Renewables to the rescue?

With the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill now focussing President Obama's and the American people's minds on where their energy comes from, and what some of the collateral costs might be, its an opportune moment to look at how renewable energy may help supply our future energy needs.

Somewhat ironically, it is BP that provides the energy world with a priceless service through their annual review of world energy that was published last week (with little fanfare) which this year, for the first time, includes data on renewable energy.



Exponential growth in wind energy over the past 15 years has boosted energy from renewables to near 50 million tonnes oil equivalent per annum.

So is this the way to go? Will renewable energy save us from future environmental catastrophes such as the Macondo blow out?

Well I'm sorry if I raised your hopes too high. The chart below shows that global primary energy production is running at about 11,000 million tonnes oil equivalent (MMTOE) per year and that the 50 MMTOE provided by renewables is barely significant - it is the skinny red line marked by the big red arrow.


World primary energy production 1970 - 2009. In 2009, fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) accounted for 87.5% of the energy we used. Wind, solar and geothermal combined accounted for 0.4%. Data source BP 2010. (to download data click on workbook in the historical data box).

What is primary energy?

As the term suggests, it is primary as opposed to secondary energy production. Much of the energy we use at home in the form of electricity is secondary, produced in power stations by burning primary energy like coal or natural gas. And so to avoid double counting, the best way to get a handle on how much energy the world uses is to simply focus on primary energy. Nuclear and Hydro Power both produce electricity directly and so they are counted as primary energy. Similarly, wind, solar and geothermal produce electricity directly and may also be counted as primary energy.

Why tonnes oil equivalent?

One problem in studying energy is trying to equate the energy content of different energy sources. How do you compare 1 barrel of oil with 1 tonne of coal with the power output from a 1 GW nuclear reactor. One way is to reduce all these to the actual energy contents as measured in Joules (J) or British Thermal Units (BTUs), but there you end up with very big numbers. Another way is to normalise everything to their oil equivalents. In other words how many tonnes of coal or natural gas are equivalent to a tonne of oil? Since BP already provide tables that convert all primary energy sources to MMTOE this is a very convenient standard to employ. However, they do not provide this information for wind, solar and geothermal and I had to do the conversion myself.

1 TOE = 42 gigajoules
1 TOE = 40 million BTUs

Converting installed electrical capacity to MMTOE

For renewable electricity sources, BP quote values for installed capacity in megawatts (MW). Now the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine so installed capacity needs to be reduced by a factor to take into account this intermittency. Geothermal provides continuous power. The following load capacity factors have been used:

Wind 0.33
Solar 0.15
Geothermal 1.0

The next stage is to convert from MW to MW hours by multiplying by 24 and to then get MWh per year by multiplying by 365.25. So that gives us the amount of electricity generated in a year. To convert to MMTOE you divide by 12,000,000, employing standard conversion factors also provided by BP.

Some other key observations

The drop in primary energy production between 2008 and 2009 (oil, gas and nuclear production fell while coal and hydro production rose) is caused by high energy prices leading to recession, compounded by high debt and financial mismanagement by banks and government. With higher demand, production may rise again, leading to higher energy prices that will likely lead to further recession.

Despite high oil / energy prices, global oil production has been on a plateau since 2004. In recent years, much new oil production has come from deep water. The Macondo blow out seems certain to jeopardise some of this new production in future and this could lead to further pressure on oil supplies.

Nuclear and hydro both make significant contributions to the global energy mix but it is fossil fuels that dominate. When their production begins to decline it is difficult to see alternatives (nuclear, wind solar etc) filling the gap.

The solution here is to use less energy. The following chart shows how much energy we use on a per capita (per person) basis - draw your own conclusions.


Summary of per capita energy consumption of key groups of countries. The OCED norm (Australia, Sweden, France, Germany, UK and Denmark) is around 4 tonnes oil equivalent (TOE) per annum. The USA and Canada use double that amount. Developing countries on average use around 0.5 TOE per capita per annum. Note that OECD per capita consumption has been reasonably flat for 40 years while per capita energy consumption in the developing countries is still growing. This picture is clouded by energy embedded in manufactured goods that are produced in developing countries and consumed in the OECD.

A time for reflection

Macondo has eventually gripped the media and political eye. It is time for sober reflection on the global energy predicament and not for knee jerk reactions. How important is primary energy production and consumption for the OECD way of life? It links to economic growth, tax receipts and all that these pay for, pensions, manufacturing, food production, defense, leisure, comfort and security.

Thanks for this. I hope that this indeed does become a time for reflection.

See similar commentary from the London Times http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/anatolekaletsky/article.... One of the more insightful articles I've seen on the Macondo disaster. And, one that at least picks out a silver lining from the oil plumes in the GOM. Is this the inflection point? Is this the point at which for good ECONOMIC reasons, including risk, Big Oil finally gets serious about alternative non-fossil fuels and starts allocating ITS resources into something other than getting oil out of the ground in increasingly difficult (aka expensive) and risky (aka major potential downsides e.g. Macondo) environments? Quote: "The industrialised world’s addiction to oil is not just environmentally destructive and geopolitically suicidal, but economically irrational. By relying on fossil fuels, the West is not only risking catastrophic climate change and subsidising some of the world’s nastiest political regimes to the tune of $1 trillion annually, it is also forgoing the opportunity to develop new energy technologies in which knowledge-based societies, such as Europe and America, would enjoy a clear competitive advantage." Not good news for the oil industry but could be good for the energy industry - and for the Western world. Any chance of Obama leveraging this disaster into positive change?

Probably not as long as American is stuck in the "can't do" mode of thinking. I sometimes get the feeling if we didn't already have airplanes all we would hear here in the States would be "man can't fly, we have never done so, we can't try". It seems to be automatic any more .. we can't do solar, we can't do wind, we can't reduce our energy consumption, we can't come up with something new. Yes, solar and wind all have problems, and with current technology not up to replacing oil & gas but could at least be used to reduce the amount of oil and gas needed. Currently I am looking to the rest of the world for solutions.

Although I tend to agree with you, I'd say the "can't do" attitude is more prevalent at TOD, and in internet comments in general, than in the real world.

I spend half my free internet-time working out depletion problems via the Oil Shock Model and Dispersive Discovery, and the other half working out potential opportunities in photovoltaics, wind, and entropic sources of energy. And then some commenting on TOD, because that's the best way to get good feedback.

I do this because you have to prove that the problem exists before you can sell any kind of solution. Too bad that the real world doesn't follow this approach. For them, I get the impression that it is just full-speed-ahead.

WHT,

What are 'entropic sources of energy'?

Any sources of energy that are not concentrated and are variable and non-optimal

Wind
Solar and mass quantity PV
Geothermal such Heat Exchangers
Hydro
Tidal

Some people call these renewable as well, but these share the proerty that you can use the principles of entropy to analyze effectiveness.
And thi is not accomplished in the same way as applying the 2nd Law.

Probably not as long as American is stuck in the "can't do" mode of thinking.

Nonsense!
We CAN bailout reckless, irresponsible banks, speculators and multinationals.
We CAN privatize profits and socialize losses.
We CAN jury-rig the tax code to reward reckless financial speculation and the offspring of the idle rich.
We CAN erase any distinction between corporate interests and public policy.
We CAN ignore the best interests of the majority with impunity.
We CAN transfer wealth from middle class & poor to rich with breathtaking efficiency.
We CAN offshore jobs, knowledge and valuable trade secrets.
We CAN de-industrialize and replace good paying careers with low paying service jobs.
We CAN replace income with debt.
We CAN expand our empire to occupy any spot of dirt in the world that has valuable natural resources we want.

Who says America "can't do" anymore?

Harm, so true
No doubt
We CAN do ourselves in as well

Can we do it? Not according to the party of "hell no!"

I think the one "can do" things USA needs to embrace are gasoline taxes and more fuel efficient cars and energy efficient buildings - reducing energy consumption towards the OECD norm is one of the simplest routes to follow.

'The one can do things .. '

I don't object to the examples you mention.. but following your keypost, it still comes as an implied dismissal of, say,a broad solar Thermal initiative, which alone would prevent the burning of massive amounts of all the fuels. It is a fait accompli that such a buildout would accompany the building-tightening that you have encouraged.

We have a broad workforce, and can really keep more than two ideas in mind at a time. There's no need to make the route THAT simple.

I don't dismiss solar and wind and believe these will expand over decades to provide 10 to 20% of primary energy. I'm more skeptical about ambitions to have 50 to 100% of energy needs met fro these sources.

Wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, geothermal plus HV DC & pumped storage can supply 90% of US electrical demand (reduced by conservation and efficiency). 25 to 30 years and a several dozen AIGs worth of investment.

Moving transportation to electric rail (plus EVs, bicycling and walking) plus higher efficiency can reduce oil use there by 90%. Biofuels can fill part of that residual 10% demand.

Alan

Lets see... Kevin Costner can produce a gizmo that takes oil out of the water.. Probably over budget and takes a long time, just like his movies. They consult James Cameron for advice on deep sea rovers.......

They are all wrong. What we need to do is consult Steven Speilberg, put the deepwater horizon in a big Delorean car and send it back in time.

That should fix it. :)

Last night (June 14) on the PBS Newshour there was a long, informative segment on how dependent green energy is upon the mining industry for rare minerals necessary to these emergent industries. For a transcript or MP3 of this segment:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june10/metals_06-14.html

It became clear through the piece how closely bound many new technologies are to these rare minerals - which must be mined.

Wind energy might be dependent on rare earths. Solar is not so much, AFAIK.

Although there are real issues with green technology and rare earths, I wouldn't call the PBS segment informative on the subject. It was more focused on the geopolitical ramifications of rare earth mining.

Rare earth elements are most commonly used to make magnets, a key component of electric motors and generators.

Solar panels don't use rare earths, but they do involve significant amounts of some other uncommon elements like tellurium, indium, etc.

In general, expect nonmetal mining and refining to get a lot more diverse and interesting this century.

Not necessarily. AC induction motors/generators do not require any rare metals. Most wind turbines use AC generators (although this is likely to change).

Solar panels don't use rare earths, but they do involve significant amounts of some other uncommon elements like tellurium, indium, etc.

Are tellurium and indium used in the polycrystalline silicon modules that currently make up the overwhelming majority of the solar panels being installed? AFAIK, no.

Indium is a P-type dopant in column IV materials which means we only need traces for that.

For III-V materials, Indium is pretty important for all sorts of photoelectronic applications, but as you probably know, very expensive in mass quantities.

Okay, thanks. Any light you can cast, say, on how much indium would be used in a typical solar cell?

Dopants are orders of magnitude less than the volume of the silicon. That's why I call it trace.

Indium has a low melting point, not as low as gallium, which incidentally will melt in your hand. So these materials are useful as solder. Lead is a great solder but poisonous, and tin is also good but it has reliability issues due to whisker growth. So the solder companies are always trying these new eutectic alloys. If you had heard that Indium has been used heavily in solar cells, it may be in solder and for contact material.

Indium is used in the transparent, conductive coating on the surface of the cells to collect the electricity. Silver fingers are deposited,on top of that, to transfer electricity to the connecting wires that are soldered with a tin/silver solder.

NAOM

That makes a lot of sense as far as optimizing the area of current collection.

BTW, Here is an example of the research I do in characterizing disordered PV materials:
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2010/05/fokker-planck-for-disordered-sy...
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2010/05/characterizing-mobility-in-diso...

Amorphous materials are my favorite because they are crappy and we have to learn how to deal with crap for the time being.

This is true today. But carbon nanotubes and/or graphene appear to work pretty well as a replacement - perhaps better than the indium tin oxide (ITO) compound that's currently used.

Carbon nanotubes are suspected of being potential health hazards, but so are a lot of the chemicals used in solar cells.

Chris

Neither Oerlikon nor Applied Materials are using indium in their transparent conductive oxide (conductive coating):
www.solarfeeds.com/greentech-media/12135-what-is-oerlikon-solar-doing-so...

By the way, with the $180 billion spent on AIG and its bonuses, one could have financed 600 Oerlikon thinfilm photovoltaic factories, which produce 96 GW per year. (That is 96 GW every single year!)
www.oerlikon.com/ecomaXL/index.php?site=SOLAR_EN_press_releases_detail&u...

And these photovoltaic modules can be placed on existing roofs without requiring any additional area: 120,000 km2 of the US is built. If only 10% of that area has roof area, that leads to a maximum solar power of 12,000 GW or 1,200 GW at only 10% efficiency.

Indium used in a "typical solar call" - i.e. a crystalline silicon solar cell?
None.

Indium is only used as part of the semiconductor in Copper-Indium(-Gallium)-Selenide/Sulfide cells or compound semiconductor cells,
both of which have negligible market share.

Mono-crystalline, multi-crystalline and amorphous silicon cells are doped with Boron for p-type doping (sometimes Aluminum for p-type surface doping for "back surface fields"),
and Phosphorus for n-type doping.

These is the use of silver in the conductive pastes in most commercial silicon cells (the conductors are screen-printed on, then fired to reduce the paste to a metallic conductor). The other ingredients of this paste are glass frits and organic binders/solvents.

There are alternatives to silver paste conductors, though not in common use yet, such as electroplated conductors, or light fused metal nano-particles - like PulseForge:
http://www.novacentrix.com/

But indium is too expensive for soldering ordinary solar cells.

Indium is also used in the Transparent Conductive Oxides for thin-film technologies, though alternatives are being explored - mostly Zinc oxides or Tin oxides "doped" with various things.

Most solders for crystalline silicon cells are rather ordinary:
lead-tin solder, tin-silver-copper, sometimes with bismuth.
Ulbrich is a major manufacturer of the tabbing ribbon wire:
http://www.pvribbon.com/pv-ribbon-products/tech-specs/default.html

There are some exotic cells (or layers in multi-junction cells) made from compound semiconductors:
Gallium-Arsenide, Indium Phosphide, Indium-Nitride, Indium-Gallium-Phosphide, etc., but these are quite exotic and only used in research, for space applications, or for concentrator cells.

The wiki article on Solar cells has gotten good lately:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell
Multijunction article kinda rough, but informative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multijunction_solar_cell

Market share: Crystalline silicon maintains about 80% market share,
First Solar Cadmium-Telluride is now 8%, amorphous silicon is about 8-10% and everything else is "also ran".

2009 PV installation was about 7 Gigawatts peak.
2010 will be around 10 GWp.

Thanks. I'm curious how Leibig's law of the minimum might apply to solar production in general. As far as I can see, with the current state of the technology that means discussing silicon cells. Nothing else matters right now. And I have been believing that indium is not relevant to silicon cells. I guess the next series of questions involves inverters.

Indium isn't geologically rare. Demand for it has risen rapidly since the invention of flat screen TVs and mines have to catch up.

Tellerium really is rare. But it is only used in First Solar's Cadmium Telleride technology.

Wind energy might be dependent on rare earths. Solar is not so much

Solar energy has to be concentrated and stored. Humans use batteries to store it, which use Lithium, among other metals and chemicals. That's why the pronouncement this week about Pentagon Defense officials and American geologists finding a trillion dollars worth of rare metal deposits (Lithium, specifically) sent a chill up my spine. You've got to love the timing. And I caught some of the white house Q&A tonight, and there was a pointed comment by Gibbs about the US wanting to ramp up production of batteries in the country from 2% of worldwide production to 40%. Another chill ran up my spine. Connect the dots, and beat the drums of war. . . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/15/robert-gibbs-answers-your-ques...

Edit: here's a link from speeches by Obama in the past month. I know pharmaceutical makers of the Lithium drug are also worried about supply.

President Obama's speech also made note of The US's investment in cleaner technology. "The United States used to make less than 2 percent of the world's advanced batteries for hybrid cars. By 2015, because of the investments that we made, we'll have enough capacity to make up to 40 percent of these batteries."(5)

Lithium Technology is current used in a wide range of technological applications, and is favored heavily by the electronics industry and the motor industry. According to a May 23, 2010 Bloomberg Business week article, "Lithium based battery chemistry is an industry adopted standard now in EV (Electric Vehicles)."(6)

ABOUT LITHIUM: Lithium is a lightweight metal used in a wide range of consumer products the world over: the medical industry uses Lithium as an anti-depressant; industrial uses include glass, ceramic and porcelain enamel manufacture; the aviation industry uses Lithium in alloys. Of particular interest is the use of Lithium for battery production, which has expanded significantly in recent years due to rechargeable Lithium batteries being used increasingly in electrical tools and in the rapidly expanding portable electronics market. Furthermore, the next generation of hybrid and electric vehicles are being designed to use high-capacity Lithium-ion batteries as environmentally-friendly fuel alternatives while the Obama administration has introduced $5 billion in funding and incentives for the development of a secure, domestic battery industry with special focus on Lithium-ion batteries.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-oil-catastrophe-accentuates-i...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10077965-54.html

Solar energy has to be concentrated and stored.

Well, not necessarily. Most installed solar power these days is grid tied with no storage.

Good points about lithium, but it's not a "rare earth." Actually the term "rare earth" is a bit misleading, since they aren't the rarest elements.

Solar energy has to be concentrated and stored.

Unless you are talking electric vehicle with PV assist, we won't use lithium batteries for bulk energy storage. Currently I think Vanadium flow batteries are being explored. The best storage idea I saw was thermal storage, between hot and cold (a couple hundred below zero) reservoirs, where the carnot losses wouldn't kill you. Again a lot can be accomplished with long distance power grids, and time varying prices which will lead to demand management.

Just use pumped storage. The Swiss are building 12 GW MORE pumped storage ATM.

Alan

Or make dry ice for medium term 1 week storage. Nothing to stop you shoveling it into an appropriate train engine either.

Unless you are talking electric vehicle with PV assist, we won't use lithium batteries for bulk energy storage.

I realized I was imprecise about types of batteries in my rush to connect the dots, The work has already been done, as usual, on TOD--here's a great session from Dr. A. M. Diederen that presents the issues on metal minerals scarcity.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5559

The details about the different types of car batteries are not something I pursue, because in order to prop up BAU, we'd have to scale up new types of cars, new infrastructure, and new batteries for ?250? million vehicles in the US alone ('Merican here). Electric transport, unless it's scaled back to trains and bicycles, just won't work. Even then, we'd have to go raid Afghanistan and other countries for the bling to make it happen. So I'm not interested in the details.

For non mobile storage it is hard to beat lead-acid. Anybody claiming there is a lead shortage or sulphuric acid shortage?

the medical industry uses Lithium as an anti-depressant

If the medical industry discovers depression can be treated with high-frequency sound, the lithium could be saved for other applications.
See Dr. Guy Berard's book Hearing Equals Behavior for his treating even suicidal depression effectively with sound.

Solar energy has to be concentrated and stored. Humans use batteries to store it,

Or heat (steam, hot water, hot fluids, soil), or cold (ice, fluids, soil), or elevation (pumped storage), or rotational mass (flywheels).

which use Lithium, among other metals and chemicals.

Batteries come in more than one flavour. There's Lead Acid, Lithium, Nickle-Iron, Sodium, and others.

One thing I tell my students is, "renewable" doesn't necessarily mean "clean". One wind turbine in a field by itself looks harmless enough, but when you scale renewables up to the point where they make a difference, generating terawatts of power, it's always going to be a pretty gritty industrial process. And even worse, the low power density of renewable sources means that industrial process is spread over a wide area.

But that's okay, in my book: I accept that energy production is going to make the world a little ugly. I just want it to be sustainable and relatively non-toxic.

As for the specific issues of mining for metals for renewable power, yeah that's part of it. Fortunately, high-value, low-bulk materials like rare earth elements are ideal targets for recycling. When it comes time to junk your Prius or Nissan Leaf, expect somebody somewhere to be pulling the motor magnets out of it before it goes into the compactor, just like they do now with the catalytic converter.

http://www.webelements.com/

Great site for information on all elements - Li is group 1 alkali. The REE are at bottom - called lanthanoids

Apparently there are some $1 T worth of minerals in Afghanistan...

Enough to keep American and British men and women bleeding for more years to come...

This bottleneck in natural resources was also outlined in Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-e...

...you have to pay to read it, but it might be worth it. The thing that I didn't see mentioned on PBS is electric motors for our electric cars also depend on these rare earth elements.

electric motors for our electric cars also depend on these rare earth elements.

They don't have to. An ordinary AC induction motor has no metals but copper and iron. The carbon brush DC motors have nothing but carbon, copper and iron. The rare earth PMG motors are very sexy, and efficient, but for a slight drop in efficiency or increase in maintenance (carbon brushes) we can make all the motors we want without rare earths

How important is primary energy production and consumption for the OECD way of life? It links to economic growth, tax receipts and all that these pay for, pensions, manufacturing, food production, defense, leisure, comfort and security.

Ah! Therein lies the rub!

Primary energy production and consumption quite simply define the OECD way of life.

To me there are only two possible options, either a new source of energy is found and adopted before the consequences of peak fossil fuels catch up with us, or, we are forced to drastically change our lifestyles.

To be clear, I'm not overly optimistic about either of these options.

You may not be optimistic about either, but it is pretty clear that it mostly the latter that is going to happen, one way or the other.

We can choose to plan at least some of that power down, or not. But it's coming.

The last graph makes it pretty clear to me that the US/Canada have to scale back to European/East Asian norms. Then all of the OECD needs to head toward energy use levels that somehow most of the world has been able to live with.

We don't have an energy supply problem. We have an energy use problem.

And we REALLY have a runaway GW problem, but that is another and grimmer and (and probably more immediate, given developments in the Arctic) issue I won't go into here now.

We don't have an energy supply problem. We have an energy use problem.

I agree with that observation.

I just sent 3 prototype solar generators that my company developed, to a so called third world country.
These are very basic systems: They include a 45 watt PV panel a 400 watt Inverter a 10 amp solar charger and a 125 hr sealed lead acid deep cycle battery. The kit also includes 8, 1 watt high intensity LED lights.

I just got some feedback from the end users. Compared to what they had, (kerosene lanterns)they are absolutely ecstatic about the performance of the generators. It is a step up!

Why do the US and Canada have to use twice the amount of energy as Scandinavian countries? I have visited Sweden, Denmark and Norway, their quality of life is better than that of the average American's... Something is seriously awry here!

Generally that would be seen as a reduction in quality of life, and thus moving backwards.

I think that statement is not even wrong.

Misguided then?

The problem is that Americans want both Quality of Life and Quantity of Life. In many cases, I can't distinguish the two, and neither can they probably!

Hey WHT, my point was that there is nothing backward or poor quality about life in Scandinavia (I've been there) yet they use half as much energy per capita as Americans. My conclusion is that quality of life can be just as good if not better with a 50% reduction in our energy consumption.

Turbo diesel Volvos and Saabs ain't all that bad and they even have electricity and heating in the winter. Some Swedes do have compost piles with worms in their kitchens and they are sorta socialist...

no problem, your response sounded like a double negative ("not even wrong") and I figured it needed some clarification.

It was an allusion to "Sloppy Thinking." Not that I think Floridian was even thinking scientifically...just sloppily.

An apparently scientific argument is said to be "not even wrong" if it is based on theories that cannot be falsified or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world.

The phrase was coined by the early theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking.

Not even wrong (or the full version "That's not right - that's not even wrong") refers to any statement, argument or explanation that is so at odds with reality that it is considered uncorrectable. The phrase implies that not only is someone not making a valid point in a discussion, but they don't even seem to understand the nature of the discussion itself, or the things that need to be understood in order to participate.

I beg to differ. I have been to Stochholm. Most of the population live in flats. The whole place has a concrete ugliness about it and is generally very modern in a very bad way. I am fond of the Swedish as a people, but I couldn't live there.

A better model for a low-energy living environment would be Venice or Brugges or any other city designed to carfree standards.

NOTHING (except 3rd World slums) approaches the ugliness of American Suburbia with the attached strip malls and "big box" stores ! Half the land area is devoted to the automobile !

Alan

Stokholm Sweden

Typical US Suburban mall

And yes, I'll take Venice or Brugges or any other city designed to carfree standards, over the typical parking lot covered architecture of most of the US.

Oh come on. That's a totally dishonest comparison, and you know it.

Stockholm:

vs
Houston, TX:

We can play this game all day. I'm on your side in supporting energy-efficient urbanization, but your loaded photo comparison is even less convincing than Antius's vague impressions.

Pictures lie. Data talks.

99% of Houston is an ugly wasteland. And very few parks as pictured.

Stockholm is a mixture of pretty and not so pretty, but much of it "soothes" the soul. Not so for Houston.

Last week, for the first time in years, I was caught in the rush hour in Suburbia (Metairie, Veterans Blvd) and I saw a pit of ugliness everywhere I turned.

Data can say "52% of the land area of Phoenix AZ is devoted to the automobile" and "Retail space in the USA is 10x what it was in 1950 and 3.5x Sweden today" and "Parks are 3% of land area" and the average commute is xx minutes at an average speed of 36 mph", but only pictures can express the ugliness we immerse ourselves into.

A Picture is worth a Thousand Words and 100 data points,

Alan

All I know is that a whole lot of land that used to be forests, meadows, and farmland in my youth is now paved over and built-upon.

When I was a kid in the early 70s folks were preaching zero population growth, but most people are just too darn selfish to have only two children or less. Thus the petri dish that is Earth fills with our monoculture and its waste, and the nutrients are used up.

The endgame of our unconstrained population growth will not be pretty.

And yes, we should each use the same amount of energy as the average European.

Just to inject a more concrete perspective on this European vs. American energy use difference, I moved this year from the northeastern U.S. to Finland and can say that my lifestyle has NOT appreciably changed in any way. How am I now using half the energy? Things I've noticed:

- HEATING. The average house is insulated effectively. Snow is not melting off the roof while the temperature is still below freezing, unlike many houses old and new where I lived in the U.S.. I don't know where the difference comes from -- building codes, presence of technology and engineering know-how in the mainstream trade, newer average housing stock, or what. Also, home geothermal heating systems are used -- not sure how commonly, but I'd never even heard of such a thing in the U.S..

- ELECTRICITY. Clothes dryers are a rarity -- most people use indoor drying racks. Refrigerators and washing machines seem to be more energy-efficient. Surprisingly, use of flourescent lighting is rare in homes though.

- TRANSPORT. Cycling mentality -- in cities and suburban areas, summer and winter, a significant number of people cycle, and there are pleasant paths to do it on in most places. Trains for long distances. Tickets are very expensive, comparable to or more than flights over similar distances in the U.S., but they are fast and on time. People use them. Another thing, from what I can tell, the tolerance for long commutes is lower than in the U.S.. I guess people either move or find another job at a lower threshold. (BTW, Finland has overall population density about half that of the U.S., so I don't think population vs. land area is itself the issue.)

It's hard to quantify any of these things, and there's surely much more going on, but anyway some food for thought.

Just to be clear, if I had to choose between Houston and Stockholm, I'd pick Stockholm in a heartbeat. My comparison is totally unfair, comparing the best of Houston against the worst of Stockholm... but so is FMagyar's. My goal with the photos was not to convince you that Houston's better, but to point out that photo comparisons give you no useful information.

(I had to work *damned* hard to find a pretty photo of Houston. But that's the point: with enough effort, you can make anyplace on Earth look attractive in a photo. That's why we have realtors.)

But your point also carries the assumption that one would be trying to deceive with his pix, and not using them to catch an essence that each city carries for him.

Yes, it's subjective, but in this matter, that's still within the point.. 'how do you feel about the places you live?' What has American Car Culture done to Pave Paradise, at our unfortunate expense?

Think about the 'Picture of Dorian Gray' .. The author used the imagery manipulatively, but also honestly- to reveal what has happened to Dorian's soul.

'Art is like morality. You have to draw the line somewhere.'

It's been about 92-94 degrees every day here in Houston since late May, and it has not fallen under 80 at night. So we're all trapped in our houses here and have no idea what the city looks like anyway.

Now there is quite a bit of nature in Houston in the sense of decay and encroaching wilderness. Here in the Heights there's plenty of abandoned houses and feral animals, and I confronted a hognose snake in front of my gate last week. It seems whenever the economy runs off the road in Houston, things are left to rot and Nature rushes in with the ugliest stuff she's got. I just did some Census work and saw some marginal neighborhoods, ones where they started tearing down the shotgun shacks and putting up $400,000 townhouses just when the economy collapsed. So now the collapsing shacks and foreclosed townhouses sit side by side, and - as I discovered as a Census taker - nobody knows anything about their neighbors.

A former house painter told me all the new houses in Houston are built like trash anyway. The last couple of floods revealed that a lot of them were improperly placed and took damage that older houses avoided. With the acceleration of heat and humidity, our pretty houses will quickly decay into a state of nature, and someone will bear the losses.

I confronted a hognose snake in front of my gate last week.

I'm hoping you didn't hurt it. They're great for controlling rodents! BTW, ugly is in the eye of the beholder...

Ok I'll accept that there are ugly buildings in Stockholm and there are nice parks in the US.

However that data says that USians use more energy per capita than any other group of people on the planet. According to the graph posted by Euan, Americans, about twice as much as Scandinavians and I am yet to be convinced that their quality of life is significantly better.

Furthermore I am quite convinced that the automobile centric structure of American suburbs, coupled with the consumerist excesses of the average American are a large part of the underlying difference in energy use. Can you provide data to contrary?

Can you provide data to contrary?

No, I believe exactly the same as you do. I'm objecting to your rhetorical method, not your conclusion.

I beg to differ. I have been to Stochholm. Most of the population live in flats. The whole place has a concrete ugliness about it and is generally very modern in a very bad way.

Ah! I can see why you might prefer that Stockholm over Houston, any day, as you mentioned...

So, I can safely assume your statement above, contained no rhetoric whatsoever, but was based instead on purely empirical data, correct? ;^)

Check the authors: Antius wrote that, not me. I find his argument equally unconvincing.

My apologies! You are right.

Furthermore I am quite convinced that the automobile centric structure of American suburbs, coupled with the consumerist excesses of the average American are a large part of the underlying difference in energy use. Can you provide data to contrary?

I disagree, slightly.
For one thing per capita energy use is for the nation as a whole, not just residences.

Average US household uses 750 gallons per year of gasoline or 97000 MJ.
Average US household uses 12000 kwh per year of electricity or 43000 MJ.
Average US household uses 39000 MJ of natural gas.

Converting those to primary inputs you get per household
116000 MJ electricity, 115000 MJ gasoline and 41000 MJ natural gas or 272000 MJ total or 33.27 quads out of 100 quads of total energy.
So blaming everything on households(+80% 'US suburban ideal') is a bit misleading and it would be an extreme overreaction to start tearing down suburbans to move everyone into overcrowded decaying cities.

We could increase car efficiency by 100% with only allowing smaller cars with hybrid drivetrains(40 mpg rather than 20 mpg). It would cause average total household primary energy use to drop by 21% from 272000 MJ to 214000 MJ.

an extreme overreaction to start tearing down suburbans to move everyone into overcrowded decaying cities.

A bit of framing ?

How about

It is only prudent to start abandoning the poorly built, over sized, wasteful and ugly McMansions with their social isolation (and related obesity) and soulless ugliness of malls and seas of parking lots with their unsupportable infrastructure in favor of vibrant, socially alive Transit Orientated Development with much greater aesthetic appeal. Some TOD will be new, very energy efficient construction and some will be renovation of very well built classic structures that just need a little TLC.

We should be happier, healthier and lead more fulfilled lives once the Suburban experiment ends.

Best Hopes for Seeing the Light :-)

Alan

It is only prudent to start abandoning the poorly built, over sized, wasteful and ugly McMansions with their social isolation (and related obesity) and soulless ugliness of malls and seas of parking lots with their unsupportable infrastructure in favor of vibrant, socially alive Transit Orientated Development with much greater aesthetic appeal.

+10

You'd think, we might as a people, hold these truths to be self evident...

Maybe for the top 1% but for the increasingly gritty masses, no.
Sounds like a lovely TV commercial written by Jim Kunstler and rewritten by 'green-BAU' developers.

As far as transit oriented development, the idea of putting up monorails/streetcars for the high rise bound elite on taxpayers' dime? Not a chance.

As far as transit oriented development, the idea of putting up monorails/streetcars for the high rise bound elite on taxpayers' dime? Not a chance.

Who's talking about the elite? Street cars have always been for the common man.

This is your post-Peak transit solution?

Thanks for making my point in spades.

Where's the horse?

I very much enjoy my 1923 and 1924 Perley Thomas Streetcars.

but the French are building these

Best Hopes for Rivaling French Bureaucrats for Speed & Efficiency,

Alan

My choice of graphic was quite deliberate. I wanted to emphasize both the historical perspective and the fact that mass transit is intended to be for masses and not the elites. As for horses they didn't use them for this trolley because they already knew how to harness electricity even back then... As for post peak solutions it still beats walking. We now know how to make these cars look a lot cooler! But you can ride a horse if you want.

The French are in the process of putting in 1,500 km of new tram lines in every town of 100,000 and larger.

Your "point" about elites is SUCH BS !!

Alan

Mass transit to serve high rise magnet buildings is a developer's wet dream.
Try to come up with something practical.
Even EVs and bicycles are better than TOD.

Urban Rail is practical. Put in what works for the location.

For New Orleans, streetcars.

For New York City, the 2nd Avenue subway is the #1 priority, but streetcars weaving on the surface between subway stops, light rail in a few spots (such as Staten Island to New Jersey), would work as well.

For Los Angeles, the "Subway to the Sea" would likely be the busiest or second busiest subway line in the USA. Bunches of light rail and a few subway spurs off that.

In Boston, connecting North Station and South Station is critical.

A dozen new lines in DC area, some Metro, most light rail, 4 streetcar lines in DC, more commuter lines.

etc.

MUCH more practical than trying to maintain our existing highway system post-Peak Oil.

Alan

BTW, most TOD is midrise. Hardly anything over 5 stories on our streetcar lines except in the CBD. There a 51 story office building between the tracks.

They're extremely practical.. it just doesn't fit the Cowboy fantasy too well, while Bikes and EV's could just squeeze into that ideal a little.

I think it's their practicality that actually makes them NOT so popular for most Americans, yet. Wait til the options start thinning out, though.

There may be less to this than meets the eye. According to this, there were 37 such cities in France in 1999, probably a couple more now, comprising 9,028,832 people out of a national population of 58,518,395 at the time. (These numbers were handy, somebody can recalculate for 2010, but probably the proportion is only slightly changed.) So somewhere around 15% are served.

The average place would have 240,000 or so and get 40km of "lines" (I hope that's "line" and not "track" but I have no cite for the basic info on that, nor on how much might be double-tracked.) Useful, but not exactly comprehensive. So maybe half the 15% will potentially have a use for the lines. And one indeed suspects that, as in Paris, the well-to-do who can afford to live in the city proper get the urban-rail service, and the not so well-to-do who can't get desultory buses, or have to drive (unless they are lucky enough to live near a suburban line that also happens to go someplace where they need to go.)

It sure looks like the many squandering on the few. That would make the politics messy if one tried to replicate it in the USA, where the proportion benefiting would be even smaller.

[N.B. The article in French referred to in the discrepancy note is about metropolitan areas and has more recent numbers, so of course they are larger and there are more of them, amounting to around 45% of the population. But you did say every town of 100,000, and I think that in France as in the US, town ("commune") does not mean metro area.]

Bad data in, bad analysis out.

This site has all currently open French tram lines. My count, 30 cities and towns with more coming. If you know anything of French geography, this is a fairly comprehensive list.

http://www.trams-in-france.net/reload.htm?bordeaux.htm

To quote

The tramway lines in the greater Paris area, known as Île de France, can be found mainly in the suburbs and on tangential routes. Merely the T3 is situated inside the border of Paris, but it is also a tangential line.

If the suburbs of Paris and the metropolitan populations are included, I suspect that a majority of the French are served. And 2020 has not yet arrived.

Post-Peak Oil, the existing network can be expanded to become even more comprehensive.

Overseas, Reunion Island is getting a very impressive 140 km (Phase 2) tram-train (trains at night) and Fort-de-France, Martinique (pop 94,000) has plans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9union_Tram_Train

I missed Loan (pop. 26,000) in my earlier survey but that line is minimal, but how much transit does one need in a town of 26,000 ?

I chose Mulhouse as a sample city to concentrate in detail on (cannot do EVERY town). Population 110,900, Metro area 278,200.

From nothing in 1995, red open today, blue by 2013 (58 km unless recent changes) and yellow after 2013.

http://www.solea.info/mediadb/reseau_2011.jpg
Click magnifying glass for detailed street grid.

The long feeder line will pick quite a few rural folk. And the other lines pass within sight of cows and vineyards from detailed maps I have seen and serve more than the 110,900 of Mulhouse proper.

Add a few hundred velibs (rental bicycles).

The regular train route
http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/france-trains/corail/east/paris-troyes-mu...

with a number of stops at villages . ALL train routes electrified by 2025.

Connect to the TGV line in Strasbourg
http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/france-trains/tgv-est-europeen/tgv-est-sc...

And in 2012, Mulhouse will be the temporary terminus for a TGV line from Dijon.

Basically, any resident in Mulhouse will be able to walk out of their door and be in Paris within 5 hours, and use just a few drops of lubricating oil.

Alan

And all French lines are double tracked except when they split in downtowns (two tracks on two one-way streets. Line mileage is usually based on the longer of the pair.

IMO, single track should be used more extensively on "end of line" extensions. For example, any further extension westward from Portland, Oregon should be single track. But this philosophy has not caught on.

I found that Perpignan (Pop 105,100) was planning a tram but is now going with a busway till 2015-2020+

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://routes.wikia....

Metz is planning to go with electric trolley buses.

In a world of limited resources, the average quality of life is inversely proportional to the quantity of life. Of course, it all depends on how you measure quality. Per capita energy use is a good way to infer the physical standard of living. By that measure, Americans have a much higher standard of living than most folks on this planet. On the other hand (do you have to be an economist to use that phrase?), there are other ways to measure quality of life. By some of those other standards, Americans have a very low quality of life, even though they may have a high material standard of living. For example, do most Americans really enjoy spending two hours a day in a metal box on wheels to go to and from a soul-draining job in a cube farm?

I used to travel through Amish country near York and Lancaster, PA, and those people always appeared to be fairly happy and reasonably well-adjusted, even though they didn't have SUVs and wide-screen TVs. It kinda makes you wonder...

Anyway, it's going to be a bumpy ride for the next several decades, and most of us are going to end up "poorer" than we are now, but that does not necessarily mean less happy or fulfilled (unless we're always hungry and cold...).

I notice that for 2008 solar and geothermal provided 0.38% of the US generation mix. Wind? .02%. Thought it doing better than that.

These techs have quite a way to go before making much of a splash. Hydro declined from 10.53% in 1997 to 6.20% in 2008, for instance, a shortfall the other renewables need to cover before we can think of displacing fossil fuels.

I never think of these as having much of anything to do with peak oil, other than peak oil making them even less likely to be implemented. Solar or wind could displace coal or NG providing the opportunity to use these FFs as stocks for liquid fuel, but conceivably we could do that now. CNG cars seem to be going gangbusters in other parts of the world, but I suspect that's a case of tapping into stranded gas and creating new motorists, rather than drivers converting to gas. I've a database of CNG use worldwide and should see what has happened to NG consumption in those nations that are hot on the CNG bandwagon.

I think you must be mixing up solar and wind power contributions. It has to be solar that is just 0.02% of the national total (why? I don't know). And it's wind and geothermal power that together provide the bulk of recycleables energy usage in the USA. Just check the graph at the beginning of this article.

And there is a very promising direction that geothermal could take. That is the use of abandoned oil well shafts as starting points for networks of geothermal plants. Geothermal can be done with 2 paths to a hot space several thousand feet down - one shaft feeds water down, and the other shaft allows steam to rise to the plant turbines and generators on the surface. In many parts of the country we have a very good start on the shafts into the earth. And geothermal can produce power 24x7 - excellent to pair with nuclear for grid baseload demand, with solar and wind available for peak loads (with smaller amounts of NG as a reliable, flexible backup source).

Clean coal is a myth until someone actually does it on a commercial scale - and so far no one has done it.

This year, wind will generate over 2% of total MWh generated in the USA. 1.8% last year, but much new generation was operational for only part of the year.

Slow down this year with low NG prices. 2.1% or 2.2% is my SWAG for 2010.

Alan

Whoops, formatting error there on my behalf; numbers were from the EIA Annual Energy Review's Electricity section, and I can't read the .xls in Open Office for some reason - have to copy stuff by hand and got the columns mixed up. Excel does work with it, natch.

Still, wind is tracking to provide about 6% nameplate in 10 years - which effectively only amounts to 2-3% on average, about what petroleum was providing a few years back. Still not very landscape changing (sorry, pun...) unless that exponential curve shows up.

I'm European, reckon I could halve my energy consumption with no penalty to quality of life though feel that government could do more to help. In UK we already have some significant incentives to drive fuel efficient cars - via tax system, and there are programs for home insulation etc. This needs to go further. In particular we need greater subsidies for installation of energy efficient boilers (furnaces) and higher tax on air travel - to act as a disincentive.

I'm European, and the consumption that I have control of, and can measure, is half the European average, except for my car, which is larger than my family really needs. I certainly have a very easy life and it is superficially indistinguishable from that of my wealthy neighbours. I don't do foreign travel any more (although I might by boat or train), but I don't miss that. The easier travel becomes, the less value it has.

Of course, the energy consumption I can't control accounts for about half of my per capita consumption but there is only so much I can do as an individual.

We could reduce our consumption further, but we would need to change our lifestyles significantly, and/or invest heavily in rebuilding or home, solar PV, electric transport, etc. To a large extent I am very privileged in living and working in a wealthy, academic city which makes my low energy lifestyle easy. People lower down the social ladder (but not the income ladder, I traded in money for a better lifestyle a decade ago) are forced to consume more energy, even though they do not realise the implications.

Government and industrial waste is a problem. Collecting waste heat from power stations would be a major step in right direction.

When you measure your electricity consumption do you gross back in the waste heat etc that accompanies power generation.

I have not switched my supplier to a 'green' one - I save far more money and CO2 by using less electricity. I calculate that the CO2 footprint of my heating, electricity and transport are about equal, assuming 30% efficiency for electricity production and distribution and an average fuel mix.

Recently my electricity meter was replaced. The new one is showing higher consumption - the old one may have been under reporting my consumption, sadly.

I keep my food footprint down by being vegetarian, and trying to grow a few vegetables (and chickens) myself, but I suspect the embedded energy of my capital purchases is quite high by UK standards, even if I often buy second hand.

My employment is in a fairly low impact organisation, being a largely internet based educational charity.

Here is another angle on waste heat from electrical systems:

"...there’s a law of physics that says all electrical equipment wastes energy in the form of heat? It's expressed as:

I^2 * R

where I=current, and R=resistance"

...and:

"The more copper your electrical equipment windings and cabling contain the less costly energy you’ll lose as heat......

Copper upsizing also minimizes costly operations problems, particularly downtime due to overheated or failed equipment. Reliability and service life of electrical equipment are substantially increased. And there can be significant savings in the cost of air handling and cooling no longer needed."

URL:
http://www.copper.org/applications/electrical/energy/onesizeup.html

But in the new homes they construct, most commercial builders in the USA see little or no incentive to put up extra money for copper wiring that is thicker than the minimum required by law, or by building codes in their particular state or local jurisdiction.

Copper has been getting much more expensive in recent years. But the bigger impediment to better wiring is the fact that the builder will be completely out of the picture as the payback for this potential copper wiring investment rolls in to the owner(s) over the period of their home occupancy, in the form of lower monthly bills for grid-provided electricity. Just going up by one Wire size (within the same conduit) can reduce energy loss by 20% up to 40%, and can produce full payback of the wiring upgrade in just 1 to 3 years. Even when the buyer is informed of the situation they may or may not be willing to pay any more for the home (I would guess not). It's just not yet a well-established pass-thru expense item in US home buying.

Better energy education for home buyers would be a plus. But there is also something called the 'National Electrical Code'. I can no longer locate the source, but I once read that a really generous increase in the electrical wiring gauges (thickness) required by this and other major building Codes, if done on a national basis, would soon have a staggering impact in reducing national electricity usage by something like 30% - while still running all of the same equipment as before (and No, I'm not a BAU advocate saying that nothing must change). There is an added effect of lower electrical heat losses thru thin wiring, resulting in lower A/C costs, but at the other end there's the possibility of also causing slightly higher heating costs (pennies I would guess) without the same home heating contributions from your indoor wiring! Then again, copper is not that cheap any more..... until the recent minerals and metals 'gusher' that just came to light in Afghanistan!!

BTW: I have no connection to, or financial interests in, copper.

No. The supposed need to "upgrade our electrical system for efficiency" is a boondoggle.

Transmission and distribution losses for the U.S. electrical grid are around 9%. Only a tiny amount of power is being lost as it goes from power plant to home.

Inside the home, I don't have good data, but I do know that the NEC requires home wiring to be sized so that the voltage drop from one end to the other is no more than 5%: meaning no more than 5% of the electrical energy is lost in the wires. A badly designed house that misses NEC requirements by a factor of 2 would waste 10%.

Point is, the entire electrical system, from power plant to your wall socket, has losses of less than 15% for a well-designed home, less than 20% for a home that would freak out the town building inspector. There's no way you can "reduce national electricity usage by something like 30%" even if you replace every piece of copper with superconducting cable.

All you get by using more copper is more energy consumed by copper-smelting plants, and more money in the pockets of the folks who make and install wire.

I do upsize the wire gauge for a/c and any major user of electrical heat (electric water heater, stove, dryer) but outside of those uses, not an issue.

Most loads are a very small fraction of 15 or 20 amp capacity (not supposed to go over 80% anyway) and resistance loss is about zero. Lights, TV, computer and even an efficient refrigerator.

Alan

I'm an Australian living in Europe and the biggest contribution I have personally made is not having a car. The apartment style of living, train network and bike-ability mean purchasing and running a car is a huge waste of money.

This goes without saying, but the ultimate answer is to make owning a car a huge waste of money to everyone. (Depletion alone may or may not do this... for everyone.) I really think this can be done even in cities like Houston or Dallas or Phoenix, it just takes economic incentives. You have to make owning a car so expensive that it is better to use a bike-and-ride system, which could work in a suburban setting. Bike (or use an electric three-wheeler for the lazy/infirm) a few miles to the bus/rail lines.

It really wouldn't be that hard to implement and I think ultimately it will be, voluntarily or not.

I'm European, reckon I could halve my energy consumption with no penalty to quality of life

I really doubt that, Euan. Perhaps your direct usage, but your largest energy use comes indirectly, through the things you buy or the services provided to you. And no more flying anywhere.

Hate shopping and traveling these days. Getting my per capita average down will depend on new gas boiler, government enforcing CHP and meat and wine getting too expensive to afford. I'm also looking at a 50 year horizon and will likely die half way which makes things easier:-)

Primary energy production and consumption quite simply define the OECD way of life.

To me there are only two possible options, either a new source of energy is found and adopted before the consequences of peak fossil fuels catch up with us, or, we are forced to drastically change our lifestyles.

To be clear, I'm not overly optimistic about either of these options

Our problem is that we've lost the definition of what primary energy production is in our society. This is a teachable moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_production

We think that our energy comes from oil. But it really ALL derives from primary terrestrial or marine photosynthesis. We've lost this understanding in our technological society, to the point that we refer to this process as "externalities." The GOM catastrophe reminds us that there is no survival without this process. Not only are we losing the oil in overshoot, but we're also losing the ability to fall back on the sustainable components of primary production that we used to rely on before oil.

"We think that our energy comes from oil. But it really ALL derives from primary terrestrial or marine photosynthesis. We've lost this understanding in our technological society, to the point that we refer to this process as "externalities." The GOM catastrophe reminds us that there is no survival without this process. Not only are we losing the oil in overshoot, but we're also losing the ability to fall back on the sustainable components of primary production that we used to rely on before oil."

That has to be my favorite comment for a long time.

My current signature line on other blogs is: "Only when the last ocean has been poisoned will we realize we cannot eat petroleum."

Modified recently from the original Cree saying, "Only when the last tree has withered, and the last fish caught, and the last river been poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.")

Thanks, Pelican. One has to wonder about the 7th Hopi Prophecy about the sea turning black and many things dying because of it. If you liked that, here's a better quote from someone smarter than me.

"With the turning of the earth, the sun comes up on fields, forest, and fjords of the biosphere, and everywhere within the light there is a great breath as tons upon tons of oxygen are released from the living photochemical surfaces of green plants, which are becoming charged with food storages by the onrush of solar photons. Then, when the sun passes in shadows before the night, there is a great exhalation of carbon dioxide that pours out as the oxygen is burned, the net result of the maintenance activity of the living machinery. During the day, while oxygen is generated, a great sheet of new chemical potential energy in the form of organic matter lies newborn about the earth, but in the darkness, the new organic matter and oxygen disappear in hot and cold consumption processes that release heat through the night."

It is man's arrogance to think that he can improve upon Mother Nature's work of millions of years in capturing the sun, in the best fashion for each local system. Better to live within our limits and let Mother work for us, and put that knowhow to work.

There is some debate as to whether wind power actually reduces emissions
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/subsidizing-co2-emissions/
The corollary would seem to be when we either run out of gas or gas backup generation becomes too expensive then wind power will be of little use. If this is true then renewable energy subsidies are mis-directed and we should build more nuclear capacity instead. However I question whether can we replace most coal, oil and gas in the next 20 years or so. That is neither renewables nor nuclear can fill the gap.

I think it would make sense to consider also the demand side, and not just the supply side. Some loads can be shifted around pretty easily -- a well-insulated refrigerator might hold its cold for a long time, and arrange to call for energy at times of lower demand.

In other cases, the peak load and supply are pretty well correlated -- sunny days in the summer drive up AC load, so you might expect to match that to solar.

In other cases, low-tech, "generators" just let you over-provision -- solar heat on the roof of your house is not exactly rocket science, nor is it terribly expensive compared to some of the alternatives.

Remember that solar produces at times when offices and small businesses are active. If houses were completely roofed with solar panels, excess power would be available for those users.

NAOM

Your source is biased on the face of it. Do you have any real data that wind is not a viable alternative?

Oh, and nukes--nothing could or ever has gone wrong with them!!

Riiiiight.

Claiming bias as if that somehow refutes an argument is poor form (there will always be bias). Additionally, handwaving away nuclear with some off-hand reference to (likely) Chernobyl or TMI is equally poor. Anyone who seriously thinks wind and wind alone will lead to a bright green future is simply deluding themselves, but wind combined with nuclear, for instance, would be a far better option.

Admiral;
That's a StrawMan. He never said those reactors. Lots of things have been going wrong just this year..

VT Yankee

Hong Kong

Oyster Creek, NJ
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews.aspx?xmlpath=RSSFeed/HeadlineN...
"Exelon has not finalized its plans to clean up the tritium spills, which
it says are confined to the Oyster Creek site. DEP said in its statement that
the tritium has contaminated the Cohansey Aquifer below the plant, which is "a
significant drinking water source for much of South Jersey."

Exelon and DEP agree that the tritium plumes identified in the aquifer so
far would not reach the nearest drinking water wells for several years at the
earliest." (Oh, yay, it's ok then!)

Rust Never Sleeps.

Plus Delays and extreme overages in countless other sites..

That's nonsense! Wind does not produce any significant CO2 emissions. The more you switch to it and away from fossil fuels (especially coal), the more CO2 emissions will go down.
I checked out your link and the article makes a very convoluted argument about mixing wind power with X amount of coal power, and the author juggles this mix around until he arrives at a very small increase in CO2 for the wind+coal option. I have an idea: do a comparison of 100% wind (wind gets stronger and more consistent the higher up you go) and 100% coal and let's see which option produces more CO2. This would be the kind of study a scientist would do if they were really interested in the true nature of various sources.

But the article at this link is clearly a piece of coal (and to a lesser extent oil) industry funded "junk science" propaganda, where they use every kind of bogus, dishonest research method they can think of to spread fear and confusion about renewables. All of this so they can squeeze a few more billion$/trillion$ out of their climate destroying product. They also claim that only coal can provide baseline power levels for major electrical grids. However, both nuclear power and geothermal power are also capable of supporting baseline demand loads, with wind/solar for peak demand load support. It can be done, it's a matter of our collective will and time.

Greed caused the BP blowout disaster, and greed can destroy the only home we have, if we let it. Therefore, crush greed first!

I think that's right. We need all the sensible renewables we can reasonably muster combined with expansion of nuclear combined with all the energy savings we can make.

Nice piece Euan. What you fail to focus on, however, is the power of exponential growth. As a recent report highlighted ("Dangerous Exponentials"), exponential growth is one of the least understood aspects relevant to policymaking and prjoections. As I've highlighted in recent pieces at RenewableEnergyWorld.com, wind and solar power have been doubling about every two years in the US and globally. Moore's Law in renewable energy leads to real numbers real fast.

If we can simply maintain the doubling in renewable energy, with price-induced conservation and policy-induced energy efficiency, we will reach 50% renewable energy in the US by 2020-2025. That's probably not realistic, however, so let's say 2030-2035, which assumes about half of the growth rate of the last 10 years is maintained through 2030.

While wind power has slowed in places like Germany and solar power has hit some obstacles in places like Spain, the overall trend is very favorable for renewable energy both in the US and globally. This is actually cause for great optimism - a nice antidote to the always-depressing news at TOD.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/05/the-debate-...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/01/exotics-and...

I'm off to bed - will try to reply to all in the morning.

Life itself is depressing; peak oil just happens to be the icing on the cake for this generation of humans.

As for renewables, don't want to beat a dead horse but we all know how limited they are compared to fossil fuels, which can be transported and used anywhere and everywhere. Renewables are limited; some areas have good potential for sun, wind, or hydro, some don't. Rarely do areas have all three. And if we were to distribute this power equally, we would require some sort of supergrid around the world. What do you think the chances of that are?

A world of fossil fuels is a world where everybody can win, even if most only achieve a small victory. A world of renewables is a world of winners and losers. I don't think it will work out smoothly.

Oil isn't exactly working out smoothly either, is it?

The point, I'd say isn't to compare renewables with Oil and FF, but to compare it with Nothing, which is what many can look forward to if simpler low-energy substitutes don't get a good boost right now.

Far from requiring this supergrid you outline, sources like MicroHydro, SmallWind, Solar Heating and Cooking and PV are already functional completely independent of such a monstrous global project. An industrial area could link Hydro, Wind and Solar to keep factories running, but villagers on a mountainside can simply keep a radio setup running, or refridgeration for meds, or a computer, etc.. with a totally independent bit of their own generating capacity.

I'd say that has a lot more potential to spread with some fairness than the centralized sources we look on as our 'Powerhouses' today.

Bob

Thanks for the information Euan!

Thanks also for the links Tam. That the growth curve looks exponential was also my first thought, and as many around here have pointed out before, we don't have a great capacity for wrapping our minds around exponential growth in the real world. I'm not trying to imply that anything will be easy, but that graph does give me some optimism.

I know this has been hit upon many times around here over the years, but I wish there were models for calculating secondary energy consumption rather than primary production. I applaud the attempt to compare apples with apples, but at the end of the day I just wish we had a clearer picture; I'm sure I won't get any argument about that.

Without massaging the numbers, I intuitively know that the value for coal would roughly halve when conversion to the final product, electricity, is taken into account. I only bring this up because, when we're consider projections like Tam's above, it does raise the prospect of a MJ of wind being greater than a MJ of coal, after capacity factors have been considered.

That exponential curve can also be looked at with the understanding that a GREAT portion of people in the West still haven't even bought into the idea. What do we think they will increasingly feel towards renewables when their current suppliers start flaking-out or marking-up more and more?

Chemist, sure there are models around. Dated comparisons of declining emergy values, along with discussions of the complex issues involved can be found in Chapter 8 of the book, Environmental Accounting.

I went looking for a more current emergy table and couldn't find one quickly, but I found this instead, which is very germane to the moment at hand, at least for us 'Mericans. What price mangrove?

http://www.epa.gov/aed/html/collaboration/emergycourse/presentations/Eme...

Note the energy transformations illustrated in Figure 3, and the degree of transformation in Figure 4. Scan down to Table 2 of this document, which appropriately the energy basis/natural capital of 84 ha of mangroves in Lee County, Florida. It appropriately illustrates the magnitude of loss of resource base that we are dealing with in the GOM crisis.

Thanks a lot Iaato, I appreciate it!

Moore's law isn't really even holding true for processors at this point in time. It's easy to have massive increases early on, but later on this is not the case.

Maybe not for much longer, but actually in terms of operations per watt, technology is still winning vs Moore's Law:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/outperforming-moores-law

If this doesn't keep up for another decade or two, the Sigularity people are going to have some issues to face......

I think it is easier for wind and solar to grow exponentially from a low base. Once the level of grid penetration grows it will become much harder to maintain exponential growth in the absence of a breakthrough in energy efficient storage that is proven - not just theoretical. But hey - getting to 15 to 20% renewables may be a good thing, combined with major energy efficiency and conservation else where. I think its a mistake to promise 50% renewables penetration or more in the near term.

ATM, the Swiss are in the midst of a 12 GW building boom for pumped storage. Round trip efficiency in 81%-80% range for "good ones".

A "few" could be built in Scotland and Wales (and even Norway).

Very practical and useful with mature technology. With HV DC, Switzerland is not too far away from the UK.

Alan

About 50% of the hydro production in UK is from 3 or 4 pump storage schemes - its really quite deceptive since this is recycled coal and nuclear base load - but no bad thing.

Agree that building new pump storage is one way to go. But you need hills to do this. Swiss I here have a a few - and also beat Spain today in world cup.

And from whence did the Highlanders get their name ?

Alan

Actually, we invented pumped storage. Our first big scheme, at Cruachan, was built half a century ago. See http://www.scottishpower.com/uploads/CruachanPowerStation.pdf.

Looking downthread, I see claims that run-of-river hydro is environmentally far preferable to dams-and-reservoirs hydro. Debatable, and overlooks the critical issue that reservoirs give us energy storage whereas run-of-river doesn't.

A number of "run-of-river" schemes have the ability to store up a few hours water, so power can be shifted from 2 AM to 7 AM for example.

Minimal storage goes a long way.

Alan

a breakthrough in energy efficient storage that is proven

That exists, in the form of EVs. They can provide night time demand for wind and nuclear; soak up intermittency; and eventually provide backup output back to the grid (V2G).

As Alan notes, pumped storage is also proven.

Nick, that is only "proven" as a technical concept. It is far from proven that people will adopt them, and yield control to the utilities via V2G, in sufficient quantity to make a real difference.

Paul,

Most of what I was talking about is just charging. Most charging will occur at night (almost all, if we price daytime power properly), and EVs and EREVs (like the Volt and Leaf) are being designed to take advantage of cheap pricing, whenever it occurs. That doesn't require yielding control to the utilities, just responding to their price signals using automated software. This is here, right now.

Now, V2G is a little longer-term. EV/EREV manufacturers aren't yet very comfortable with such modifications, but they are working right now with the utilities on it. There's no new tech needed - it's just a matter of working out standards, warranty questions, etc, etc.

Let's think outside the box a little - these things are doable, cheap, and effective. It seems silly to not expect that they'll be used if they're needed.

Well Nick, you know by now that I am very pedantic about how terminology is used, and I think you got your terms wrong here. You said the breakthrough in *storage* is EV's, but you are now saying most of what you are talking about is charging. This is still "storage" as far as the car is concerned, but as far as the grid is concerned, it is just an off peak load.
To qualify as storage, it must be able to return energy to the grid, at the desired time, which, of course, is V2G, and I think we are both in agreement here that V2G is some way away from large scale implementation.
I do agree, that as an off peak load, EV charging is ideal for wind, but in and of itself, it does nothing to help wind provide for on peak loads, unless we have storage with the ability to return to the grid, which brings us back to V2G

V2G is only doable, cheap and effective if we have a huge fleet of EV's already there, and we are only at the starting line (again, 100yrs later) for that.

let's see how the first wave is adopted before we get carried away. After all, as you point out, the Honda Insight and 1st gen Prius were not very successful (though their timing was very unlucky).

V2G is only doable, cheap and effective if we have a huge fleet of EV's already there, and we are only at the starting line (again, 100yrs later) for that.

let's see how the first wave is adopted before we get carried away.

And this reminds on the Hirsch rapport. On page 44 it is about 'Fuel switching to electricity':

In the future, electricity storage may improve enough to win consumer acceptance of electric automobiles. In addition, extremely high gasoline prices may cause some comsumers to find EV's more acceptable, especially for around-town use. Such a shift in public preferences is unpredictable, so electric vehicles cannot now be projected as a significant offset to future gasoline use.

We can predict that (extremely) high gasoline prices probably will cause more recessions, so one cause for the offset is likely not to happen sustainably.

Such a shift in public preferences is unpredictable, so electric vehicles cannot now be projected as a significant offset to future gasoline use.

On the one hand, I agree: EREVs, and hybrids are likely to dominate over EVs for quite some time.

On the other, Hirsch should have considered hybrids and plug-in hybrids/EREVs - that's a major omission. I guess plug-in hybrds and EREVs were getting very little attention at the time, so it's a little bit understandable that he'd make that mistake. OTOH, he did make the mistake, and it's a crucial one.

Won't another wave of high gas prices cause a recession, that will prevent people from buying EVs?

EREVs are here now. Suggesting that high gas prices will cause recession, and that no one will notice and do anything about it, seems highly unrealistic to me. You may object that's already happened, and I'd reply that's only partially true. OTOH, the part that is true is why we're seeing a CAFE that's rising sharply; the Volt and Leaf vehicles; and an EV credit of $7,500.

If we were to see another oil price shock, I think we could expect to see the transition from ICE to EV accelerate very considerably.

Keep in mind that one of the major causes of oil-shock induced recessions is consumer uncertainty, as they delay their purchase, and wait to decide whether to buy something with better mileage. Well, I think another oil shock will push people off the fence: they'll start buying EREVs and EVs, and they'll have a much better reason to replace their old vehicles than they've had for a very long time.

he did make the mistake, and it's a crucial one.

Agree. But maybe Hirsch sees EREV's only as an efficiency gain. Let's say hybrids double the milage (from 25 MPG to 50 MPG) and within 5 years there are 200 million more (ICE) cars on the road, what is the gain ?

Suggesting that high gas prices will cause recession, and that no one will notice and do anything about it, seems highly unrealistic to me. You may object that's already happened, and I'd reply that's only partially true.

A lot depend on how long high oilprices will last. During a recession with 'low' oilprices like we have now the transition goes too slow and still much more ICE vehicles than other's will be sold.

Well, I think another oil shock will push people off the fence: they'll start buying EREVs and EVs

Remember people have short memories and/or are seeing a wrong reason for the 'oil price shock(s)'.
And during a recession a lot of people don't do big spendings either, if only because of the fear of losing their job. In many countries hybrids are still more expensive than small ICE cars.

maybe Hirsch sees EREV's only as an efficiency gain. Let's say hybrids double the milage (from 25 MPG to 50 MPG) and within 5 years there are 200 million more (ICE) cars on the road, what is the gain ?

EREV's like the Volt reduce fuel consumption by 90%. Further, car sales in the US have clearly plateaued, so every EREV replaces an ICE.

. In many countries hybrids are still more expensive than small ICE cars.

True, and yet small car sales haven't gone up that much.

Unfortunately, the transition to EREV/EVs looks likely to be slow, unless something changes dramatically. Still....they're available, once people get smart enough to choose them.

as far as the grid is concerned, it is just an off peak load.

Yes, from the utility's point of view. But, I'm not worrying about the utility (and their desire for peak capacity), I'm worrying about wind. The original question was: does wind need storage? My answer is that it doesn't: it needs customers during the night, when there's not enough demand, and it needs customers during the day when the odd burst of wind generates an unusual peak in production. Electric vehicles provide the needed demand, at the right time.

Keep in mind that most demand arrives during the day. The fact that EV charging can be shifted to the night (whenever power is cheap) means that we've shaved the peak that would have existed otherwise. So, the combination of wind and EV's has indeed helped with peaks.

Now, it's important to note than wind does provide some capacity credit - roughly 1/3 of it's average output. Between that, and the fact that the grid is currently oversupplied with peak capacity, the grid will be just fine building wind power exclusively for quite some time.

Yes, EVs are only at the starting line. OTOH, that's pretty much the case for wind, as well, especially in terms of the grid's need for anything unusual to help it absorb new wind capacity.

Pumped storage is ridiculously idiotic.

We use fossil fuels for energy storage--duh!
In the US, hydro represents 6% of electrical energy(2.5 quads)
and we are maxed out.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table2.html

For every kwh you put into pumped storage you get .75 kwh out!
If every dam were turned into a battery we would get
1.87 quads out.

Forget pumped storage. IGCC-CCS produces storable syngas.

The problem is we need to get rid of inefficient pulverized coal steam plants that can't efficiently capture CO2.

300GW of IGCC-CCS(carbon capture) as backup x 6260 hours per year
100GW of existing nuclear x 8760 hours per year
300GW of wind x 2500 hours per year

Total 3504 Twh < 4100 Twh currently(85%). 15% reduction with conservation and energy efficiency.

New generation of CCS gasification plants, 300 GW of wind and no new nukes.

A carbon free world is unrealistic, carbon capture plus renewables will work.

Battery storage---a joke.

Majorian has Been to the Mountaintop, and he knocked it off into the valley!

You call pumped storage and batteries a joke, and then come back with 'Clean Coal'..? Good luck.

Bath County pumped storage is 81% round trip efficient (real world #s, theoretical higher) and raccoon Mt is over 80% efficient, real world.

Carbon capture coal is not here yet. Too many unanswered questions ATM. One VERY good thing about carbon capture, a LOT more coal is burned to make one MWh. We run out of coal faster with less impact on climate.

Alan

exponential growth is one of the least understood aspects relevant to policymaking and projections. As I've highlighted in recent pieces at RenewableEnergyWorld.com, wind and solar power have been doubling about every two years in the US and globally. Moore's Law in renewable energy leads to real numbers real fast.

If we can simply maintain the doubling in renewable energy, with price-induced conservation and policy-induced energy efficiency, we will reach 50% renewable energy in the US by 2020-2025. That's probably not realistic

It is not realistic and impossible. Doubling wind and solar is easy in the beginning, because of a very low starting point. After having doubled it 4-6 times is where the difficult part with wind and solar energy begin.

Not an insurmountable issue to the levels advocated. Just see the size of the auto building industry at it's peak.

Personally, I see a slowing of the annual growth rate to 30% compounded.

Alan

Just see the size of the auto building industry at it's peak.

Alan, that time the infrastructure was build out. Took many decades. For wind the most easiest places are used first. Then they (have to) go (far) offshore. For solar a lot of places are possible, but if it manages to deliver a few % of electriciy worldwide it will take I guess 5-10 years to double that. If financial constraints in the past PO world will not come into play.

PS. Closer to home for you Europeans, the Desertec concept is very promising, with some serious investors lining up behind EUMENA mega-scale renewables reaching both ways across the Mediterranean:

http://www.desertec.org/en/concept/

Desertec does practically nothing to alleviate the critical issue of transport fuels. Its primarily buying indulgences for emotional responses to "climate change".

David, electrification of transportation, through electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, is one of the key ways in which we'll transition away from fossil fuels. Price-induced conservation and policy-induced energy efficiency are two other key substitutes. And advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol are a fourth substitute.

The issue of transport fuels is vastly overrated. Around the world, we see that the typical range driven by a personal vehicle is about 15,000km. Assuming a 250-workday-year, that's just 60km a day. An EV with old, heavy, not-particularly-efficient Lead-Acid batteries can manage that. A E-Velomobile could do just as well (size the motor to do 30km/h). For shorter trips, a regular bicycle or bicycle with electric assist would do.
For the long-range transport of people and freight, electric rail is the way to go. For short-range freight, electric trucks (they've got a lot more room for batteries than cars).

PPS. Two new reports show how we can reach almost 100% renewables by 2050 or so. Here's one focused on the EU ("Rethinking 2050"):

http://www.desertec.org/en/concept/

And here's a brand new Greenpeace report that looks at the entire globe:

http://www.energyblueprint.info/fileadmin/media/documents/2010/0910_gpi_...

Tam, I can't get either of these links to open.

Edit: never mind they both opened...

Life with nothing but renewable energy is aptly detailed in the book "Two Years Before The Mast" as published in 1840 by Richard Henry Dana. It's an excellent read as well.

Our nation's gas tank is too empty to even think of converting a large part over to renewables...it would take 20 years of a war like effort or negative GDP or an extreme lowering of our standard of living...We will wait until its a crisis. I live in a net-zero solar powered home that uses no oil and gas and I still acknowledge that this is just a band-aid because it takes tremendous energy to put these systems in place and it's too late for people to do it...I made some videos showing people what they can do to powerdown the way they live...I attached one of them here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHmXhgBhtWk

MrEnergyCzar

And so to avoid double counting, the best way to get a handle on how much energy the world uses is to simply focus on primary energy.

An obviously flawed statement, in my opinion. Comparing BTUs of oil to MWh of solar is not comparing apples to apples. If you change the oil into electricity you only get about a third of the BTU energy as electricity. Solar and wind technologies don't have efficiency conversion factors of, say, a third or less, the way coal and oil technologies do. They have conversion efficiencies much closer to 100 percent.

If you are comparing fossil fuels to renewables, as this post purports to do, it's appropriate to look at secondary energy production (electricity produced, vehicle miles traveled, and so on). Then you go backwards through conversion efficiencies to find out how much renewable energy the world would need to replace its current fossil fuel usage. I don't see this method being employed here. This would affect the numbers quite a bit, I'd wager.

When should you apply the primary->secondary conversion factor? It depends on what the end-use of the energy is.

If 100% of our energy use was electrical, and we were choosing between, say, natural gas converted to electricity and "native electrical" sources like wind and solar, then an apples-to-apples comparison would be to compare secondary energy.

If 100% of our energy use was thermal, say to heat our houses, then we'd be choosing between, say, natural gas furnaces and electric resistance heaters powered by wind and solar, then it wouldn't be fair to apply the electricity conversion factor to gas, since it's being used as-is. Instead, we should look at primary energy.

If 100% of our energy use was for transportation, then you need to use an efficiency factor for internal combustion and a different one for electric vehicles, and it's one hell of a mess.

In practice, of course, our final-form energy usage is a complicated mixture of all three. Ugh. But since only 20% of our primary fossil energy goes into electricity production, on average you're better off not applying the electricity conversion factor.

goodmanj,
But since only 20% of our primary fossil energy goes into electricity production, on average you're better off not applying the electricity conversion factor.

Since we are contemplating replacing oil based transport with electric and coal generated electricity with nuclear or renewables applying the conversion factors is exactly what is needed for any reality check.

For the US and Canada it seems very realistic that 90% of oil based transport can be replaced with only a modest expansion of todays nuclear and renewables( presently 30% of US electricty production). Also replacing coal fired electricity would require a 200% increase,
acheiveable in the next 20-40 years. Replacing most NG will be more difficult but more time is available.

Since we are contemplating replacing oil based transport with electric and coal generated electricity with nuclear or renewables applying the conversion factors is exactly what is needed for any reality check.

Once again, it depends on the problem. If we're talking about a society with partial adoption of renewables, then clearly we'll start with the low-hanging fruit of electricity and transportation.

But if we're contemplationg a nearly-100% renewable society, then we're going to have to cook our bread, melt our metals, and heat our buildings somehow. For thermal uses, the built-in efficiency advantage of renewables suddenly vanishes.

Personally I'm planning on living in society #1, but being conveniently dead before society #2 becomes necessary. So yes, your point is well taken... for now.

For thermal uses, the built-in efficiency advantage of renewables suddenly vanishes.

Not necessarily. A heat pump powered by solar electricity can be 3 times as effective as burning the same amount of primary energy from FF or biomass.

"For thermal uses, the built-in efficiency advantage of renewables suddenly vanishes."

That's only if you've limited your view of Renewables to exclude direct Solar Heating, which is probably the avenue which stands to save us more wasted fuel and electricity than any other alternative.

Heat is easy to concentrate, it's storable and offers countless applications in Cooking, Sterilization, Washing, Space heating.. and even a number of Process Heat applications. For these thermal uses, the simplicity of Solar as a Renewable is pretty much unbeatable.

Of course, as I've said throughout the thread, this '100% Renewable Society' is just a setup to knockdown the easy Straw Man. .. it's BB's. But these are good BB's.

Electricity and transportation do indeed appear to be the best applications of renewable technology and getting the enormous amounts of heat out of renewables needed to run a steel mill may indeed be near impossibility, for now at least.

But heating buildings is not going to kill us.We can put on a sweater ,and later on we WILL put one on and lower the thermostat.A new house built to a code such that the heating and ac loads are reduced by ninety percent or more costs only a little bit more, less than five percent of the grand total price.

Older buildings can be retrofitted with new windows, doors, and insulation, and will be.If necessary the owners will pay for this work by giving up vacations, eating out, and a new car.

Some things will just necessarily become much more expensive, and we will have to get by with less of them, and make the old ones last.I have thrown away a lot of cheap tools over the years as it was handier to have a pair of cheap pliers on every machine for occasional use than to have one one very good pair that would last indefinitely.

A little additional quality built in up front can and does extend the life of most goods enormously;I have one beat up old contractors wheel barrow that will last at least another hundred years if it is stored inside.My nieghbors buy a new throwaway wheelbarrow every four or five years.

Instead of investing thier retirement money in paper they have never seen handled by people they have never met (An utterly absurd on the face of it way to manage your personal affairs !)hoping for a trivial four or fiver percent interest on prinpical that can never be repaid people should be spending a few grand of that money on solar domestic hot water systems, shade trees, and ground source heat pumps.

The odds are very very good that doing so will earn them a bullet proof permanent tax free return much better than the stock and bond markets have to offer.

I feel for them but poor people who live in places such as Minnesota may just have to move to warmer climes.

We can adapt quite successfully to a lower energy lifestyle SO LONG AS THE CRUNCH arrives gradually rather than suddenly-we desperately need a decade or two to really get the conservation and renewables ball rolling under the lash of necessity.

Whether we them is an open question but I fear the odds are against us.

Today, most scrap steel is recycled in electric arc furnaces. Specialty steel (silicon steel for transformers, surgical blades, landing gear, etc.) is also made in electric arc steel furnaces. But for producing 50 million tons of new (not recycled) carbon steel, coal is still the way to go.

Electric arc furnaces work in batches, so when the wind blows, recycle steel.

In a high % recycled economy, with goods designed for durability & repairability, there would be less need for "virgin" carbon steel. Perhaps <10 million tonnes for the USA.

Alan

When should you apply the primary->secondary conversion factor? It depends on what the end-use of the energy is.

Sure it does. And that may make it more difficult to answer the question "how much renewables would it take to replace some amount of FF use?", but it's still the proper way to answer the question.

But since only 20% of our primary fossil energy goes into electricity production, on average you're better off not applying the electricity conversion factor.

Going by this source, it's about 30% of FF energy that goes to electricity in the US (where I live). Almost the same amount of primary FF energy goes toward transportation, meaning more than half of primary energy use ends up with a big conversion efficiency factor. I don't think you're "better off" ignoring that percentage, if the point of this exercise is to compare renewables to FFs. I don't think it's ridiculous to suggest (as a lower bound) that in the US, the primary energy we'd need from renewables might be as little as half of what we get from FFs.

(Mind you, I don't think its necessary or desirable or wise to continue to use so much secondary energy, but that's not why I started this subthread.)

Jaggedben - I did have a line in about this and removed because I was not sure. I think the BP conversion factor for electricity to TOE takes into account the thermal losses in power stations so it is striving to compare like with like - but I'm not 100% sure right now.

Euan, from bp's statistical review.

MethodologyThe primary energy values of both nuclear and hydroelectric power generation have been derived by calculating the equivalent amount of fossil fuel required to generate the same volume of electricity in a thermal power station, assuming a conversion efficiency of 38% (the average for OECD thermal power generation).

The more I read that, the more I can't really believe it. Is BP publishing figures for primary energy amounts that aren't actually real primary energy amounts in the real world? That pretty much makes a mockery of the concept of primary energy. I'd say that it confuses the issue enough to justify not using BP's numbers for am overview of the global energy situation. (Sorry Euan, I can tell you mean well).

Actually, I think this stays in line with (BP's) concept of primary energy. Remember the idea of the study is to get everything in terms of oil. converting hydro/nuclear to oil by dividing by 38% (multiplying by 2.63) is appropriate, because if we wanted to replace hydro/nuclear with oil, that;s how much it would take to do it.

And, presently, oil is the *only* energy source that can be used for *everything*, so it is an appropriate benchmark.

Just as one cannot run subways on oil, one cannot fly airplanes on electricity.

And given the inherent inefficiency of ICE motors, and the post-Peak Oil shift towards electricity, I see electricity as the better common currency.

Alan

Sure you can run the subways on oil, by oil fired electricity.

My point is that you could run an economy with oil as the only primary energy source, using existing technology. That, of course, is BP's world view.

I agree that electricity will start to displace oil, but we can't, yet, get rid of it entirely. And there's the rub - you can turn oil into electricity, but you can't turn elec into oil, and displacing some oil uses is not practical.

However, from the renewables point of view, working with elec as the currency makes a lot of sense, and gets you in the mindset of replacing oil with electricity. That, alone, is reason enough for BP to keep it in terms of oil!

I recall seeing some British(?) study on their energy use and they concluded the most practical unit was kWh/day/person.

I have some calculations downthread where I am working in electricity terms.

I recall seeing some British(?) study on their energy use and they concluded the most practical unit was kWh/day/person.

Probably David Mackay's Sustainable Energy — without the hot air

When we discuss powers (rates at which we use or produce energy), the main unit will be the kilowatt-hour per day (kWh/d). We’ll also occasionally use the watt (40 W ≈ 1kWh/d) and the kilowatt (1 kW = 1000 W = 24 kWh/d), as I’ll explain below. The kilowatt-hour per day is a nice human-sized unit: most personal energy-guzzling activities guzzle at a rate of a small number of kilowatt-hours per day. For example, one 40 W lightbulb, kept switched on all the time, uses one kilowatt-hour per day.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c2/page_24.shtml

Bill,

Thanks for that - that would be the one! I had seen a summary of this, but never the whole thing - now I have some serious bedtime reading to do!

It can be done. It's very roughly 3x as expensive as conventional liquid fuels, but it's certainly possible to convert electricity, water and atmospheric CO2 to liquid fuels.

And, given that aviation can get about 3x more efficient*, I don't see any reason for aviation not to continue in the long term. Not to mention that PV can supply a large fraction of the power needed - see my comment above to Alan.

* "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In what could set the stage for a fundamental shift in commercial aviation, an MIT-led team has designed a green airplane that is estimated to use 70 percent less fuel than current planes while also reducing noise and emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx). http://web.mit.edu/press/2010/green-airplanes.html .

one cannot fly airplanes on electricity.

Well....one can, and it's very likely one will.

1st, PV can provide part of the power needs of a plane. Manned non-commercial planes that run on PV exist right now, and PV can certainly provide "hotel" electrical consumption (lighting, instruments, etc) on commercial aircraft. PV can now generate electricity more cheaply than converting jet fuel to electricity as is done currently, so it should be used. Planes travel above the clouds, and mostly during the day, which raises the "capacity factor". The surface area of a plane could be maximized with trailing surfaces. Taking the surface area of a large existing plane, if I recall my calculations correctly one might generate 5% of overall energy needs using current PV.

PV efficiency is likely to rise to something close to it's theoretical 66%, quadrupling the % that it can provide, while energy requirements are likely to fall: In the long term, design changes can reduce fuel consumption by 70%: "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In what could set the stage for a fundamental shift in commercial aviation, an MIT-led team has designed a green airplane that is estimated to use 70 percent less fuel than current planes while also reducing noise and emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx). http://web.mit.edu/press/2010/green-airplanes.html .

The combination of 4x the PV output and 1/3 the energy requirement brings the PV % up to perhaps 60% of energy needs.

Finally, the remainder of the power could come from fuel (SOFC, hydrogen, etc) cells, which make much more sense for aviation than for personal transportation: infrastructure requirements are much easier to deal with. It's perfectly possible aviation will go to electric drivetrains.

because if we wanted to replace hydro/nuclear with oil, that;s how much it would take to do it.

But that's the exact opposite of what we want to do, and therefore it's the exact opposite of how we should look at primary energy!

I was going to try to say something in my previous comment about how BP's methodology is rhetorically biased against renewables, but I think your comment illustrates the problem better than I can explain it.

"The solution here is to use less energy."

The Problem here is that people are continuing to look for ONE solution.
There clearly isn't any one.. so why does this objection keep having to be raised?

Maybe it's because the context is still in a world powered by ONE solution.. (Burned Fuels, I would call it.) Just like farming has lately been about monocultures, and activity in Society is essentially about money, maybe we're just too enamored of oversimplification. We're soaking in it.

To build your post around the well-known fact that 'we've barely begun to build out Renewables', as the basis for concluding that this route is a dead end. It's simply a circular argument.

The suggestion that the power from a windmill is useless if it doesn't have matching plants around for dead patches simply means we haven't found (or really looked for) customised systems that can use power on demand. We'd better.. and that's ok, cause someone will.

Meantime, 'those who say it can't be done should keep out of the way of those who are already doing it.'

For me the biggest problem for renewables is the shear size of the thermodynamic investment required up front.

We simply dont have the surplus energy to manufacture 3 million wind turbines, or to cover 350 million roof tops with photovoltaic cells.

I worked on the decommissioning of a North Sea platform a few years ago and one of the environmental assessments was a thermodynamic analysis of the platform over it's entire life from mining the ore, to producing the oil, to recycling the whole thing into beer cans.

The thermodynamic analysis said that the 17,000 te jacket and 12,000 topside had thermodynamically broke even within 76 days of first oil.

I accept that todays platforms cannot achieve such a startling figure, but somebody please show me a renewable energy technology that can be scaled to power a city, state or nation that produces anything, even within a factor of 20, of the net thermodynamic gain of that North Sea platform. The thing went on producing oil for 27 years!

To claim that green power is going to replace our current energy sources is nonsense.

If we were to "go green" our energy industry would need to expand to approximately 70-80% of all GDP.

Going green means 8/10 people are involved in making windmills, erecting windmills, mining materials, expanding the grid, etc, etc. I guess the other 20% would be trying to grow enough food to feed 8,000,000,000 people without using petrochemical fertilizers.

Oil; we burn it, we wear it, we make toys from it, we eat it.

We simply dont have the surplus energy to manufacture 3 million wind turbines, or to cover 350 million roof tops with photovoltaic cells.

Numbers aside, what do you call the energy that is currently being used to build wind and solar?

If we were to "go green" our energy industry would need to expand to approximately 70-80% of all GDP.

Well hey, over 90% of people used to be farmers. I dare say the energy industry would "go back" to being a huge percentage of GDP. And people do need jobs.

Going green means 8/10 people are involved in making windmills, erecting windmills, mining materials, expanding the grid, etc, etc.

I guess the other 20% would be trying to grow enough food to feed 8,000,000,000 people without using petrochemical fertilizers.

Well, in America that would be, what, a increase of 2000 percent in the number of farmers?

I don't think it's all ridiculous to imagine that in the future, most people will be either farmers or (some other type of) energy producers.
Imagining a population of 8,000,000,000 people existing for very long is more ridiculous, but I think the primary reasons for that are soil depletion and climate change, not the societal (im)practicability of having a large renewable energy industry.

Very good reply. It is not a bad idea to keep people busy as well, as "idle hands" doesn't always lead to a good outcome.

"To claim that green power is going to replace our current energy sources is nonsense."

The same Red Herring, again and again.

The claim is that Green Energy works. It's not enough to fill the tanks we now drive.. a lot of other things also have to change.. but so does the insistence that your line up there is what renewables is all about.

The people at this site who push renewables don't engage in that sort of hyperbole, so why pretend that this is the basis of the discussion? It's not a monolith, it's not a cure-all. It's one set of tools among many that we have the chance to emphasize, or to keep dismissing them until it's even later and there's LESS time to implement as much as we can.

+5

A lot of insightful comments, but your question asks us as readers to do a calculation which you seem to have more expertise in than we do. So I'll turn the question around to you: if we devoted the same energy resources to manufacturing renewable infrastructure that we currently devote to installing fossil extraction infrastructure, how much power generation could we create per year?

It's clear to me that our society *could* survive with an energy industry which consumes more man-hours and energy than it does now. But how much of a ramp-up is actually needed?

If we were to "go green" our energy industry would need to expand to approximately 70-80% of all GDP.

Where does this figure come from?

PS: you wrote
without using petrochemical fertilizers

The one non-negotiable fact of human existence is, people gotta eat. And we can't all eat unless we use fertilizer. So I expect natural gas will still be used to make fertilizer long after it becomes too expensive to use for any other purpose. And if the *only* thing we use it for is fertilizer, it'll last a good long time.

Oil; we burn it, we wear it, we make toys from it, we eat it.

Ever hear of this concept called "Peak Oil?"

Whether we like it or not we are going to be going on an oil diet, probably sooner rather than later.

I would strongly suggest that that we seriously reexamine what it is that constitutes a good living standard and how we go about making fundamental changes in the way we do things to achieve that standard. There is this funny consequence of trying to sustain the unsustainable, it fails!

Oh, maybe we could start by at least giving up the toys, perhaps its time to grow up, finally become adults, and take responsibility for our actions instead of continuing to whine like spoiled two year olds.

We simply don't have the surplus energy to manufacture 3 million wind turbines, or to cover 350 million roof tops with photovoltaic cells.

In the USA, just cut the # of cars/SUVs by half, and the average weight by 40% of those produced, and we would have MORE than enough surplus energy and resources.

please show me a renewable energy technology that can be scaled to power a city, state or nation that produces anything, even within a factor of 20

Geothermal easily makes that grade as does wind turbines plus HV DC and pumped storage and a bit of solar PV, geothermal, hydro and biofuels.

Alan

PS: We do not have a choice. Post-Peak Oil is upon us.

Euan,
Why do you not consider hydroelectric power a renewable energy resource? Most parts of the world, including US and Canada have very large undeveloped hydro power potential. According to DOE, the US has developed 35GW av out of an estimated 400GW potential( this is ignoring resources in national parks). Canada has developed 50GW out of 180GW potential.

Since nuclear and renewable energy are providing electricity it is X2 to X5 more useful(work outpuit) that the energy content of FF's.

Sorry that you are trying to dampen hopes of those who see renewable energy and or nuclear energy as a viable alternative to FF.

moved to.......

As I understand it, large-scale hydropower on major rivers is essentially tapped out in the contiguous U.S. When DOE quotes hydropower potential figures in the "400 GW" range, I believe they're assuming that every single small river and stream in the U.S. is dammed over its entire length. This is not practical for a wide range of reasons. More realistic assessments find potentially viable small-scale hydropower locations worth about 30 GW. This is significant room for growth, but it's not anywhere near enough.

goodmanj, the new hydropower projection does not assume a whole lot of new dams - rather, it assumes primarily that the 97% of existing dams that don't produce power are retrofitted to produce power.

Yes, and for good reason, too. Small-scale hydropower with new dams is a serious NIMBY problem: we're talking about damming up your uncle's trout stream, the swimming hole back behind the high school, and that pretty waterfall in the local state park.

Or maybe I misunderstand you. Are you saying you can get 400 GW on existing unpowered dams alone? If so, can you cite a source?

Yes, a new study from DOE found 400 GW of potential for small hydro primarily on existing dams. It surprised me too. That's a LOT of new hydropower, which is often baseload power. Navigant used this new study and projected job creation from a subset of this technical potential.

Here's the Navigant study, with links at the bottom.

http://www.hydro.org/Jobs_Study09.php

Thanks. Reading through the powerpoints there, specifically page 8, it looks to me like the 400 GW you're citing is 95 GW of largely theoretical offshore ocean power, plus 300 GW of inland hydropower, selected only on the basis of environmental impact, not on whether it's technically or economically feasible to extract power from the site or whether there's already a dam there or not.

The study goes on to narrow down sites that are technically viable, and comes up with 60 GW of technical feasible capacity available at small existing dams, or 30 GW average power output assuming a 50% capacity factor, the same result as the site I linked to.

And only a fraction of *that* is commercially viable: how much depends on state and federal renewable incentive policies, which is the hydro.org site's not-so-hidden agenda.

In short, the 400 GW potential is *not* mostly at existing dams. But I don't want to sell it too short either: tens of gigawatts is nothing to sneeze at.

Neil - hydro is of course renewable - and hugely damaging to the environment - it is in Scotland at any rate. As for "dampening hopes" - I guess this is a reaction to political rhetoric flowing out of Scottish, UK and European parliaments which in my opinion gives the public a much too rosy picture of a "green" revolution. When I plotted this data I got quite a shock.

The debate in this thread has been very measured IMO and interestingly many advocating both renewables and nuclear - which is the line I follow myself.

Some hydro is long term renewable/sustainable.
(perhaps we need to make a clear distinction between renewable and sustainable)

"Run of the river" and some lakes on very clear streams and certain tidal installations would be renewable "forever" (millennia).

But most hydroelectric installations are on dams, which will silt up in decades to a century or two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity#Limited_Service_Life
http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/1476

Neil - hydro is of course renewable - and hugely damaging to the environment - it is in Scotland at any rate.

Couldn't agree more! Case in point, I have been following the saga behind the approval of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric dam in my native Brazil.

One could argue that at some level the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an accident resulting in an environmental catastrophe.

The Belo Monte project is a deliberate engineering of an environmental catastrophe for the purpose of creating conditions for more BAU. Yes, if they build it, they will come and there will be progress of the kind that Brazil and the rest of the world can ill afford.

Unfortunately the damn dam has been approved, nothing good can come of it and if nothing else it will promote population growth of the worst kind in an area that doesn't need it.

BTW if anyone has any thoughts on how to pressure the Brazilian government into stopping this dam I'd like to hear it!

My suggestion would be LOTS and LOTS of Cartoons, shining the light on this ridiculous project.

I don't think Obama could weigh in on it (nor would he) .. it might have to be the 'Green Peanut Gallery' that mounts this charge.

Hey, you're a funny guy. And you have Photoshop! (well, so do I, I guess..)

Bob

A few random reflections on the discussion:

On exponential growth, the key issue is whether in the future renewables behave like Ipods and people and PCs or like oil production

ipods and computers and people proliferate, which, at least for awhile, makes future doublings easier and cheaper than early ones

oil production doubled many times until it couldn't do so again...

put differently, see how many times you can fold a piece of paper. initial foldings are easy, then they quickly become impossible, a point Professor Bartlett makes in his great lecture on exponential growth

there is much fanfare that China might have 20 GW of PV by 2020... But that's only 4 GW
of 24/7 power, less than the Chinese are building in coal stations each month, which would support Euan's feeling that we can't get there from here with RE

but, "the world can't build 3 million wind turbines..." Why not? The world this year will build 60 million automobiles with power capacity greater than all the world's electric generation combined.

Erecting a windmill and drilling a nat gas/oil well in the U.S. cost about the same amount. A few years ago we drilled 35,000 wells. Last year we put into the ground roughly 5,000 wind machines. If prosperity depended on it, we could build 3 million wind
turbines, no sweat. Permitting the power lines might take the National Guard, but the
manufacture could be done.

Solar costs are dropping fast. You can buy 1kw shares of a community solar system in my valley for 3150 bucks, about 65% cheaper than the price was a decade ago. One more halving of costs and the technology proliferates beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

We still of course run into Euan's per capita disparities. Ignoring the liquid fuels issue, capital cost of providing a typical American's btus with today's solar would cost about $200,000. Can't do that and fight two wars simultaneously, one thinks.

"Ignoring the liquid fuels issue, capital cost of providing a typical American's btus with today's solar would cost about $200,000.00"

A reasonable estimate, based on my own experience, though I am fortunate to have some hydro in my mix. So, bring on the hyperinflation and the million dollar bills, so everybody can afford it! :-)

"Ignoring the liquid fuels issue, capital cost of providing a typical American's btus with today's solar would cost about $200,000.00"

Care to give us a breakdown as to how you arrive at that figure?

Here's how I arrived at that figure. (Brief digression: I have four solar systems
at my house; 3 thermal; one PV, so I'm a fan, but I also own a calculator, which many solar folks seem not to.)

Anyway: US per capita energy consumption is running about 320 million btu/year, last time I checked, down about 10% since 2000.)

A 1kw solar system, in Colorado, will do about 1400 kwh/year. 1400 * 3412 = 4.7 million btu

So, you'd need about 68 kw to power the average American. Cost, residential, used to be about $8000 kw, now down to less than $5000, perhaps $4000/kw in large volume. (This includes various sorts of fed/state incentives.) So, my estimate of $200,000 is probably
low.

You can also think of Americans as consuming as much energy as 65,000 pound apes, as calculated by Melanie Moses at the University of New Mexico.

Regretably, all that energy doesn't seem to have made us much smarter.

By the way, the idea that thermal energy needs are mismatched with RE has some merit, at least in cold climates. I've run solar thermal systems here in Colorado's harsh winter. A 200 square foot solar thermal system, costing more than $10,000, will only supply as much heat in a winter as about $200 worth of natural gas. The A/C needs of typical Sunbelt houses are crushingly large. I have yet to see a RE solution to Atlanta's energy needs. Events will redefine "needs" of course.

R

That ten grand gets only a two percent return at current prices but gas prices may double soon getting it up to four percent.

The cost of such systems should fall a great deal if they are mass produced and installed at the time a house is constructed to a standardized building code.

It seems to me that it could easily supply the domestic hot water thru tail end of the heating season thru the beginning of the next season, thus earning an additional return.

Atlanta needs lots of shade trees, white roofs,evaporative cooling on the days it will work ,low energy appliances and dedicated solar generators hooked directly to auxiliary air conditioners so they run whenever the solar power output is adequate.

Such solar generators could also be used to power a couple of appliances during the winter months,even a straight resistance electric heater if nothing else.This is sort of down and dirty but it is also promising to get cheap enough to be affordable-no batteries or grid ties would be necessary.A couple of isolated auxiliary circuits would be fine.

One of my best friends is planning on installing a thousand watts worth of panels with either a low voltage dc pump or an inverter and an ordinary quarter horse pump to irrigate his extensive garden from an open pond in the near future.

If ts really does hit the fan, he will be able to pump his domestic water into an elevated storage tank with the same panels and keep a refrigerator running at least part of the time.

My impression is that he should go with an inverter and 120 volt pumps and refrigerator as this would be cheaper than buying two low voltage pumps and a low voltage refrigerator.

He will also probably get a couple of largish lead acid batteries so he can have some electric light and and music at night..He plans on having dedicated wiring,not grid tied, for his system.

Any comment as to the more practical and economical choice low voltage dc versus ac is welcome.

rudall, I'm a fan as well, I'm also co-owner of a small Solar Energy company, and I have a solar powered calculator. You say you need 68KW to power the average American? My business is in South Florida where we tend to use a lot of AC. Even here that sounds rather excessive to me. There are plenty of things I would suggest to a potential customer that they can do to conserve electricity before I tried to sell them a 68KW system. I know people in Florida living very comfortably, completely off grid, with 10 to 15KW systems and even with battery backup it didn't cost them anywhere near $200,000 ... Are we talking about the same things here?

Add the malls where they shop, the grocery stores (and suppliers for both), the office or factory they work in, the street & traffic lights, the water and sewage systems for all of the above and more.

Alan

But even taking it there is buying into the supposition in the principal argument, which once again says 'how would we make renewables do all of what other fuels do for us today?' This is clearly not the question to ask, or the challenge to meet.

This particular thread has been a little fuzzy about whether it's really PerCapita consumption, or what each of our households would need.

The malls have to solve their own problems, and stand up to the consequences..

Ok, I see where you are coming from. When your only tool is a hammer everything begins to look like a nail :^)

I also agree with Jokuhl's point that we need to clarify what exactly we mean by percapita consumption.

FMagyar, I think you are thinking that 68kW sounds large for per capita electricity consumption, which it obviously is for residential customers, but rudall was calculating a total per capita power figure, including transportation. A 100HP motor in a small car, although it may not run at full power 24/7, is more than 70KW. Along with what Alan pointed out, I'm not sure the 68kW figure doesn't sound low to me.

Anyway: US per capita energy consumption is running about 320 million btu/year, last time I checked, down about 10% since 2000.)

A 1kw solar system, in Colorado, will do about 1400 kwh/year. 1400 * 3412 = 4.7 million btu

You're making the same mistake that I referred to in my response to the key post. If the fossil fuel power systems are on average only 30 or 40 percent efficient, and solar is more efficient (it probably is), then it's inappropriate to begin with fossil BTU to calculate how much solar is needed to replace it.

Solar is actually less efficient (10-20%), but that doesn't matter, as the fuel is free and (effectively) unlimited. You are correct in that if we are using solar to replace coal/gas fired electricity, then we only need to replace 38% (to use the OECD average) of the primary energy. Replacing transport energy is a different story, of course, as is replacing coal/oil/gas where they are manufacturing feedstocks (steel/plastics/fertiliser)

It is easier to start by seeing what is required to replace all existing (fossil fuel) electricity usage, and then looking at the remaining fuel usage.
US total electricity consumption, per capita, was 14,270kWh for 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_consumption), and renewables are currently 9.5% of that, and nuclear is 19.2% of total electricity, so we won;t repalce that either, leaving 71%, or 10208kWh to be repalced by RE. If we use the solar example, at 1400 kWh/yr/kW, we need 7.3kW per person. There are 2.59 people per house (2000 US Census) so that is 19kW per house.
That means we need 1900 sq.ft of south facing, unshaded roof area, which is far more than the average house, though we might get there by adding in all other roof areas, though, of course, solar PV does not need to be on a roof.

The reality is not so simple, as lots of storage is required, although I think (i have not done the numbers on this) doing it by lead-acid and inverters in each house is probably the next cheapest storage to pumped hydro.

10,208kWh from fossil fuels requires 1/0.38=2.63x the energy from fossil fuels, or 26.847kWh, which is 96.6 GJ, and this equates to 2.3 TOE. So, by replacing ALL fossil fuel electricity generation with renewable, we can displace 2.3 of the 8 TOE of per capita primary energy consumption. The existing 29% of non fossil electricity accounts for another 0.94 TOE, so we are then left with 4.7 TOE of fossil energy consumption, mostly for transport and feedstock/manufacturing usage.

This is still more than the OECD countries total energy usage, so there is clearly plenty of room for improvement.

Solar is actually less efficient (10-20%), but that doesn't matter

Oh god Paul, you are smarter than that. You knew perfectly well I meant the efficiency of using solar, not treating the sunlight as primary energy.

Regarding 19kW per house, it really isn't appropriate to focus on houses at all since only about 38% of electricity use is residential, and since as you pointed out PV (not to mention CSP) does not need to go on a roof.

Mind you, I'm not sure there's much point in getting into such details here. Euan's key-post was about sizing up the nature of the whole problem, and my point was that using TOE, especially BP's backwards definition of it, is the wrong way to go about that.

Jaggedben,
i could read you comment either way, but my definition of energy efficiency is what you get out divided by what you get in, and when you say "solar" I take that to mean sunshine, rather than "solar electricity". splitting hairs, perhaps, but I think it is always better to be very clear on the terminololgy and definitions, then we don;t spend time arguing about definitions, as we are all clear on them.

So, the exergy (efficiency of energy use) of solar (or any electricity) is indeed way better than FF's.

As for the 19kW, since this key post started out as energy per capita, i think this is not a bad starting point, as it shows the maximum amount required, per capita, at their place of residence, to do it, and is a handy comparable to the 0.5 to 5kW rooftop systems in place today.

Agreed that BP's definition of TOE does not help, but I really don;t criticise them, for that, as it is a historical yardstick, and has its place. We need a better energy equivalence measurement, which I think is indeed electricity, but we should not expect BP to come up with it. Their role is to compare energy to what they produce (oil). The US electricity industry could (and should) come up with their version, based on kWh, and I think this would then shift the focus on turning stuff into electricity, not turning stuff into oil. A good example is corn, and ethanol. It gets turned into an oil equivalent (ethanol) by fermentation, but it could be turned into a lot more electricity, with less FF inputs - be interesting to see the comparable economics. I look at the onion example downthread, but it is a little different.

All this talk about wind mills and solar collectors still does absolutely nothing about transportation fuel, oil.

I am so damn sick of looking at wind mills here in west Texas I could just puke.

If this country had a lick of sense we would be building nukes as fast as we could. The new nukes are not like what we are used to.

Trains, planes and automobiles will still need gasoline and diesel.

I for one am not willing to step back 100 years in lifestyle. I like air conditioning in both my house and car when it is 100 degrees outside. I like my computer, tv and going to the store to buy food that is grown with fertilizer.

When alternative energy gets competitive with current technologies then I will buy it but I will not spend three times what it should cost.

So go pay your power bill and quit waisting my time.

I do and oh, by the way, your waist does not interest me.

"I do and oh, by the way, your waist does not interest me."

Yeah well, we all pay for yours.

The Ghung Show strikes again!

That was worthy of The Unknown Comic

"Trains, planes and automobiles will still need gasoline and diesel."

True, except for the Trains and Automobiles part.

We'll see what those new nukes are like, if someone finances one of them through to completion, in the meantime, don't they put out the same thing as those wind turbines? You might still hate looking at them in the future, but you might also be glad they can still keep your A/C running when little else does. It might be better to go back 100 years instead of 1000.

Trains, planes and automobiles will still need gasoline and diesel.

Trains in most countries besides America are powered mainly by electricity.

Trains, planes and automobiles will still need gasoline and diesel.

Not necessarily. Plug-in hybrids can run most of the time on electricity supplied by wind or solar (or nukes if you insist) and can use gasoline only for trips longer than 30-40 miles. Most people will use much less gasoline than they do now. A 4 KW solar panel (or, better, solar-thermal) will provide you with enough juice to run 2 cars for 10-12,000 miles each per year (more if you live in West TX). Hybrids are much more efficient that internal combustion engine cars, so the same amount of energy goes much further. BTW, the solar-thermal system for your home will also provide hot water for your showers.

Also, trains run on electricity everywhere else except in the US. Planes will still need jet fuel, but the total amount needed for them is small compared to what we use for automobiles.

I am not saying that this will be easy or quick. But, it can be done without putting us 100 years back. I would be more than happy to give you the numbers.

PS: Come to think of it, a solar-thermal system might even take care of your air conditioning needs for those 100 degree days.

New Nukes in the USA

1) We can build no more that EIGHT in the next decade (add Murphy and the # drops to 6 or 7). Moribund supplier base, but the most critical factor is lack of skilled and experienced nuke builders.

2) New Nukes get MUCH more subsidy than new wind power. Same kWh incentive as wind PLUS cost over-run protection PLUS gov't financing PLUS free insurance PLUS most gov't R & D spending PLUS licensing help PLUS ...

3) Even with the above MASSIVE subsidies, new nukes will only be built when the ratepayers pay for them before they are finished (or gov't utility like TVA). True in Georgia where Chu/Obama finally got a go ahead for two new nukes. Florida pulled back from pre-paying so no new nukes for them. No new nukes in Texas either (just paper plans just in case).

Despite the above, I badly want to see the USA build at least 5 new nukes by 2020. Because of Climate Change, we need to do everything possible to get off coal ASAP and new nukes can help in Phase III (after a Rush to Wind and massive conservation & efficiency efforts).

Alan

We can build no more that EIGHT in the next decade

I tend to think on a 50-year time horizon with regard to energy issues. On that kind of timescale, you can train new people, so expertise isn't a limiting factor -- after all, in the 20th century the U.S. had *zero* experienced nuke builders in 1950, but still built 100 reactors over the next 30 years.

Of course, the next decade is important: if we don't start now, the veteran nuke builders will all be retired, making training more difficult.

I limit out at 30 years. Speculation overwhelms planning somewhere around 2040 or so for me.

I see a need for more nukes, but realize that while renewables can be built quickly, with a very fast doubling rate, nukes cannot.

Palo Verde Units 1 & 2 started in 1976 and 1977 and were completed in 1986, #3 in 1988. Comanche Peak started in 1974 and completed in 1990 and 1993. These was basically the end of the sustained US new nuke building program.

Watts Bar 1 and 2 are being finished up (slowly) and Browns Ferry #1 was rebuilt after a fire (all TVA nukes).

Uprating and maintaining existing nukes is where most of the expertise and experience in the USA is, with some new construction/reconstruction experience at TVA.

It has been 32 or so years since someone in the USA has poured the foundation of a new nuke (a problem in Finland recently on their new nuke) and it has been decades since other steps in construction have been done outside TVA. Apprentices and junior engineers then are now older and memory fades. Designing and then welding & inspecting safety related wiring and piping in a nuke is a shrinking art (outside TVA).

Given that we will still need to maintain our existing nukes, this leaves a small cadre for new construction. If we finish Watts Bar 2, two new nukes in Georgia and three more by 2020, that cadre will be able to build MANY more by 2030 and 2035 !

And we need to be finishing up the transition by 2035.

Best Hopes,

Alan

In the context of concerns as to feasibility of China achieving its targets for nuclear rollout, with 21 reactors currently under construction, I read that in the 1960s-70s, the US had 61 reactors simultaneously under construction, and France 40. In terms of manpower, it would seem possible to build up to this level again over a 10-20 year period?

All this talk about wind mills and solar collectors still does absolutely nothing about transportation fuel, oil.

...

Trains, planes and automobiles will still need gasoline and diesel

Planes might, but everything else can do perfectly well (and arguably better) with electricity.

rudall, wind and solar power in China have doubled in each of the last few years annually. So they are doubling Moore's Law in renewables, resulting in about 25 GW of wind and a few hundred MW of solar, at the same time as they become the 2nd biggest economy in the world this year (passing up Japan). Doubling every year leads to huge growth VERY quickly. They will surpass the US as the biggest wind power market next year, in terms of installed capacity, as they did in 2009 in terms of annual installations. At the same time they are slowing down their huge rate of growth in coal power and taking many GW of their worst coal power plants offline each year (over 60 GW in the last few years). So I fully expect China to lead the world in renewables in just a couple of years and then show the rest of the world how it's done, with the help of a new robust feed-in tariff brought online in 2009.

So I fully expect China to lead the world in renewables in just a couple of years and then show the rest of the world how it's done

China is showing the world an exponential growth in ICE cars. Number of coal plants is still growing.

Clearly they're big enough to lead in many areas. Of course, they could end up recrafting the old news yarn and show us 'Where it leads, it bleeds'.. but the issue at hand is still that they're at least choosing to invest so heavily in wind and solar.

They do seem to be a little better at planning ahead than the US.. even when cornucopianism has clouded their eyes a bit, too.

Agree that exponential growth is easier form low base and gets harder as the base grows - don't know where growth stops, but grid penetration / stability issues seem to persist.

I suspect no problem with energy or financial resources to begin with if the political will is there. One thing that does concern me though is maintaining and replacing all this infrastructure - in 20 years time will we still be trying to expand the infrastructure base whilst replacing everything we currently have?

I got myself a Volvo 1.6 diesel estate car that does 60 mpgs - twice as efficient as the old one I scrapped.

I get a little nausiated every time we have this conversation on TOD. As one who has managed to power down, run an energy intensive business (and a home) on 90% solar power, and increase our quality of life as well, on a modest income, with NO tax or govt incentives, I find this whole discussion quite frustrating.

PLANNING! REPRIORITIZATION! ADAPTATION! CAREFULL, THOUGHTFULL ENGINEERING!

Sick and f'ing tired of paper pushers, analysts and BOZOs talking about what won't work. I don't care if your silly math tells you renewables won't work. THEY DO FOR ME! HAVE FOR A WHILE NOW! HELLO?

Obama's speach was a joke. A squandered oportunity. I want my vote back. So Americans go on wringing their hands, scratching their heads: "What to do? What to do?! A nation of spoiled, selfish, greedy, lazy, entitled, wasteful, scared little people.

No apologies this time.

/rant

Let me guess. You live somewhere in the sun belt, and your household income is something like twice the U.S. median?

I'm proud of you, honestly I am, but your personal solution won't work for at least 3 out of 4 Americans.

If, on the other hand, you've managed this feat in the northern tier of the U.S., on a household income of $50k/year or less, and are including transportation and home heating in your "90% solar" figure, I remove my objection and stand in awe.

"You ask why I don't live here,
How come you don't move?"

"I could leave but I'll just stay
All my stuff's here anyway."

Household income well below $50K (We took a pay big pay cut to get to this point. Found out that the high income/consumption/complexity lifestyle is a very expensive illusion). We dive much less than we used to, and much more efficient vehicles (still nice). We live just south of the Smokey Mountains, very similar to many "northern tier" areas. While I inherited property, we used savings and worked hard to buy more and built a "sensible home". No McMansion here. We're not trying to keep up with the Joneses. No silly POA dues. NO UTILITIES.

I've posted on this often. I don't expect everyone to achieve our low consumption level but know that there is a huge gain in efficiency that most Americans and Westerners can make, but they are not willing to sacrifice their silly (and mostly unrewarding) lifetyles. Witness Texican's post above:

"I for one am not willing to step back 100 years in lifestyle. I like air conditioning in both my house and car when it is 100 degrees outside. I like my computer, tv and going to the store to buy food that is grown with fertilizer."

BTW, we have all of the things he mentions, but not his power bill or carbon footprint. And he seems to live in Texas. Great place for renewables. I submit that his selfishness, hubris and ignorance are exactly what's wrong with America. He's a posterchild for why we will fail.

WTSHTF and his like show up at my place for a handout, they'll leave or be shot. Zero tolerance.

Don't worry about me showing up on your doorstep. We got acerage, solar powered water wells, lots of lead n brass.

I am all for energy efficiency but I am enough of a realist to know that conversion will take decades and all the cap n tax bills will just decimate our economy. Our current energy grid was developed over tens of decades with private capital and if the new one is to succeed it must be done the same way. More taxes and more government will send this country into a tailspin economically for decades and you will not have to worry about me showing up at your place but lots of your neighbors.

The answers to the transition are right in front of our faces but we refuse to see.

Your current energy grid was developed with LCRA, Cities of Austin, San Antonio & Corpus Christi, rural co-ops and the PUC & ERCOT. NONE of them private !

Carbon taxes can help pay for the Iraq War (on-going and what GWB put on the credit card). Higher fossil fuel costs will be good for a lot of industries.

Alan

More excuses..

Goodmanj, there are very easy and cheap ways to get some very significant solar inputs for your house, even for very poor folk. You can make very decent air heaters (Even here in Maine!) with discarded storm windows, and water heaters with plumbing scraps. You can buy small PV panels or single panels and add to the array year by year. How many poor folk own cars? It's called financing, and getting a loan for home energy could be on the same order, but actually offer a return on the investment.

Honestly, try to think of the ways that thoughtful and persistent people can work these things out, instead of hiding behind convenient but incomplete statistics in order to say that 3/4 of them are stranded. It's BS.

The people up here in the northeast that I know doing this stuff are not the Gentry.. it's working to middle class, and devoting some of their 'Hobby' time to boosting their situation.

www.builditsolar.com

Thanks for bringing the debate around to what individuals can do incrementally.

A few years ago when the original wood furnace in the basement of our century farmhouse broke down we replaced it with a German-style kasheloven (tile stove) that takes up a corner of the living room. Although the traditional architecture of the house is not optimal for heat circulation by convection -- the stove is open at the base and has grilles at the top -- the radiant heat makes up for that drawback. It has a heat converter so the smoke that gets to the chimney has very little heat left in it, or soot, and the radiant heat from the cement block and tile keep the house warmer over the night than our other stoves have. Its our main heating source, not the only one, but it is far more efficient in its use of fuel than regular wood stoves.

My Mom had two similar heaters installed in houses she (and Dad) built.. this variation is called the Masonry Stove or Russian or Finnish Fireplace up here. The Tulikivi Stoves are another version of this design.

Fantastic! We'd do a hot, 2-hour burn, and the heat would be coming from that brick mass for two days.

Bob

Great article about those tile fireplaces here; (http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/12/tile-stoves.html)

I have a high eff insert in what was once an open fireplace, and it works great, but if I was building new, I would go for the tile type.

My neighbours are building new, and have put in a high eff fireplace, and are then framing a surround, to the 20' vaulted ceiling, and paying a stonemason $15k to do it - for that they could have bought a Tulikivi stove and had the real thing!

Applause for "The Ghung Show"

(bows humbly, somewhat red-faced)

"Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd
Smiling.
Merciless the magistrate turns 'round
Frowning.

And who's the fool, who wears the crown?
And go down,
in your own way
And every day is the right day
And as you rise above the fear-lines in his brow
You look down, hearing the sound of the faces in the crowd."

(Waters, Gilmour)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCgQuj8v2gg&NR=1

The solution here is to use less energy.

Yes, that's it -- that's what we have to face up to. Or at least it is a necessary pre-condition to solving all the major problems we face.

It is what we have to face up to, but it won't happen until we are forced by nature. As long as there *is* enough energy to more or less sustain the lavish lifestyle many in the Western world live, there will always be both demand and supply. No government can impose rationing (or something like that) when there is no immediate need. Not without creating an illegal market at the same time. Because as we all know, there is lots of money to be made on the desires of consumers. Lots of money means big interests (by corporations and the like).

So only when there is no gasoline to drive to the mall will people stop wasting energy. Only when heating or cooling the house costs a certain high enough percentage of the median income will people stop wasting energy. But a scenario like that will bring forth a whole new danger to worry about.

How about a happy biomass story?

HDR Engineering worked with the Oxnard, Calif.-based Gills Onions--the world's largest processor of fresh-cut onions--to develop the Advanced Energy Recovery System (AERS). The system converts 200,000 pounds of daily onion waste (peels, stems, and tops) into biogas which powers 300 kilowatt fuel cells to supply plant operations.

The AERS satisfies 60 percent of Gills Onions' annual power needs--an estimated $1.1 million savings--and promises to alter how food processing waste is treated in the future.

Here's an older article about the plant.

Well, that's something. I'm amazed they can get bugs to eat pure onion juice!

I read that article. Onions have 320calories per kg, which works out 1.344 MJ/kg, so they are producing 201GJ per day, or 2300kW per hour. They are getting 300kW from the fuel cells which is a 13% conversion. Not great, but much better than nothing.
Interstingly, more than half the energy in onions is from sugar content, so this juice they extract could, with some acid neutralisation, be fermented to ethanol, and the remainder could be pressed to a cake for animal feed, or burned as biomass fuel, or be anaerobically digested.
The overall energy utilitisation would double.
Assuming 80% yield of sugar to ethanol, they would get 890 gal/day of ethanol, worth about $2700/day. The electricity they produce currently is worth about $1k/day, and they could make most of that from the solid remnants and yeast residue, for a total of $3700/day, almost 4x better than they are currently doing.

I put up these numbers to show what can be done if you maximise the energy and value yield of biomass - there is lots of fuel that is thrown away every day in food waste!

I am not so sure that the current renewable percentage is the important factor but rather the possibility that new capacity along with energy efficiency will be enough to replace the amount of yearly oil production reduction.

One big problem with renewables is that their EROI per year is lower than one. That means that we will probably end up with lower yearly economic output (or put in other terms that the energy sector of the economy will grow larger) when we hit peak oil. Unless energy efficiency plays it's part in lowering energy needs.

problem with renewables is that their EROI per year is lower than one.

I don't understand. The energy payback time for PV modules is 1 - 2 years,
and dropping. Lifetime is 25-30 plus years (80% of initial power warranty)

So what is the EROEI?
In year one, it could be claimed to be zero,
or it could be claimed to (30-1)/1 = 29x if one amortizes (oversimplified).

n.b. the Balance Of Systems (BOS) - the mounting racks, the wiring, the inverters, switches, breakers, etc., and install labor/shipping/estimators/overhead/etc. cut into the EROEI substantially,
but I don't see "EROEI < 1".

I don't understand. The energy payback time for PV modules is 1 - 2 years,
and dropping. Lifetime is 25-30 plus years (80% of initial power warranty)

Sources on that? A quick search on the web shows payback time larger than 2 years (especially in areas with low sunlight). My point is that after peak oil hits us we will have less energy input per year. In order to maintain output (or even better achieve growth) we will need energy sources that have a payback time that is less than one year, otherwise we will have shrinking enery inputs (assuming that energy efficiency does not manage to close the gap).

"A quick search on the web shows payback time larger than 2 years (especially in areas with low sunlight)."

Sources on that?

It could be argued that the payback time on fossil fuels, even nuclear is millions of years.

Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems are 4, 3, 2, and 1 years: 4 years for systems using current multicrystalline-
silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film modules,
2 years for anticipated multicrystalline modules, and
1 year for anticipated thin-film modules

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

This thread has been an exercise in sorry-assed excuses (sorry Euan).

Sources on that?

The same as yours actually. It's obvious that currently the payback time is more than 2 years. In other words we need an energy surplus in order to invest in PV. If we have energy decreasing each year we can only invest on technologies that will have a net energy gain within less than a year.

If we have energy decreasing each year we can only invest on technologies that will have a net energy gain within less than a year.

The logic of that truly escapes me !

We can reduce waste and trivial uses of energy for decades and devote that energy to long lived energy producing and energy efficient infrastructure. A strategy with legs for at least 25 years post-Peak Oil. After all the USA & Canada use twice the energy of the EU & Japan and the EU & Japan can be significantly more efficient than they are today.

A rich mine indeed !

One possibility, tax SUVs out of existence (no taxes on Fit & Yaris size cars or smaller hybrids like Prius at first, say $5,000 on Camry size). Use the steel & other materials saved for bicycles (40 years ?), wind turbines (25 years), HV DC lines (60 years), pumped storage (centuries), electrify railroads (50 years), Urban Rail (35 years to centuries), fiberglass insulation (centuries potentially). Bonus is less oil burned by smaller cars.

Alan

Utter rubbish. Sorry I don't often make such comments on TOD, but this comment shows a serious lack of numerical understanding.

To follow this logic to absurdity we could never invest in any new infrastructure when energy demand exceeds supply, because all systems have a payback period, even if it were measured in milliseconds. We will have to cut back on some discretionary consumption, that is all.

A long payback period (and 2 years is not long) does provide a bootstrap problem, ie, it limits the rate of exponential growth that the technology can fund by its own capital or energy returns, but it does not stop massive growth from a tiny base if on a tiny fraction of the currently wasted fossil energy sources were invested in them.

"If we have energy decreasing each year we can only invest on technologies that will have a net energy gain within less than a year."

That is a comment whose logic is clearly muddied by living in an abundance of cheap energy. Short Term thinking, refusal to sacrifice today for an improvement over the long term.

_________

"In other words we need an energy surplus in order to invest in PV. "

This is the point of building it out with urgency right NOW. We still have an energy surplus, but it is draining quickly, and being applied instead to wasteful and frivolous ends.

"If we have energy decreasing each year we can only invest on technologies that will have a net energy gain within less than a year."

That is a comment whose logic is clearly muddied by living in an abundance of cheap energy. Short Term thinking, refusal to sacrifice today for an improvement over the long term.

I don't see how we will get an improvement on the long term. If we have constantly declining energy input (which is the case with peak oil) we will need a source that will provide that energy gap (either directly or in combination with energy efficiency). If the energy source does not provide a yearly net energy gain then we will face a permanently declining input input. So the question is actually which energy can provide such an energy gain.

In other words, there's no energy credit or 'borrowing' energy, we have to live with what's available to us at any given time.

"In other words we need an energy surplus in order to invest in PV. "

This is the point of building it out with urgency right NOW. We still have an energy surplus, but it is draining quickly, and being applied instead to wasteful and frivolous ends.

Can't agree more on that. The time to invest on energy efficiency and renewable energy is now. One problem though is that the energy surplus (that will be created) will be invested in more economic activity, production, pollution instead of set up as backup for the future energy decline.

"...then we will face a permanently declining input.."

I take this as a given. That's Peak Oil right there.

The question then becomes 'what is the decline slope', and whether we will have given ourselves anything to land on down below. Investing our energies into SUV's or Ethanol, and the slope remains as steep as ever. Start creating enough PV and Rooftop Hot Water, (insulation, Transit Oriented Communities, smarter architecture, local food.. etc) .. and people slide way down, but more communities 'could' still keep their nostrils above the waves.. how dire, how close to underwater? Ask around, of course.. I'm just talking about building the lifeboats.

Your last statement seems to flip it upside down again. What is this investment into a smarter relationship with energy production, with lifestyle expectations and with emissions than the very backup that you're asking for? Yes, it means continued industrial manufacturing.. like the Anti-car thing, I'm not one of those who would assume we can just stop all of that, or should. We can just shut down a few thousand Ipod, PSP and Junkfood factories, etc, and just build the things that have a real use.

.. one more angle to look at this from.

Instead of challenging the manufacture of items with a slower payback than you'd desire, why not look at all the manufacturing of items that have absolutely NO energy return on that investment? It comes down to reprioritizing what is in any way sustaining, with at that which gives us no real benefit. Save the output energy there first..

If the energy source does not provide a yearly net energy gain then we will face a permanently declining input input. So the question is actually which energy can provide such an energy gain.

There is nothing important about the time-period of one year. As long as energy producing systems can produce a net energy gain before those systems have to be replaced, then there is potential for growth.

I do believe it is probably inevitable that the decline of energy from oil will outpace the growth of renewables, so we are in for at least some period of energy descent, and perhaps an ongoing one if renewables' EROEI is too low. But what you're talking about only sort of sounds like that observation, by coincidence. You're reasoning in this subthread really is illogical, and you totally deserve the negative responses you're getting.

Say we have 5% decline in oil production each year. Let's assume that coal and NG make up for 2%, energy efficiency for another 2% and we are left with 1% decline in energy input.
Let's assume that we don't even want BaU (which requires growth) but just to maintain current energy input. We invest another 1% in creating an energy infrastructure. Obviously, if we invest 1% and have an additional decline of 1% only to gain an energy production of 0,5% per year (which is still an EROI of 15:1 within 30 years) we 're still in energy decline since we needed production of 1%/year. What's so strange with this logic?

First of all, I'm not disagreeing with you that as long as any investment in renewables is insufficient to replace declines in oil (or anything else), we will see a net decline. However...

What's so strange with this logic?

A lot...

Somewhere above in this subthread, you said: "If the energy source does not provide a yearly net energy gain then we will face a permanently declining input." (emphasis added by me) I assume that is still the point you are trying to prove.

It's strange logic to take an arbitrary time period (one year, in your example), to make a statement about permanent decline. It is moreover strange logic to use an arbitrary number for investment in energy infrastructure (1%) to argue that permanent decline is inevitable. In your example above, we could simply invest 2% of available energy in that year to get energy production of 1% a year (same EROEI of 15:1 over 30 years), and you no longer have a point.

I am taking an time period of one year as reference just because of convenience. Oil production will go lower on a yearly basis and i 'm using the same scale to measure responses.
As for your argument, you are absolutely right. We could even invest on a technology with an EROI of 1,1:1 in 30 years and offset the decline although that would mean investing 27% of the available energy :) My point is exactly that we will need to sacrifice other parts of the economy and enlarge the energy sector if the alternatives have a lower EROI. That might be good for those working in the energy sector but eventually you need to buy goods and services, not just energy.
Lastly, the 1% was not an arbitrary number. In my scenario I am assuming that oil production will fall 1% (the rest will be offset by NG/coal and efficiency). One might assume that the 1% decrease means that the corresponding resources (manpower, credit lines, equipment etc) will be available to be invested in other ways of energy production without hurting the economy (meaning that we won't need to move production means and manpower from other sectors to the energy sector). A 2% energy will mean that some other sector will get hurt (since we can assume that energy is mostly a middle layer and not final product).

Hope things are more clear now.

I am taking an time period of one year as reference just because of convenience.

We could also use half-yearly and Quarterly, as they're equally good for accounting purposes But we could also use bi-yearly (energy break-even, 100%) five-year (400% return), ten-year (900%), and onwards.

In other words we need an energy surplus in order to invest in PV.

Well then, the world must currently have an energy surplus, because lots of people are investing in PV.

I thought that was obvious.

I am looking for a chart of overlapping curves, somewhere in the Oil Drum archives, showing a roughly 50 year transition period between "peak" wood, coal and oil usage. Does anyone have a link to this image? It is interesting not only because of its predictive qualities, but because it also correlates with the proposed 50 year long cycle regulating the rate of societal change due to human generational turnover.

Thanks, Bruce

I remember seeing it recently but had trouble finding it on TOD. I did find this one:

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/ci/31/i01/figures/1557chen1.gif

Looking at that graph of renewables, and putting the numbers I read off it into Excel, the renewables are growing at 19% a year. At that rate of growth, they'd generate as much as the quoted current energy use by 2040.

A Better Metric

Center everything on electricity (the most universal form of energy besides raw heat) and see what useful work could be done if done by electricity in the most efficient mode.

2.5 BTUs (or joules) of coal can produce the same electricity as 1 BTU (joule) of renewable electricity.

20 BTUs (or joules) of refined diesel can do the work of 1 BTU (joule) of electricity in transporting freight.
.
3 BTUs of natural gas can produce the same heat as 1 BTU of electricity consumed by an efficient heat pump.

8 BTUs of gasoline can transport as many passenger-miles as 1 BTU of electricity.

Oil for transportation is horribly inefficient (see internal combustion engine, about 10% to 20%). In Switzerland 1/3rd of he freight and 1/6th of the passenger-kms move on SBB (intercity Swiss rail) with 3% of the transportation energy (all renewable).

Best Hopes for focusing on what we use energy for,

Alan

Alan, these figures are either absurdly wrong, misleading, or both.

20 BTUs (or joules) of refined diesel can do the work of 1 BTU (joule) of electricity in transporting freight.

8 BTUs of gasoline can transport as many passenger-miles as 1 BTU of electricity

So, gasoline is 2.5 times better at moving things than diesel? And you have to specify the contrasting options. That a "BTU of electricity" can do more than a BTU of natural gas is true, but it is a misleading comparison. Electricity comes from where, in New Orleans? Yes, moving people (or freight) on electric rail might be better that people driving cars solo, but what about vs. diesel-powered hybrid-electric trains?

Oil for transportation is horribly inefficient

Burning coal for electricity is horribly inefficient. Nuclear power tosses most of the thermal energy away. Solar only harvests 10-15% of the available sunlight. Hydropower is inefficient, especially when you consider the solar energy needed to move the water. Wind? Wasting more solar energy. Waves? Waste of a good moon.

To paraphrase Monty Python:

Every BTU's sacred, every BTU's great. If a BTU's wasted, God gets quite irate

Not.

electricity (the most universal form of energy besides raw heat)

Explain this. Explain "forms of energy".

The tasks are different between gasoline (mainly moving people) and diesel (mainly moving freight).

You fall back on BTUs (raw heat) instead of going forward to electricity (work) as the common denominator.

Yes, coal is a poor source of electricity (lots of CO2 & Hg per kWh, plus mountaintop removal), but measure coal in terms of electricity (so many Mwh/ton) and externalizations.

The only large scale economic use of nuclear heat, geothermal heat, falling water and blowing wind is to make electricity. BTUs are simply irrelevant for these modes. Meaningless. All that matters is electricity out (plus associated externalities).

And since electricity can do, in one form another, about every useful energy task, the use of electricity as a common denominator is better than using BTUs.

If oil and gas are used directly (w/o going into electricity) what are the electrical equivalents ?

Home heat - 95% AFUE (anything less is an energy waste, another related issue) NG used directly. Or NG makes electricity (say 57% efficient combined cycle), 10% T&T losses drops it to 51.3%, runs heat pump with 3 COP for 1.54 efficiency vs. .95 for direct use.

If we use 30% of our NG for domestic heat, one can use the electric equivalent for that fraction.

A different POV I have been playing with,

Alan

Alan, I presume the gasoline and diesel numbers are based on shifting freight and people to electrified rail. But you could still achieve 3/4 of the reduction by moving freight and people to diesel rail (or GT rail, or NG/diesel rail).
Whether or not the trains are electrified, the most important step is to make them the primary land transport mode.

The heat pumps for heat are a no brainer, it's just that hardly anyone in America is used to thinking like that. Japan, Sweden Australia have been doing so for decades, and the widespread use of TOU electricity rates helps that too.

TOU rates must be the simplest thing we can possibly do to have better use of electricity.

Solar only harvests 10-15% of the available sunlight.

Only? Photosynthesis is only 1%-2% efficient. The ICE is only 30%. External Combustion (FF-fired power plants) is only ~40%.
I like 'only' 15% if it's from an effectively forever source and generates no waste.

I remember Euan posted an article a couple of years ago with a title something like "Are we facing a wall of new oil supply" - basically saying that although conventional oil had reached a high - in 06 - that all the new supply would drive total supply much higher.

He was right - massive new supply did come on line. But total shipments did not increase. I think this is the meta story.

We are children playing near the edge of a cliff

Sometimes it seems the world lacks vision because vision takes effort and sacrifice. Yes, there are some with vision and are willing to sacrifice, but the majority likes the easy way out.

America will not lead the world into the next generation of energy until we complacently put ourselves into a box we can't get out of.

First, I have to say that it took me very little energy (ho, ho) to get our two person house down to about 1/3 the average american household use of primary energy, still way to much, but also quite comfortable winter and summer. My friends don't even notice any difference their house to mine.

So, since the average american uses about 10kW primary energy, as I remember, I might use about 3 kW, very roughly.

I happen to know that it is quite possible to make a solar thermal machine that puts out 3 times that much (to account for nights and all that), for about $20K. Or for ALL energy I use, 10kW of solar thermal for 1/3 of the time in the south west desert USA.

And don't tell me electricity can't run cars. BS cubed, as pointed out above. Airplanes? does anybody really NEED airplanes?? When I was a kid, everybody, including Herbert Hoover, took a train. And way more comfortable, too. And I am a big fan of vacuum tube trains, still- faster, cheaper, and better looking.

Now I gotta store some of this solar energy, and transfer some of it a long way to Appalachia, where I live. So, again very roughly, I have to shell out maybe $40K to pay for my little slice of a totally sustainable energy system to take care of me and whatever replaces me when I get recycled.

Now that's a lotta money. Can I afford it?

Can I afford a big bulging pickup truck to do nothing but drive me to town every morning?
Can I afford a binge to Paris over the weekend?
Can I afford $100 worth of rot-teeth soft drinks every month?
Can I afford those tons of catalogs that go from mail box to recycle box in 20 seconds?
Can I afford 4 hrs every day in a TV-induced coma?
and so on.

Yep, I think I CAN afford it.

AND I WANT TO BUY IT,

BUT IT AIN'T FOR SALE.

DAMN!

PS, for god's sake folks,PLEASE quit saying we "can't afford it", when- no question- we ARE affording so much stuff that is way MORE expensive than a carbon-free civilization, but that is FRIVOLOUS, or WORTHLESS, or flat-out BAD.

See?

That's why I love Maine!

If every new construction was required to have solar, in 20-30 years most structures would provide most of their energy needs.

That would be a big leap forward, however our political system is hell bent on stopping the ruling party from achieving anything, so they will look ineffectual, hoping it will help them regain power. This power game is killing America. The need politically to appease the special interest is counter to the people having power. The regular person that votes has the minimum of power now - not what our forefathers envisioned. Until we fix the political system we are stuck with Business As Usual - status quo borrowing barrels of money to buy barrels of oil.

For the last week I have been testing the claim that the wind resource when looked at over a large area doesn't change that much from day to day. So far the claim is not supported. I chose 25 airports from as far north as Bismarck ND and as far south as Corpus Christi TX and between the Rockies and Mississippi valley. Since the energy resource is the cube of the wind speed I am taking the wind speed in knots, cubing that number, and then adding up the total of all 25 cubed knots. The highest so far is over 80,000 and the low is about 21,000. That is a variation in wind energy of 4:1 from one day to another. Average wind speed has varied between 9 kts and 15kts. All wind reports were taken between 3pm and 5pm CDT.

Airport locations might be a fairly skewed sampling, though. (While O'hare probably makes up for a lot of the other ones.) Would one find airports closer or farther from the better windpower sites? Maybe it doesn't matter.

That's a great simple experiment, but you need to think bigger IMO: you're looking at less than half the country. Typical mid-latitude weather systems are 1000-2000 miles across. Try using an even mix of airports from the midwest, coastal Atlantic airports (Boston, Providence, and NY-Kennedy, for instance) to simulate offshore Atlantic wind farms, and Pacific coast sites.

Let me know what you come up with: I may assign this to my students some day.

Oh, also: archival data for all U.S. weather stations from the dawn of time up to 1999 can be found here.

And go further north into Canada.

And pumped storage & hydro can even out day to day variations.

Alan

Your post got me to look at a Canadian wind energy potential map for the first time. Holy crap! I've been using New England offshore wind power as the gold standard, but somebody needs to fill the Gulf of St Lawrence up with turbines ASAP!

But he was looking at the best wind part of the US, the midwest. Add in east and west and the data will get even more variable.

Also, for wind energy, we want the wind at 70-100m above ground, most airport stations are not that high, so will be more variable.

The general trend is, of course, more wind at night and less during the day, and more in winter and less in summer.

But it is still highly variable, though in a predictable way. WHT has written about this here (http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2010/06/wind-variability-in-germany.html)

As a rough guide for wind farms, you are at less than 10% production for 33% of the time, 10-50% for 33% of the time, and over 50% for the remaining 33%. So you need some real geographic and/or time zone diversity to get the over 50% periods to coincide with the under 10% ones.

They are getting going on with wind generation in the Gulf of St Lawrence, though they are still busy wasting money refurbishing the nuke plant in New Brunswick. Electrically close to New England + New York, which is a bonus, no HVDC lines needed, though would be nice.

As a small correction, I refer to it as being predictably unpredictable. The mean and exact variance is well known, as at any time it could be anywhere within a quite predictable statistical distribution.

Its a way of collecting energy that we are just not used to, but we will have to figure out.

This was a very good post Euan.

(sometime) my next post will be overview of the energy costs of the variability of flow based sources (as opposed to stock based)

.. and I'll be working on my Heliostat.

Me too. I have found that my very well shaded house is not great as a site for my cheap solar water heater (made of junk, of course). but I found a spot in the north field that has a clear 12 hr shot at the sun, as well as a corner of the walls of the house, wherein an even cheaper solar heater could be stuck in a nice cosy corner reflector.

Wow! super hot water all summer with zero propane. All I have to do is keep running thru all those weeds to move the heliostat every now and then.

Gee, maybe there is some sort of way to make that thing track the sun all by itself. Lemme think about it.

I have my doubts that the renewables will be in place in time for the bulk of humanity. That said, I'm there already, and live almost entirely on renewables that I do myself -- solar electricity and wood heat from my own woodlot.. I'm my own power company and my own source of heat in winter. I took some heat for reduced lifestyle while I was buying into all this while staying free of debt. So, I'm a weirdo, but now I'm rich (and I have money too), hah. Turns out I wasn't the fool some people thought.

The problem was and is population density -- or perhaps with some objectionable social engineering, distribution. I can do what I do because I don't live in a high-rise, but rather have enough acres for a woodlot, hunting, farming (really, gardening on a large scale in my case) and enough roof space for enough solar panels (old tech, only 10-14% efficient but long lived and work great).

No change from my 14% efficient panels to even 100% is going to solve too much density of humans. The ones I have are fine. Enough to cover the roof of a 2 story house (more cubic feet per roof sq feet) is a sufficient plenty.

I doubt with the astroturfing that the figures for alt energy are correct. Every distributor I talk to in the business (I help others get on this wagon, not as a business but as just helping friends) is way busy and having trouble keeping things in stock.

You know what truly stinks? BP, yeah, those guys, made the best, practical, *long lived*, work best in medium cloudy weather, solar panels ever -- Solarex, acquired when they got Amoco (from whom I got the first few). And shut down their factory in Md just before this latest disaster as it wasn't profitable for them. I've got some 35 years old that are like-new, they were really good -- and far, far, more reliable than the thin film new tech or anything amophous. Just look at the number above -- the only panels I've sent to junk are 100% new tech or amorphous panels that will "save us all" -- total marketing hype or worse.

Maybe they didn't make so much money on the panels because they made them so high quality, then sold them for not that big a multiplier over getting just a high R window from the hardware store...get them while you can is all I can say.

We may be making headway! PV panels can now be had for less than $1/watt, which makes them 'competitive'. My stepfather spent $40K on his first PV system, $18K on his second and $5K on his third--showing the price is really dropping. Cool think is, you can practically print PV panels in lights-out factories.

Also, check out eSolar http://www.esolar.com/.

Steely, When you include the "balance of system costs" you end up at something way more than $1/W. If they were truly competitive, then we could drop all the subsidies, and the link you gave, which had another link to $65m in funding from the DOE for CSP, would not be necessary either, as PV would have won over CSP. Something is only truly competitive when the it is profitable enough to pay taxes, not in need of subsidies, and solar is not there yet.

Even if the panels were free, and at $1/watt they are getting close, the BoS costs still make it tough to compete with fossil fuel sources.

AS for the Esolar, what is really different from Solar one that was built 30 yrs ago? It looks like they have made some progress in making the system cheaper, which is necessary, but again, if it was truly good enough, companies would be investing in it, and the $65m funding would not be needed.

Personally, I think the best way to make these systems viable, at present, is to couple them with a gas turbine. Us the solar steam part as the combined steam cycle for the turbine, a gas/solar hybrid, if you like. Daytime you may not run the GT, but morning and evening (but not night) you do, and the steam part is already there, and hot. I think it would make for a more competitive prospect.
eventually, you may decomission the turbine, but it would make the investment a lot more "reliable" from the outset.

I support dropping subsidies for Renewables at exactly the same time as we drop all the subsidies for existing industries (and that includes keeping armies in the Gulf to guard the flow of Oil).

Renewables are too little too late and I ironically live in one of the few net-zero solar powered homes that uses no oil or gas...it takes way too much energy to transition sytemically...the window is closed for the most part...I attached one of my videos showing how my family has been weaning off of oil for over 3 years......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHmXhgBhtWk

MrEnergyCzar

I think it is time for the country to consider the Solar and Wind Energy. And i think for what happened about the Oil Factory in Mexico i think we need to developed or improve the use of water as a substitute for the oil in using as the fuel for the vehicles..

Jane Taylor
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