Imagine a group of 100 fisherman faced with declining stocks and worried about the sustainability of their resource and their livelihoods. One of them works out that the total sustainable catch is about 20% of what everyone is catching now (with some uncertainty of course) but that if current trends of increasing catches (about 2% a year) continue the resource would be depleted in short order. Faced with that prospect, the fishermen gather to decide what to do. The problem is made more complicated because some groups of fishermen are much more efficient than the others. The top 5 catchers, catch 20% of the fish, and the top 20 catch almost 75% of the fish. Meanwhile the least efficient 50 catch only 10% of the fish and barely subsist. Clearly, fairness demands that the top catchers lead the way in moving towards a more sustainable future.
The top 5 do start discussing how to manage the transition. They realise that the continued growth in catches – driven by improved technology and increasing effort – is not sustainable, and make a plan to reduce their catch by 80% over a number of years. But there is opposition – manufacturers of fishing boats, tackle and fish processing plants are worried that this would imply less sales for them in the short term. Strangely, they don’t seem worried that a complete collapse of the fishery would mean no sales at all – preferring to think that the science can’t possibly be correct and that everything will be fine. These manufacturers set up a number of organisations to advocate against any decreases in catch sizes – with catchy names like the Fisherfolk for Sound Science, and Friends of Fish. They then hire people who own an Excel spreadsheet program do “science” for them – and why not? They live after all in a free society.
After spending much energy and money on trying to undermine the science – with claims that the pond is much deeper than it looks, that the fish are just hiding, that the records of fish catches were contaminated by being done near a supermarket – the continued declining stocks and smaller and smaller fish make it harder and harder to sound convincing. So, in a switch of tactics so fast it would impress Najinsky, the manufacturers’ lobby suddenly decides to accept all that science and declares that the ‘fish are hiding’ crowd are just fringe elements. No, they said, we want to help with this transition, but …. we need to be sure that the plans will make sense. So they ask their spreadsheet-wielding “advocacy scientists” to calculate exactly what would happen if the top 5 (and only the top 5) did cut their catches by 80%, but meanwhile everyone else kept increasing their catch at the current (unsustainable rate). Well, the answers were shocking – the total catch would be initially still be 84% of what it is now and would soon catch up with current levels. In fact, the exact same techniques that were used to project the fishery collapse imply that this would only delay the collapse by a few years! and what would be the point of that?
The fact that the other top fishermen are discussing very similar cuts and that the fisherfolk council was trying to coordinate these actions to minimise the problems that might emerge, are of course ignored and the cry goes out that nothing can be done. In reality of course, the correct lesson to draw is that everything must be done.
In case you think that no-one would be so stupid as to think this kind of analysis has any validity, I would ask that you look up the history of the Newfoundland cod fishery. It is indeed a tragedy.
And the connection to climate? Here.
I’ll finish with a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, one the founders of the original conservative movement:
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
See here for a much better picture of what coordinated action could achieve.
James wrote: “Sigh) One wind turbine or solar panel does not take long to build. Building many GWatts worth does take a long time. Why does this seem so difficult to comprehend?”
Sigh. Utility-scale, gigawatt-scale wind turbine farms and concentrating solar thermal power plants can be built in a fraction of the time required to build a nuclear power plant. You refuse to even examine the actual real-world data on this, preferring to stick with your baseless assumptions and back-of-the-envelope calculations that favor nuclear power.
By the way, anyone interested in a more sober, realistic, fact-based view of the future of nuclear power from serious advocates of expanding nuclear electricity-generation (as opposed to those who would prefer a large-scale nuclear war to building solar thermal power plants on one percent of the USA’s deserts), may be interested in this article:
MIT experts tackle nuclear power waste problem
By Martin LaMonica
CNet.com
May 21, 2009
Excerpts:
So, a realistic assessment from advocates of a huge, worldwide expansion of nuclear power finds that nuclear waste is an unsolved and dangerous problem and billions of dollars of investment into new nuclear technologies is needed before such an expansion could go forward.
Meanwhile, utility scale wind and solar are ready now, and are already being rapidly deployed on a large scale, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost, required for new nuclear power plants, and with none of the serious dangers and risks of nuclear power.
pete, the figure for “all of Wales” is bunk.
Nowhere near that is needed.
Lawrence Brown (850), I wasn’t (and don’t) begrudging at all. You just said the employment in new energy would help those that recently lost their job. I was just wondering how…
Rod B @ 853:
Renewable energy is a TECHNOLOGY. It’s also a technology that, in many instances, needs to be deployed close to where it used, and the people involved right along with it.
Take, for example, the recently unemployed in the IT field (where I worked for 30 years) — many of the technologies that are needed to implement grid-friendly devices are in computer software and hardware fields. Heavy manufacturing, such as for automobiles, maps well to the manufacturing skills needed to wind and water turbines. Construct skills, such as for home and office building construction, have applications with wind and solar farm construction, including site preparation — something that definitely can’t be outsourced to Bangalore (or Shanghai, like the Three Letter Computers company did with my job).
How is this NOT going to create jobs? More to the point, since energy can’t be put on a slow boat from China, how is this not going to create LOCAL jobs?
FCH: “Renewable energy is a TECHNOLOGY. It’s also a technology that, in many instances, needs to be deployed close to where it used, and the people involved right along with it.”
Utterly FALSE on numerous grounds. Germany’s grid systems incorporate wind and solar from all over the country – a grid can be fed with things other than fossil fuels.
Likewise, production of biofuels is all about energy storage and transport. As noted earlier, an example would be if Arizona’s solar power was fed through the grid into the Kansas agricultural system, and in return, Arizona would get ethanol from Kansas.
Second, renewable energy is not a technology, it is a concept related to mass-energy balances over time. For example, think of carbon not as an energy source, but as an energy storage medium – plants stick hydrogen onto carbon, making energy-rich C-H bonds, which can then be used later when solar energy is scarce – i.e. at night, during the winter, for boosting springtime growth, etc.
Now, if you decide to choose an energy carrier which is non-renewable on any reasonable timescale, that is to say, fossil carbon atoms from geological reservoirs, then you are going to change the entire atmospheric and oceanic system by transferring gigatons of carbon from the inert geological pool to the active biosphere-ocean-soil-atmosphere pools – NOT just to the atmosphere. At the same time, that’s going to alter other ecological factors, and on top of that, you have deforestation.
Thus, we are left with the situation in which net biomass on planet Earth is decreasing (net biological CO2 emissions), while fossil CO2 is also being pumped into the atmosphere. As atmospheric CO2 increases the planets temperature, this results in fairly rapid warming and added stress on the biosphere, such that pine beetles start wiping out more pine trees each year than humans do. At the same time, historical records show that melting permafrost has a tendency to leak methane, slowly but surely – leading to another plausible positive feedback loop.
So, this is steadily progressing, and has been predicted for decades – but taking action requires the elimination of fossil fuel as an carbon-based energy carrier.
By the way, have you seen the things they’re doing with graphene and carbon nanotubes? Very interesting – if you work that out, and can make carbon-based batteries, forget about lithium.
http://gizmodo.com/5051545/graphene-could-become-worlds-best-super-battery
http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=2340.php
“Another enticing possibility mentioned by Geim is the use of graphene powder in electric batteries that are already one of the main markets for graphite. “An ultimately large surface-to-volume ratio and high conductivity provided by graphene powder can lead to improvements in the efficiency of batteries, taking over from the carbon nanofibers used in modern batteries. Carbon nanotubes have also been considered for this application but graphene powder has an important advantage of being cheap to produce.”
Now, that is technological innovation – but such a battery can be charged with renewable energy sources, or with non-renewable energy sources. Likewise, ethanol can be made from corn grown on fossil fuel-free farms with solar and wind, or it can be from a diesel fuel-powered farm via a coal-burning distillation factory.
Even with solar, if you look at the fossil fuel cost of manufacturing cheap disposable plastic cells, vs. long-lived silicon cells, you can see that the short-lived systems might require steady fossil fuel inputs.
However, the opposite there is the so-called solar breeder factory – a silcon-based solar manufacturing center powered by megawatts of solar panels backed up by energy storage systems. Fossil fuel energy costs? Zero.
That leads us to another way to define renewable energy,of course, is as “a threat to the continued existence of global fossil fuel cartels”.
You will admit that the combination of global warming-based regulation of fossil fuel production in combination with large-scale investment in renewable energy will result it massive disruption of the current global economic order – and are leftists like Chavez going to be any more happy about it than rightists like Uribe when they realize their brown goop isn’t worth much anymore?
The smart petroleum & natural gas corporations are the ones running renewable energy development projects – but that’s all about biofuels. Even so, I imagine a large-scale breakup of many of the big firms, on basic economic grounds – look at how GMAC was spun off from GM, for example. (Quote from a Chevron gas station owner, to me: “If it all goes to hydrogen and electricity, people will still be pulling in here to fill up on whatever the going thing is.”)
The coal-electric-rail sector, on the other hand, seems to think they own the White House and Congress, and can get whatever they want. Currently, they’re trying to scuttle any bill in Congress using deceptive tactics – they watered down the bill, and now they hire people to attack the bill on the basis of it being too weak – what a dirty trick.
Plus, Obama just gave $2.3 billion to FutureGen, didn’t he? Australia gave $1.3 billion to a solar plant – so, I think the money here is speaking louder than the words.
As far as the new fuel standards? Are those intended to go along with the new coal-to-gasoline financing at the DOE?
Of course, it’s possible that the climate bill has been watered down to such an extent already that even if it passes, China and India will still say that the U.S. is doing nothing to solve the problem, and back out of any Copenhagen agreement. Liberal fossil fuel politicians are putting a band-aid on the climate program, conservative politicians hope the problem will bleed to death. Both sides are behaving irrationally, and at this rate the prospects for a binding Copenhagen agreement are bleak indeed.
Which, of course, is the real goal of the coal-rail-utility holding companies, and their shareholders, which, it must be noted, include a whole lot of national pension plans – but why aren’t those pension plans dropping their fossil fuel investments and putting the money into renewables, when 75% of the public (I would guess that includes retirees) wants to see rapid growth of renewable-source-based energy production?
#823 James
Sorry, but in some circumstances I choose to have less patience than otherwise I might exercise, so… request denied. And don’t worry, I’m not experiencing anxiety over the annoyance of a perturbance to reason that has the significance of a gnat pestering a camel, but neither would I see offense in the camels inclination to swat such a disturbance to diminish the pest.
I’ve lived in New York and Los Angeles at various times on my path. While it is difficult to avoid the carcinogens in the air, one does have a choice not to ingest the corn syrup.
I would say that the main (not the only) differences between my posts and yours:
– yours are anonymous, and mine are not, and,
– mine are considerate of the known impacts based on what I hear from Europe, and my friend from Chernobyl, and the generally known knowledge of the terrible facts about he incident and its impacts; and yours are cherry picked points that fit your chosen view excluding the negative reports, or even realities.
I saw a documentary a couple years ago and someone had done some video in the area and it did show the wildlife and growth in the region, but they also said that people were not allowed to be in the area for more than a specified amount of time. So my story of you moving into a hut near the plant was on that point.
As to:
hmmm… but I’ve already told you, my friend was there? Plus, when I’m not in America, I live near the southern edge of the Black Forest. I have friends that live there and the thing about not eating the bores comes from the regional news (I admit I am only reporting what I hear originating from these sources and I doubt you read much news from the Schwarzwald anyway.).
There is still a 17 mile exclusion zone around the event location. I looked on the Chernobyl wiki page and noticed that they think they may allow people to move back into that region in 60 to 200 years. I guess net positive depends on your perspective.
Now maybe you think my description of Chernobyl life in a hut next to the plant is just a bit sensationalized? As indeed it was – but the difference between my description and yours is that yours seems to be based on cherry picked points that favor a rosy picture v. the reality that it’s still a hot spot. hmm… sort of sounds like the denialist point of view on AGW.
As to the imaginative story I presented, well that is my imagination (I realize that they would not allow you to move there, and certainly you would never do it, no matter how boisterous your claims). But the point of the story is that the potential for long term exposure to ‘living right next to the plant’ could prove to be a net negative experience considering the radiation levels near the plant and the deterioration of the concrete shell covering the core.
But all of this is still superfluous. My main point is that you seem to be bloviating from an amoral standpoint and seem interested in diminishing the seriousness of a very serious event. An event that killed many people and affected the lives of so many more, as well as causing problems in Europe. I think it offensive for you to be so callous about the loss of life and ancillary effects. But that is easy to do when you are anonymous.
Your dismissal of the perspective of someone that was there when it happened, along with your cherry picked perspective on how rosy all is going in the region is evidence of the myopic nature of your perspective, thus reducing it on the relevance scale to some form of denialism that takes facts out of context and is inconsiderate of realities and reasonable potentials as holistically understood.
In the race for profit over safety, it is not difficult to imagine another three mile island event or even another Chernobyl. I hope we never end up in that situation again.
BTW, here are the coordinates:
51° 23′ 22″ N, 30° 5′ 56″ E
Try that in google earth. Although you will not move there, I was thinking a nice place for your hut would be in the forest north of the plant. But, you know, there are all those buildings right there. Wouldn’t you just love it if you could live right there in plant 4!!! How net positive that would be for you :)
P.S. No need to worry about parking as you can see from the satellite shots… for some reason, I guess other people have not caught on to how net positive this place is?
re #836
Hi Furry,
Maybe you could give me an educated opinion on how to proceed with integrating a cogeneration system into a grid system?
As an example, assume we have a 12 hp engine generator that is connected by plumbing to a house heating system. Thus it would be capable of generating electricity while heating the house.
I had assumed a DC mode for the generator which would then go through an inverter and phase controller to get into a form that could go on the grid. That seems simple but perhaps not the best way.
Thinking about our discussion it occured to me that the 12 hp engine generator might just as well be set up as an AC source which would be more directly compatible with the grid. What would be necessary to make this arrangement safe and effective if connected to the grid? Then, do you think it would be simple enough that AC would be the better system design choice?
NPR Science Friday today: one fourth of the corn harvest this year in the US is going to biofuel production. 25 gallons of biofuel is produced from the amount of corn that would feed one man for one year.
849 Pete says, “The average USA citizeb uses 250 kWhrs a day”
a KWH costs 10 cents. You’re saying that $25 a day is what a US citizen spends on electricity??
Whatever; we better hurry!
“The new projections, published this month in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the 2003 study of just 2.4 degrees. ”
http://globalchange.mit.edu/news/news-item.php?id=76
Hank Roberts
That is why I don’t like biofuel. It drives up food prices.
Mark Says (22 mai 2009 at 3:30 AM):
“And you don’t have to worry about people flying airplanes into your windmill unlike with the nuclear pile.”
Now that’s just plain silly. You might want to read up on the number of aircraft accidents that involve hitting things like power lines and radio/TV transmission towers. You really think that you’re going to cover large areas of the country with these large wind turbines, and not have airplanes hitting them?
As for what you probably meant – some jihadist hijacking an airliner and flying it into a nuclear plant, so what? Do you know anything about aircraft construction, and what would happen to one of those flimsy aluminium/composite structures when it hits four feet or so of reinforced concrete? You might note that airplanes crash on concrete runways from time to time, and the runway never needs repair.
Or for another example, I used to work in a building on a former air base that was constructed to survive a nuclear strike on the airstrip, about 1000 feet away. The exterior walls were a mere 18 inches or so of concrete.
SecularAnimist Says (22 mai 2009 at 9:59 AM):
“You refuse to even examine the actual real-world data on this, , preferring to stick with your baseless assumptions and back-of-the-envelope calculations…”
You know, I take that as a compliment. I DO prefer something where I can see the calculations, and know what & where the input assumptions are coming from – and can change them if they prove mistaken, or even to run different scenarios.
Have you ever questioned one of my calculations, by showing that the math or the underlying assumptions were wrong, and backing up your claim with work of your own? No, when you don’t like the math, you cite some study – your version of Scripture – filled with bogus assumptions carefully crafted to give the “right” answers.
“Meanwhile, utility scale wind and solar are ready now, and are already being rapidly deployed on a large scale, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost, required for new nuclear power plants, and with none of the serious dangers and risks of nuclear power.”
Perhaps we have a different idea of what constitutes “rapidly”: according to the American Wind Energy Association http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/wind_energy_growth2008_27Jan09.html 8358 MW (nameplate) of wind generation was installed last year (helped by significant subsidies & tax breaks). Using a reasonable 30% capacity factor, that’s just a bit over 2.5 GW. Now just as an exercise, tell us how long it will take to replace all coal-fired generation at that rate.
There’s one small problem, though: if you read that article, you’ll see the statement “At year’s end, however, financing for new projects and orders for turbine components slowed to a trickle and layoffs began to hit the wind turbine manufacturing sector.”
Oh, and the article cites a figure of $17 billion for that 2.5 GW, or about $6.8 billion per GW. I suppose that’s a fraction of the cost of a nuclear plant: 4/3 as much what one might cost if regulatory obstacles were removed.
Jim @ 857:
DC-to-AC conversion works much better for interconnections to the grid than does a motor-generator setup. In the renewable energy world, Honda inverter generators have an excellent reputation for frequency stability. Those same inverters are used in micro-CHP plants that are already in production.
The relevant standard to grid interconnections is UL 1741. If you want to understand what you’re up against, I’d suggest you give that a read. I’d also suggest you do a walk-through of how you expect this system to be used through a 24 hour cycle.
RichardC @ 859:
That’s overly optimistic as everything eventually converts to “energy”. “Energy” is the giant sink hole of a “tax” on everything we do.
Energy isn’t just used shipping products from “A” to “B”, it’s also used shipping raw materials. Those raw materials are harvested or mined using energy. The employees along the way used energy to get to their jobs. The things those employees buy with their wages had to be shipped from “C” to “D”, harvested, mined, etc. “Energy” either produces a product, an intermediate product, moves a product, or goes away as waste heat.
So, take the average income, divide by average household size, and that’s how much the average person spends on energy.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) Says (22 mai 2009 at 6:08 PM):
“- mine are considerate of the known impacts based on what I hear from Europe, and my friend from Chernobyl, and the generally known knowledge of the terrible facts about he incident and its impacts;”
You might keep in mind the old saying about what you think you know that just isn’t so. Now you have all these stories about your friend and all the terrible impacts and so on. What I want to know is where is the evidence?
For instance, given Soviet record-keeping there ought to be a pretty good list of the residents of the Chernobyl area at the time of the accident. It would surely not be that difficult to do a study of those people, similar to what was done with the survivors of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, with statistics on how many have died and of what causes. Where is it?
When I do a search for something of that nature (as I did just now), I find the United Nations Scientific Committee of the Effects of Atomic Radiation stating:
“There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure. The risk of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to its short latency time, does not appear to be elevated. Although those most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident.”
So it seems we have a bit of a discrepancy, which ought to offer food for thought. Likewise, if I repeatedly see anti-nuclear types describe the area around Chernobyl described as a “Dead Zone”, and then I see pictures of apparently healthy forest, reports of wildlife preserves, and so on, I start to wonder why we have these two apparently irreconcilable sets of “facts”.
“I saw a documentary a couple years ago and someone had done some video in the area and it did show the wildlife and growth in the region, but they also said that people were not allowed to be in the area for more than a specified amount of time.”
I have a couple of problems with that. First, that you take a documentary as a reliable source. Second, that you assume that government fiats have any foundation in reality or common sense.
“Plus, when I’m not in America, I live near the southern edge of the Black Forest. I have friends that live there and the thing about not eating the bores comes from the regional news…”
In this country, we only try to avoid bores, if we can. Eating them seems… well, a bit excessive :-)
Seriously, though, you might try thinking about this: the government that says you aren’t supposed to eat wild boar meat is the same one that says it’s ok to eat all those trans fats & HFCS, and smoke tobacco (on which they probably collect a hefty tax). Does any of that make rational sense?
“My main point is that you seem to be bloviating from an amoral standpoint and seem interested in diminishing the seriousness of a very serious event. An event that killed many people and affected the lives of so many more, as well as causing problems in Europe.”
Or possibly my ethics are just different from yours? Why not try looking from a different viewpoint? Ask yourself why you seem to obsess about Chernobyl – which killed fewer people than a typical commercial airline crash – while ignoring the many other industrial accidents & public health effects, any of which have killed many times that number, and some which go on killing year after year.
#859 RichardC:
The book’s data sources say per capita demand (for everything, not simply residential) in the UK fluctuates between 15 and 25hWh/day. So off by 10X, sounds like.
#858 Hank Roberts
Next year will we figure out that 100 gallons of cellulosic biofuel is produced from the amount of material grown on “non-crop” land that could house a family for fifty years?
Then will we figure out that the money needed to adequately support our thirst for energy, through whatever mix of renewable or non-emitting power plants, would be enough to properly educate our kids and to assure health care for everyone?
Instead of arguing about what fuel is best, we might get further by figuring out ways to satisfy real needs without a need for so much energy.
re 857, Jim, remember that it is the load/generation balance that matters, not just the generation.
When the adverts come on in the UK during, say, Eastenders Sunday Onibus, there’s a spike in load with all the people turning their kettles on.
With generators of coal/oil/nuclear origin, there can and are still brown-outs.
So you may as well ask the question of NON-RENEWABLE sources. How do you do all that with the coal/oil/gas/nuclear power when there’s variability in load?
re 855:
“FCH: “Renewable energy is a TECHNOLOGY. It’s also a technology that, in many instances, needs to be deployed close to where it used, and the people involved right along with it.”
Utterly FALSE on numerous grounds. Germany’s grid systems incorporate wind and solar from all over the country – a grid can be fed with things other than fossil fuels.”
I believe FCH was saying that the best benefit could be when you site renewables near the load. This is not possible efficiently with other sources, since you need a big station to get the efficiency goals, but sunlight is as efficient in a rooftop sized installation as with a shopping-mall sized installation.
NOT that you “have” to put them close, but that you CAN. And doing so can cause greater efficiencies. For example, if you’re not on the grid at all, you don’t have to worry about the grid being balanced. Or even there.
Think of all that copper wire that could be used, if we didn’t have a national grid…
There was a speculative piece of work about what would have happened if the industrial revolution had gone slightly differently and instead of huge single generators (e.g Battersea) local microgeneration had taken off. One of the changes likely to result was the reduction in the size of the conurbations. There’s no benefit to being in a big city apart from being near the big power generators. Distributed power = no need for the expense of city rates.
Re #859 Richard, its a conversion factor, a gallon of petrol in UK terms which is 4.5 litres of fuel (US gallon is 3.8 litres) equates to 43 kWh of energy. The 250 kWh refers to total energy usage.
Re #852, Mark, how is it bunk exactly?
A recent 322 Mwatt wind farm opening to power Glasgows entire housing stock of 180,000 homes went live last week. The UK housing stock alone is 26 million homes and then there is all of the businesses as well. Consisting of 140 turbines means around 140×5 for one million homes or 700 of them times 26 which equates to the whole of the UK homes stock and that is 18,200 for homes alone.
That is 7 by 4 miles for 140 turbines so 18,200 sounds about right to me, the size of wales. These turbines are enourmous at 140 metres (450 ft high) so the best idea is go get them out to sea.
I ask a small question over at by blog:
Why does everyone calling for or condemning government “green power” mandates ignore the frustrations resulting public utility monopolies and regulatory Balkanization?
BTW, I hope no one missed the latest MIT study of likely warming:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/05/22/new-mit-study-climate-warming-odds-much-worse-than-thought-quot-increases-the-urgency-for-significant-policy-action-quot-quot.aspx
TokyoTom @ 874:
After several decades of being a voting member of society, and heavily involved in the political process for the first few of them, I assure you that new reports will come out on a regular basis saying how much more dire the situation is THIS TIME.
Rod B. You yourself have indicated in previous posts that the changing over to renewable wind and solar electrical energy would be a large undertaking. The manufacturing, installation, and maintainance of the hardware and software needed,can’t help but be job intensive.
Actually, it’s not true that renewable energy must be used near-source, any more than coal-fired turbines need to be placed near sources of use – the wildly polluting and water-sucking Four Corners coal plants send electricity all the way to Los Angeles. Coal can only be shipped so far before costs accumulate, and natural gas runs into the same problem over long distances (pipeline pressure drop) but (as with petroleum), ethanol can be loaded onto a tanker and shipped anywhere. The economic costs are what drive the decisions, since ecological costs are not taken into account.
(P.S. I don’t think cap-and-trade is focusing on shipping emissions, even if they are the dirtiest, foulest emissions of all, as they use the sulfur-laden residues from the ‘clean diesel’ program – maybe the next bill after this one will address that)
As far as ‘regulatory Balkanization’, (TokyoTom) notice that different regions have far different issues – for example, are you proposing that California’s tightly twisted and byzantine water regulations be exported to New Jersey, where it rains all summer long? No watering your lawn, now… Ecologically informed economic decision making depends on the local & global ecology, not on some ideological idee fixe.
As far as the food-vs-fuel meme raised by Hank: notice that one half of U.S. corn production is going to factory farms – like the ones in Mexico that bred the swine flu. A small amount goes to high-fructose corn syrup, the #1 cause of obesity in the U.S. (behind lack of exercise). The amount subsidized and dumped on Third World markets varies from year to year, but that’s how Mexico’s small farmers were wiped out – yes, they can grow their own food quite well, but not if the prices are undercut – then, they lose their farms.
The situation in Mexixo is called top-down agricultural restructuring – the Soviets did it, Cargill does it, Monsanto does it. Essentially, if a large agribusiness corporation wants to make a lot of money in Mexico, they need to make sure that they own all the land and that they don’t have any competition – and the best way to do that is to flood markets with surplus U.S. corn for a few years, so that the the domestic farmers are knocked out, and then, once a monopoly is established, they can jack up prices.
That is the classic monopolistic approach – and with electricity generation, it is written into law. The large utilities can sell power to customers at the going rate, but if you set up a solar panel on your roof, you don’t get to do the same thing. That’s because the electricity holding utilities exert tight control over the grid, either by direct ownership or via political maneuvering. It’s just like the old coal monopoly of the British Hostmen – they controlled the rivers and roads, so any upstart miner could mine all the coal they wanted – but forget about selling it.
Now, the only issue that the fossil fuel lobby raises with respect to ethanol is the food vs. fuel theme, as seen. What they don’t want to talk about is the elimination of fossil fuels from agriculture.
However, studies in the 1970s demonstrated that the “Green Revolution” in agriculture was really the “Fossil Fuel Revolution” – with diesel tractors, natural gas based fertilizers, and coal-fired electricity all playing major roles (plus fleets of trucks and ships for transporting the food around). The net energy cost invested was much greater than that of the food recovered, in most cases – and the entire process is wasteful, polluting and damages soils and watersheds. Cleaning up agriculture by switching to non-fossil energy sources is thus a critical step in any national renewable energy program.
Biofuels are a good solution to energy problems – they help out farmers, they don’t pump fossil CO2 into the atmosphere, they provide more energy storage than any battery could (at lower conversion efficiency), and they’re made from water, sunlight and atmospheric CO2. Like petroleum, they can be shipped to remote regions.
As long as you are not using fossil fuels to grow and process the crops, and as long as you are not destroying pristine forest, but rather working regular agricultural land, then there is nothing at all wrong with biofuels – and they can also be used in existing gasoline engines.
I suppose there is one problem – if we develop biofuels, solar and wind power right now, then oil prices will never recover, because demand will just keep on plummeting – and since 75% of the public backs rapid development of solar, wind and biofuels, the only thing keeping it from happening is the cartelized nature of the U.S. energy-finance sector – and their various networks of propaganda artistes.
However, did sticking to old, traditional fossil-fuel-guzzling technology help GM out much? No. The same goes for all the other dinosaurs and their financiers. The highly politicized public-private institutions like the DOE and Battelle Memorial Institute, owner of “FutureGen intellectual property” are part of the same problem – entrenched politicial interests struggling to maintain the (very profitable) status quo by sabotaging any competition.
Secret meetings in New York run by fossil fuel magnates… I wonder what they were talking about.
FurryCH, I understand and accept the theory of job transfer. I was simply asking about the practicalities. How is Johnny Fender of Detroit going to learn how to construct turbines on poles, even assuming he already knows how to handle a wrench and hammer? How does he get his family to North Texas? Whose is going to pay for that move? Will he be hired before or after he moves? If after, how is he assured that Pickins hasn’t all of the workers he needs already from OK and TX? What would he do then? Try to hire on as a ranch hand and round up calves – using his hammer? Etc?
Just putting a little reality in the easily stated ethereal platitudes – though I have no problem with the latter, per se. In a more scientific vein it’s called ignoring the transients, which most macroeconomics does and which electronic engineers know can destroy the whole concept/system in an eye blink.
Ike, with notable but extremely few exceptions, people who put all their investment money in an ethereal dream go broke. That’s why.
“detail thinking” says ReCaptcha for this comment. I’m going to start taking it as guidance (grin)
Apropos fisheries conservation in particular, excellent blog here:
http://scienceblogs.com/guiltyplanet/2009/05/soft_enforcement_sousveillence.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink
Soft Enforcement and Sousveillence for Conservation
Posted on: May 23, 2009 9:01 AM, by Jennifer L. Jacquet
“I am currently attending the International Marine Conservation Congress … and wanted to quickly share some new ideas on how technology could contributions to conservation….” which includes much worth reading and a pointer
“… Recall Sam LaBudde’s use of sousveillence when he went undercover onboard Mexican tuna vessels to document dolphin bycatch (which led to national outrage, a U.S. boycott of tuna, and the dolphin-safe logo — you can read about LaBudde’s entire operation back in 1989 in Kenneth Brower’s 3-part series at The Atlantic): http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/89jul/dolphin.htm ”
…
“… We desperately need more imagery of the environmental destruction that takes place every day and I believe we should be putting technology into the hands of people positioned to capture it.
Take, for instance, this footage from dynamite fishing…. http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1713287 …”
Dr. Jacquet reminds us that watching the commons and reporting on the results can protect the commons.
Most people are far more altruistic — or far more aware that the biosphere _is_ our self-interest embodied in the world — than the greeditarians would believe is humanly possible to understand and act on.
Here’s something for Secular Animist and James to chew on – not that they need much encouragement:
WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) — U.S. President Barack Obama submitted a joint agreement to Congress that outlines plans for a civilian nuclear energy program with the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. State Department said once the measure goes into effect, both countries would move to develop a civilian nuclear energy program to meet growing Emirati energy demands.
vs.
UAE bids to host headquarters of International Renewable Energy Agency
Abu Dhabi: The UAE has officially submitted its bid to host the permanent seat of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi, a move that is aligned with the UAE’s clear commitment towards the development of renewable energy. The UAE will compete with three European countries to host the IRENA HQ, marking the only submission from a developing country. If the UAE is successful in its bid, this will be the first time a major international agency is located in the developing world.
Did you ever hear of the IRENA? Not if you read the U.S. press – do this search in Google News:
“International Renewable Energy Agency”
It is news – just not acceptable to the censors, I guess:
Singapore and Vietnam support UAE’s Irena bid, May 12 2009
“When many countries are giving subsidies for fossil fuels which pollute the environment, the UAE is building solar energy sources to protect the environment – a credential for its bid”, Nguyen Quang Khai said. “Vietnam is not a member of Irena, but I am confident that the UAE will get the support from other [Irena] member countries,” he said.
and
Australia to join IRENA as it announces 1GW solar program
19 May 2009
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) will gain a new member in the form of Australia, increasing the body’s influence as the Rudd Government plans to invest approximately AS$4.5 billion on renewable and clean energy initiatives. A key boost to solar has also been planned, which will see AS$1.6 billion spent on projects to generate 1GW and above of energy starting in 2010.
The U.S. State Department, The White House, Congress, and every single media outlet in the U.S. are refusing to discuss the international renewable energy agency. Likewise, there are no Obama-sponsored State Dept-negotiated solar and wind deals in the works – just this effort to increase sales of U.S. nuclear reactors abroad for the benefit of GE-Westinghouse. This is despite the fact that, quote,
US President Barak Obama said that the US cannot drill its way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels. He said he would make the investments are President.
Instead, we see a whole fleet of DOE-managed coal and nuclear programs in the works.
Notice, too, that the language is cleary slanted as part of an effort to undermine restrictions under nuclear non-proliferation – Obama & Bush is emphasized “civilian” because the U.S. deal with India (not a signatory to the NPT) ignores their military program and only applies to their civilian program – thus, India agreed to inspections of their civilian reactors, not their military ones. Now, that language is being promoted – not a good sign.
This U.S. strategy has now been adopted by France, who is in quiet discussions with Pakistan about doing the same thing that the U.S. did with India – entering into fuel and reactor deals for the ‘civilian component’ of the nuclear program. Is that really a good idea? Wouldn’t it be better to bring the three nuclear non-signatories to the table (Israel, India, Pakistan) and get them to sign the document? Of course, if the Big Five nuclear powers agreed on massive reductions in nuclear weapons stockpiles, that would give them a much more convincing argument to take to the recalcitrant children.
Regardless, the real culprit here is still the U.S. press, for blatantly refusing to discuss any “International Renewable Energy Agency”, or to ask anyone in government about it. Perhaps at a White House press event? Sure… Instead, we get Andy Revkin & the NYT blaring fake headlines about sea level rise studies:
http://www.grist.org/article/new-york-times-runs-absurdly-misleading-headline-on-revkins-sea-level-rise-
I would write the NYT ombudsman and ask them some pointed questions – and send a copy to your House and Senate representatives as well.
Speaking of ways to watch the commons:
http://alterslash.org/#Sunlight_Labs_Offers_25_000_For_Data_gov_Apps
“… Sunlight Labs is offering $25,000 in prize money for developers who create apps that use newly-released federal government data…. The Apps for America 2 contest aims to find the best applications that rely on Data.gov …”
http://www.data.gov/catalog#raw
geological, environmental, and weather datasets.
re #864 Furry responding to my #857
You say, “In the renewable energy world, Honda inverter generators have an excellent reputation for frequency stability. Those same inverters are used in micro-CHP plants that are already in production.”
Reply:
Honda thus demonstrates that frequency control of an engine-generator output waveform is best left to the inverter, so the engine speed can wander somewhat. (Noting in passing, the big engine-generators in electric power plants were developed long before inverters were in existence, and even still it is unlikely that inverters at that size exist.)
So what is wrong with the “Honda micro-CHP” system? I think the answer is nothing if you live where the heat can be used. To the degree that it effectively replaces other natural gas burning equipment that would otherwise be operating, the efficiency is 100%. Seems like a good way to get more out of natural gas?
Even the Honda thing would not be continuously useful over 24 hours in most places. So it would work best in conjunction with an existing grid with generators in place to meet the demand when the Honda microCHP was not needed for heat. Does not this sound a little like the situation with wind and solar generators, only perhaps at different time periods during the day. Hm, maybe that could work out to be complementary.
Hm. Already in production, but have you checked the price? Hm, sounds a little like the same unaffordium as wind and solar.
What if the machinery was already running in your car, and you paid for it when you bought the car? On this basis it goes to almost free, except that you pay for plumbing and wiring to the grid.
You also say, “I’d also suggest you do a walk-through of how you expect this system to be used through a 24 hour cycle.”
I reply:
I expect that either the Honda microCHP or the Miastrada car auxilliary power system would be used similarly to the way solar and wind can be used, though at different and maybe complementary times. The big difference is that the Miastrada car system would be almost free of capital cost compared to the Honda system or solar or wind.
Cogeneration as a concept is written into California law as a form of renewable energy due to its efficiency, including provision for rebates. It seems to fall off the page when the utility companies are promoting renewables.
The idea that heat from a hybrid car producing electricity can be used for household purposes is in an old patent. It is a variation of this where electric power generation occurs when that generation is highly efficient due to effective use of heat.
Good catch, Ike. Certainly smells like a typical political intervention to push nuclear tech in and preempt the development of solar there.
Why interfere with solar development and push nuclear, particularly in a country with such ample sunlight instead of somewhere less favored?
“Because that’s where the money is” may explain it.
#867 Mark
It is quite amazing that all this 100 year old stuff has been operating on a grid in phase lock with relatively little trouble.
This is different from frequency lock which could be absolutely perfect and still huge machines could still be melting down all over the country.
Your question of how they do it goes beyond my direct experience, though from a general and limited background in power machinery, I would say that it depends a lot on the ability to control the magnetic field in each generator to assure that machinery stays in lock. If not there are some big switches that get used. Field control is not so easily handled in generators using permanent magnets for creating field magnetization.
The modern world of inverters can accomplish the phase lock needed to make AC of the right phase out of DC from solar panels, but this is relatively light duty electronics compared to stuff needed for large power station.
#866 James
Yes, you are right, we have different ethics.
You tend to manipulate words based on context to achieve a degree of amelioration of your opponents point of views.
Maybe you are a politician of some sort. For example, you say I am obsessed with Chernobyl. Your sort of being a drama queen on that one, but you think it looks good on you. If you really want to do a reasonable extrapolation, rather than talk about obsession, think about this. More nuclear plants means more weapons grade plutonium on the planet. In a world of resource scarcity and third world nations possessing nuclear capacity, don’ you even have a minuscule consideration of that that means for national and global security implications? Or are you too busy with your personal agenda to be reasonably considerate?
Sure we can compare the Chernobyl incident to say the casualties of WWII, or the plague, but that really is just a red herring to support your point in order to distract attention from the reality of that individual event and its ramifications. To diminish the reality of human suffering for the incident and its ecological effects is to dishonor the magnitude of its’ importance. Not just the human suffering and those that died but the reality that it was a nuclear meltdown.
As far as soviet records, your funny. In case you hadn’t noticed they don’t release information that is negative unless they see advantage in it. Heck, no one even knew about Chernobyl until radiation alarms went off in European nuclear plants; when they found out they did not have a leak, they started tracing back to source.
Your myopic point of view seems to revolve around a certain egocentricity geared toward your bias.
I am not biased or closed minded about the incident. “You might keep in mind the old saying about what you think you know that just isn’t so.”
I must admit that I don’t know with great precision, but at least I have talked to someone that was there. Have you? Or do you just trust what you read on the internets?
If there is any major discrepancy it seems to be in your reasoning capacity from what I can tell thus far.
You may think eating bore is excessive, I think its tasty :)
As far as comparing radioactive boar meat to transfats etc., pretty silly. It’s a non sequitur. Your comparing special interest manipulation of the regulatory quality in American food to a nuclear accident. That’s just a really dumb argument.
A few more points: My ethics are based on responsibility and consideration of the global commons (If the end result or value is not produced from my creativity, can I claim it?) and the pragmatic reality of the socio-economic system within which we operate. Yours seem to be more megalomaniacal (my opinion). You seem to think you are right just because you know how to pull the wool of some peoples eyes with red herrings and non sequitur arguments? Hmmm… maybe you are an attorney?
I never said it was a dead zone, but if there is sufficient radiation in the area there will be mutations. And I’m just going to go out on a limb here and guess and arrogantly assume that I am at least partly right. Since there was an actual nuclear meltdown and that is not in dispute. I’m guessing that the background radiation is above normal in that area. So it is somewhat safe to say that this has a reasonable degree of impact based on the radiation levels as they are, not as they are reported.
And try not to believe everything you think is true, or your cherry picked pages from the internets.
Lastly, what is your degree in, non sequiturianism?
http://www.citizensclimatelobby.org/
http://globalchange.mit.edu/news/news-item.php?id=76
Mark Says (23 mai 2009 at 2:55 AM):
“When the adverts come on in the UK during, say, Eastenders Sunday Onibus, there’s a spike in load with all the people turning their kettles on….
So you may as well ask the question of NON-RENEWABLE sources. How do you do all that with the coal/oil/gas/nuclear power when there’s variability in load?”
In a word, inertia. There’s a lot of energy stored in the rotating mass of all the generators in the system. (And in electrical inductance/capacitance, steam pressure in turbines, etc.) If you monitor system voltage & frequency, you see those drop slightly when all those Britons turn on their kettles at the same time, as the speed of the flywheels drops a bit. In response, the throttles of the generators open to bring them back up to speed, generating more power to meet the new demand.
Not really a lot different from what happens when you drive off from a standing start: the engine’s idling along, turning the flywheel (which has energy stored as inertial). You feed a bit of gas, let out the clutch, and (with a bit of practice) drive smoothly off.
Of course there’s more to it than this: that’s why people spend years getting degrees in electric power systems engineering.
On Copenhagen — New Scientist: “… the meeting will be exposed to public scrutiny as never before: the UN has just released the negotiating texts.”
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/05/death-knoll-for-climate-shenan.html
Rod B in #878 states:
“I understand and accept the theory of job transfer. I was simply asking about the practicalities. How is Johnny Fender of Detroit going to learn how to construct turbines on poles, even assuming he already knows how to handle a wrench and hammer?”
He then goes on to conclude that it is irrational to assume renewable energy jobs will not help our industrial base.
This is so much wrong with this analysis. First, wind turbine generators are being manufactured at locations throughout the old industrial Rust Belt. Second, some of the largest deployments of concentrating solar power (CSP) are the Stirling Engine dish systems. The engine-generator that sits on each dish, is essentially based on automotive engine technology.
Check out this press release from last month.
http://www.stirlingenergy.com/pdf/2009-04-27.pdf
Ike, one little discrepency with your discourse: I would have guessed that you knew oil is used to produce nearly no electricity. Whipping out solar and wind generation will drop the price of oil how?
Pushing 900 comments, including at least several quasi-dissertations. The blog moderator’s version of running the gauntlet. You should have a big “S” painted on your shirt Gavin.
Rod: http://www.google.com/search?q=diesel+generator. You can figure out the actual number and compare it to “nearly no” from that.
Also re earlier comment about workers having to move, the companies are going to them, you should start listening to NPR, you’d have heard yesterday’s story about companies building heavy machinery for the future. Those big wind turbines turn out to use rather huge gearboxes that have to run quietly for many years. They’re setting up in the old automotive towns, where there are lots of unemployed highly skilled workers. Check your local radio guide, you can probaby find it. Why ask people to move when they and the equipment are idle and available?
877: “Ecologically informed economic decision making depends on the local & global ecology, not on some ideological idee fixe.”
Ike, I fully agree. I think I`ve made exactly the same point several times in the context as to how commons should be managed.
“As far as ‘regulatory Balkanization’, (TokyoTom) notice that different regions have far different issues – for example, are you proposing that California’s tightly twisted and byzantine water regulations be exported to New Jersey, where it rains all summer long? No watering your lawn, now…”
Looks like you failed to investigate my link at 873, which is clearly addressed to electricity, which also falls from the skies but ius not as easily captured as water. The point is that the calls for “Green power” are in large a result of lack of competition and consumers choice in power markets.
We should, like Google, be seeking to change that. Here`s the link again:
Why does everyone calling for or condemning government “green power” mandates ignore the frustrations resulting from public utility monopolies and regulatory Balkanization?
FWIW, on May 18, Resources for the Future released a useful discussion of the growing success of the introduction of property rights schemes as a tool to end to tragedies of the commons in streessed fisheries:
http://www.rff.org/Publications/WPC/Pages/09_05_18_Can_Catch_Shares_Save_Fisheries.aspx.
James 887. I a word: WFT?
OK, that’s really three words.
You can only release the energy of inertia in the generators by slowing them down.
And slowing them down means that your power cycle is on a slower frequency.
And because of induction in an AC system, if you lose the frequency lock you have a less efficient conversion.
This is known as a “brown-out”.
Therefore your “solution” is no bloody good.
For some interesting links on the efforts to water down and sink the climate bill in the House:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/05/22/cleaning-waxman-pollution/
Here’s a Guardian piece on “angry environmentalists” and Steven Chu – but I think that what the press doesn’t talk about is far more interesting that what it does talk about – the DOE budget. Here’s the basic story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/24/steven-chu-environmentalist-anger
The main point is that the DOE has gone head over heals for coal – FutureGen got $2.3 billion, despite the fact that it doesn’t work at a technical level – but that’s not the gist of the article. Claims about energy technology and economics remain sacrosant to the press. The Guardian would have you believe that hydrogen cars are viable, for example:
In addition, Chu has called for a slowdown in the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles in the US and slashed funding for new projects by 60%. “We asked ourselves: is it likely in the next 10 or 15, or even 20, years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?” Chu explained. “The answer, we felt, was no.”
Exactly right – hydrogen gas is a terrible transportation fuel – hard to store onboard. Second, with ANY molecular-based energy source, you have to look at the full lifecycle. You can strip hydrogen off coal, or you can make it from water and sunlight.
The real value of renewable energy-produced hydrogen from water sources is as an alternative feedstock to the chemical industry – because then, you can make nitrogen fertilizer without using natural gas or other fossil fuels. You can even go one step further, and combine that hydrogen stream with atmospheric CO2, or any other CO2 source (pure CO2 is best for synthesis), and make your own hydrocarbons. Or, you can grow green algae, which do the same thing.
Consider the Haber process analogy – N2 + H2 under high pressure and temperature gives NH3, fixed nitrogen, which is easily converted to other forms (proteins & nucleic acids are what plants mainly need). Certain soil microbes in close association with plant roots carry out the same process, but at a much slower rate. Nitrogen fertilizer thus allows land that might give only one crop per year to give two – and that is assuming that there already is an active plant-animal cycle, in which grazing animals return much of the nitrogen to soil as manure.
Maybe a reconsideration of good agricultural practices is needed… but don’t wait around for corporate agribusiness universities to do this – they’re bent on a different agenda. Scientific inquiries that interfere with established financial relationships are frowned on by the new breed of university administrators (plucked from the pharmaceutical boardroom, as often as not).
In any case, the direction the DOE is taking under Chu & Koonin (BP chief scientist, tar sands proponent) represents a failure to invest in the future, in favor of short-term profits and political expediency – a recipe for disaster, and a return to the status quo – with goodies for coal interests thrown in.
Not even the the DOE under Samuel Bodman would back the FutureGen project, it was too obviously a flop. Hydrogen cars are a flop as well – a good decision, but if you include Chu on solar (it costs too much) then that adds up to a very poor grade – 33%, an obvious fail. Even including promotion of ‘energy efficiency’, it is still a fail.
What works, as shown by installed projects and working prototypes? Solar, wind and advanced biofuels, plus electric vehicles and low-energy devices.
Most of what we know about longterm and radiation effects is from exposure to one brief pulse of neutrons and a relatively low level of fallout; the health studies are being documented here:
http://www.rerf.or.jp/radefx/late_e/cancrisk.html
Chernobyl and the other “wildlife preserve” contamination sites are very different situations — different isotopes, different forms of exposure — and likewise the studies will continue for decades and probably centuries if we stay focused as a scientific culture.
People like James who persist in ignoring the future have a great deal to do with how it turns out. They may be in the majority.
#891 Jim Bouldin
Here, here.
Big Red ‘S’ for Gavin and the RC crews working on the internets ;)
#897 Hank Roberts
Thanks for that one. I hope they do release real reports on the incident so that it can be added to the aggregated knowledge on the ramifications of such an incident.
Hank, about 3% of US power generation is petroleum based. I don’t know if that includes capacity of idle stand-by diesels, but I doubt it.
TokyoTom, a disagreement with one of your contentions: Unless it’s scammed or a contrivance, open competition in the power utility industry is a pipe dream once one gets below the ethereal clouds. The cost of entry vs. expected return is massively prohibitive. Possibly competition as it is today (though not working as well as planned) in only the generation business might work a little (well, is working a little) with decent limited regulation.