930s was for extraction, not for a finished product. Electricity from renewables otoh is a finished product. We can't say we should all go sunbathing for our energy generation because the EROEI is higher than generating electricity from solar. We can't use heat from the sun striking our bodies the same way we can use electricity from PV, just like we can't use crude extracted from the ground w/o transporting or refining it in the same way we can use electricity from renewables.