Renewable Energy

[Shared Humanity]

When I said the bird argument was disingenuous, I didn't mean to say that birds didn't matter.

Who could look at these pictures and not arrive at this conclusion? In fact, I'd argue that this bird matters more than any 10 randomly selected humans.

[JimD]

Will the U.S. Follow the U.K. Into Power Shortages?

As Britain endeavors to build new nuclear power plants to avert an electric crisis in 20 years -- with the retirement of nearly all the nation's installed capacity, as it falls prey to age -- the question arises whether the United States is destined for the same crisis.

http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Will-the-U.S.-Follow-the-U.K.-Into-Power-Shortages.html

[JimD]

I should have included this in my previous post.

Uneconomic US nuclear plants at risk of being shut down

More US nuclear power plants are at risk of closure because they are no longer economic, industry leaders have warned, jeopardising the administration’s hopes that the reactors can help support energy security and limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Exelon and Entergy are among the US power generators facing pressures to close some of their nuclear plants, as a result of lower electricity prices, competition from cheap gas, and sometimes political opposition.

On Wednesday Ernest Moniz, energy secretary, said the government would offer $6.5bn in loan guarantees to support the construction by a consortium led by Southern Company of two new reactors at Vogtle in Georgia, scheduled to start up in 2017-18.

Over the next five years, however, it is possible that more nuclear capacity will be shut down in the US than started up.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da2a6bc6-98fa-11e3-a32f-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2tsf8oqkF


Where nuclear plants have to go head-to-head with gas-fired plants, and with wind and solar power that are supported by regulatory mandates, they are finding it hard to compete.

....It has been clear for years that the shale gas boom made it hard for costly new reactors to compete. Over the past year, though, it has become clear that even some existing plants are no longer commercially viable.

Another way to look at it is that wind and solar are knocking off the nuclear plants but not the coal.

Note especially the graph in the article and what the trends for coal, gas and renewables were over the most recent year.   Coal is up the most.  Gas is down the most.  This makes sense in regards the rising cost of gas and the low price for coal.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/da2a6bc6-98fa-11e3-a32f-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2tmlqrHlP

[wili]

It's behind a paywall, so I can't see the graph to which you refer. But this article claims that quite a few coal plants are likely to be shut down by 2016: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/flurry-of-coal-power-plant-shutdowns-expected-by-2016-17086

[Shared Humanity]

SH:  I don't disagree with SOME of your assessment.  The US is certainly a "bright spot" of sorts when it comes to coal.  And yes....the REST of the world (especially China and India) are the primary culprits...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/16/remember-the-war-on-coal-coal-is-losing/

As more and more impacts from climate change become "obvious".....it becomes harder and harder to ignore them unless someone lives in the FOX world of delusion and anti-science (by the way...I don't minimize that....there are quite a few poor soles that are following FOX over the cliff).

Buddy....been away for a while but thought I would respond. I think you are missing my main point about trends in coal use. It simply does not matter whether humanity suddenly (as in tomorrow) has an epiphany about global warming and CO2. Once the capital investments have been made, the coal fired plants that are in place will simply not be dismantled. Each and every plant will live out its economic usefulness. Our coal consumption can only be reduced slowly from its current record use. Since I believe we are still a couple of decades away from that epiphany, I would expect that worldwide coal consumption will be doubled by 2030.

[JimD]

It's behind a paywall, so I can't see the graph to which you refer. But this article claims that quite a few coal plants are likely to be shut down by 2016: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/flurry-of-coal-power-plant-shutdowns-expected-by-2016-17086

Wili,  I saw that and we hit it on another thread.  The article is based upon a few assumptions which may not hold.  One is that the price of natural gas will stay low enough to make it cheaper than the coal plants.  This assumption may well not hold as natural gas is going up and its long term outlook is higher still.  Another big problem is that all those EPA regulations have to get by big opposition from the Republican Congress and very likely federal lawsuits.  I expect that you will find a lot of those plants still in operation come 2020.  As SH pointed out the coal companies invested a lot of money and they are going to fight to recoup every penny of profit they can.

[JimD]

A new study on the EROEI of large scale solar installations indicates that they ONLY have an EROEI of ....2.45..yes 2.45...I am not joking.  This is devastating news for advocates of solar.   

Many people have gotten very upset with me when I point out the big problems with large scale solar installations and the cost of them.  I have said that there is no chance that we can convert to renewables and run civilization as it exists today.  If you look at the numbers they just do not work out.  And I said this based on information about the EROEI of solar being much higher than this real world performance indicates is the actual EROEI.  This should be the last nail in the coffin for the idea that we can live the way we do now using just renewables.  It is just not possible. 

Please read this full article as it will knock your socks off.

This is the first time an estimate of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) of solar Photovoltaics (PV) has been based on real data from the sunniest European country, with accurate measures of generated energy from over 50,000 installations using several years of real-life data from optimized, efficient, multi-megawatt and well oriented facilities.

Other life cycle and energy payback time analyses used models that left out dozens of energy inputs, leading to overestimates of energy such as payback time of 1-2 years (Fthenakis), EROI 8.3 (Bankier), and EROI of 5.9 to 11.8 (Raugei et al).

Prieto and Hall added dozens of energy inputs missing from past solar PV analyses.  Perhaps previous studies missed these inputs because their authors weren’t overseeing several large photovoltaic projects and signing every purchase order like author Pedro Prieto. Charles A. S. Hall is one of the foremost experts in the world on the calculation of EROI.  Together they’re a formidable team with data, methodology, and expertise that will be hard to refute.

Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny climate.  Germany’s EROI is probably 20 to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and efficient rooftop installations.

I have been reading work by Hall for many years.  He is good. 

Oil
◾The world burns 400 EJ of power, though after fossil fuels begin their steep decline, there’ll be 10-20 EJ less per year.
◾Very large oil fields provide 80% of oil, and they’re declining from 2 to 20% per year, on average at 6.7%.
◾The rate is expected to increase to 9% if not enough investments are made – and perhaps 9% even if they are.

Spain’s solar photovoltaic electricity
◾It’s the 2nd largest installation of PV on earth
◾Produces about 10% of the world’s PV power: 4,237 MW—equal to four large 1000 MW coal or nuclear power plants
◾Solar PV would have to cover 2,300 square miles to replace the energy of nuclear and fossil fuel plants.  You’d also need the equivalent of 300 billion car batteries to store power for night-time consumers.
◾In 2009, these plants generated 2.26% of Spain’s electricity, the largest percent of any nation in the world

http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/

[Neven]

My PV solar array has just produced its first mWh, so I'm a bit biased. 

It might be true that the creation of huge PV solar plants costs so much energy, that the EROI is barely 2.5. But how about a distributed network of rooftop PV solar arrays? One would think it costs a lot less concrete and paving, rooftops already there, etc.

[idunno]

Tesla to invest billions in storage batteries forcars, wind and solar...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/09/cheap-batteries-renewable-energy-market-big-power-companies-wind-solar-power

[SATire]

My PV solar array has just produced its first mWh, so I'm a bit biased. 

It might be true that the creation of huge PV solar plants costs so much energy, that the EROI is barely 2.5. But how about a distributed network of rooftop PV solar arrays? One would think it costs a lot less concrete and paving, rooftops already there, etc.

Neven, I am a bit biased, too. So I am quite satisfied that rigorous calculation of EROI is allready >2 for old installed solar with guarantee to become better each year (~30% reduction per doubled capacity). Of course that is not as easy energy than burning oil swelling from the sand in Saudia Arabia - but enough to be used for sustainable living allready today once you installed the first piece.

But do not expect that small installations have higher EROI: You probably paid ~50% of the costs for craftspeople installing that modules and pannels. Indirectly you paid that for energy: The amount of cars and life style accessoires the worker needs to get out of bed and spend his time at your house translates to energy and other ressources quite well. That is also the reason why it is a bit more energy efficient to buy that stuff from China - they still need less stuff per day than European poeple...

JimD - nobody really advocates that the use of renewables provides sustainable life (or what you call green BAU). But it is very clear that any sustainable society must rely solely on renewable energy sources (or we do have a strange problem with the words "sustainable" and "renewable"?). Same for agriculture: The "US marketing organic" is clearly not sustainable. Also the much older anthroposophic bio-dynamical agriculture (~100 years - direct answer to industrial agriculture those days - every child learns to manually pull a plough through the wet soil in that Waldorf schools but still they prefer to use a machine later) is not 100% sustainable but a good root for that since it is prooven to work quite close to sustainablity.
A future sustainable society will have to make use of such roots and we must grow those roots right now. So we have to install only renewables now. That is the reason why renewables allready have "tipped".

[Buddy]

<<(or we do have a strange problem with the words "sustainable" and "renewable"?)>>

BINGO...  There are only two types of worlds in the long run (thousands of years) with the number of people we have on the planet now:  (1)  sustainable, and (2) not sustainable.

The world is starting to figure that out.  Individuals were the first to figure that out (some a LONG time ago), businesses are also figuring that out, and governments (politicians) will be the last that are dragged to the sustainable table.

[Jim Hunt]

Please read this full article as it will knock your socks off.

People have been known to get upset with me too Jim!

http://econnexus.org/floods-of-planning-poppycock-in-teignbridge/

Since the book is rather expensive, here's some slides from messrs Prieto and Hall:

http://www.wire1002.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/Reports/110403_How_much_net_energy_does_the_Spain_s_Solar_PV_program_deliver.pdf

[JimD]

My PV solar array has just produced its first mWh, so I'm a bit biased. 

It might be true that the creation of huge PV solar plants costs so much energy, that the EROI is barely 2.5. But how about a distributed network of rooftop PV solar arrays? One would think it costs a lot less concrete and paving, rooftops already there, etc.

I think it is highly unlikely that roof top solar installations would have EROEI's as high as very large scale concentrated installations like power plants.  That would fly in the face of all of our experiences with deploying technologies.  That is not to say that there could not be reasons to go that way or both ways as long as the discussions were bound in a limited fashion.  But if we have that discussion and remove those bounds we will get a different answer.


This leads us back to a theme I am always returning to.  What is the primary problem we always face?  Most people when asked this question are incapable of anything but short term responses that focus on jobs, taking care of their families and other items that directly effect their lives.  But the primary problem is always and will always be survival of the species (I am bought into the concept of human exceptionalism).  This is always a long term concern, but has become a medium term issue due to AGW focusing our attention a bit.

This leads us to the issue of sustainability as mentioned above.  In a rigorous sense sustainability means the ability to live here on the Earth indefinitely.  In practice most of us seem to think that criteria is impractically strict and opt for phrases like 'thousands of years'.  My preference is for a period of several 'tens' of thousands of years.   The reason I pick a period that long is that I think it will give us time to ride out AGW, reorient/rebuild our societal structures of how to live, rebuild a complex civilization based upon more suitable technologies, and hopefully fulfill human potential (yes I have anthropocentric tendencies).  But if we take actions which dramatically worsen AGW from what we have done so far we might need a lot longer than 'tens' to ride it out if it would even be possible.

The issue of sustainability leads one to the concept of the carrying capacity of the Earth.  For the landbase has primacy over all other factors affecting human survival.  It is not religion, or ideology or race or morality or ethics.  The landbase (which includes the oceans) determines how many species and how much of each, including people, can live on the Earth.  The carrying capacity is intimately linked with the chain of life. Species diversity is critical to how that chain of life functions and without those other species we die. The concept of the food chain has great import in this discussion as our actions are breaking down that chain... and without it we die.  We cannot live alone on this planet.  We have to leave space for all the other species we evolved in tandem with and who are essential to our well being.  This too is part of sustainability and directly related to carrying capacity.  Everyone has to have their space. 

Human population is quite likely 4-5 times the carrying capacity of the Earth if we use my goal of being 'sustainable' for several tens of thousands of years.  In a rigorous sense one would have to go back to when human populations were not such that they materially damaged wide scale parts of the globe.  Since such damage was already evident when human populations were at 1 billion then we would likely end up with a human population something like 500 million for rigorous sustainability.  This leads me back to something I harp on all the time.  Human population and its growth.  We are heading towards 9+ billion people and increasing industrialization and growing the global economy.  This is measured quite accurately by the rising CO2 levels.  But what this means in terms of carrying capacity is that we are making the divide between it and a sustainable population wider all the time.  The pristine Earth's carrying capacity was much higher than that of the damaged Earth we have now.  The damage is increasing and the population is going up.  That is an artifact of industrial civilization.  In no sense of the term that we can visualize at this time is civilization sustainable.  Industrial civilization is far less sustainable.  Trying to maintain it is suicide.  If we do not stop this gap from widening we will reach the point where the carrying capacity is essentially zero.  Just like exponential growth cannot continue forever neither can our damage to the earth's carrying capacity.  [To digress a bit I want to note that many seem to think that dumping 'civilization' implies we go back to being cavemen.  But that does not follow.  Human intellect and philosophy and how to live ethically and morally did not come from civilization.  If we give it up for a time we do not lose all the essential stuff.  Maybe it even helps us to return to the real meaning of such things.]

The above is self evident in the numbers.  If we all managed to learn to live as efficiently as you (Neven) indicated was your goal (2.5 tonnes CO2 emissions per year if I remember correctly) that would be quite an accomplishment from where we are now, but it would also mean that when we have those 9+ billon people our CO2 emissions would be more than 22 Gtonnes per year (better than the 35 now but not enough to make a difference overall).  Suicide.  If we all lived like the average African (sort of half industrial and non-industrial) we would still have CO2 emissions of 10 Gtonnes a year.  Also suicide.  1 billion humans living that way would still result in emissions of 2.5 Gtonnes per year.  Even at that level ppm of CO2 would possibly continue to rise though the recovering bio-sphere might generate enough growth to balance concentrations out.  Maybe there would even occur a slow reduction in ppm from that point.  Thus sustainability would be within reach.

This is where the sustainability arguments get us.  There is no form of large scale civilization or technology which is sustainable.  Electric cars will not help us solve the primary problem nor will converting our vast power generation capabilities to renewables.  Businesses cannot be sustainable.  You cannot even build houses and grow food for populations like ours sustainably.

We must work continually to focus on the core problem and stop taking the easy way out.  It is false progress.  We are making our decisions on what to do based upon faith not reason.  Dreams of technical miracles are no different than expecting God to come down from heaven and save us at the last instant.  Or aliens. 

I sit here and think where we are likely to be in another 20 years.  The food productivity of the oceans will be down significantly from where we are now if not in almost collapse mode.  AGW will be starting to have big impacts on land based food production.  We will still be consuming vast quantities of fossil fuels even if we are trying to make the unsustainable transition to all renewables as they will be required to keep the lights on during the transition and to mine the resources and run the factories making the renewable infrastructure.  We will have emitted another 600 Gtonnes of CO2 and will have long ago crossed the trillion tonne level of total emissions.  We will have baked into the cake temperature and sea level rises of staggering amounts.  How many would disagree with the likelihood of that happening.  As that is the focus and direction of the BAU and Green-BAU approaches.  It is suicidal.

I point back to the crash on demand discussions.  Which approach results in less suffering (and is thus more humane) and which approach results in the best chance of solving problem number 1?  I am too old and crippled up to become a soldier for Deep Green Resistance so this is what I try and do (would that I had known when I was 18 what I know now).  Point out the cold hard facts and urge a conversion to a more honorable and ethical approach to how we live the rest of our lives.  Though we have been taught to live for ourselves by this 'civilization' I think we should be living for our descendants.  They are the innocent we are not.  They are the future we are not.

[Shared Humanity]

My PV solar array has just produced its first mWh, so I'm a bit biased. 

It might be true that the creation of huge PV solar plants costs so much energy, that the EROI is barely 2.5. But how about a distributed network of rooftop PV solar arrays? One would think it costs a lot less concrete and paving, rooftops already there, etc.

I have always felt that there is a problem with concentrated solar arrays that use the existing grid to deliver electricity. I have mentioned this before.

1st, I feel these concentrated arrays are vulnerable to violent weather. A warming planet will be delivering weather extremes that have rarely or never been recorded in human history.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-03-11/news/48118432_1_hailstorms-central-maharashtra-maharashtra-farmers

A coal fired electricity generation plant will stand up very well to this kind of weather. A solar array will look a lot like this wheat field.

2nd, I believe that for us to eliminate BAU, we need to move towards "local" in everything we do. This is true for each and every activity that occurs in civilization today, agriculture, production, water management. The more we are able to move to local, the more we will cut down on waste. For example, U.S. domestic agriculture is better then flying strawberries from Argentina, family farms are better than industrial farms, home gardens are better than family farms. Follow this logic with anything that occurs and you will find the same, less wasteful results.

Let's look more closely at electricity generation. (See chart below.)

In the U.S., this is what the power generation supply chain looks like. For the moment, let's just look at "electricity generation" and "residential use". 68% of the energy used to generate electricity at plants is wasted as can be seen by the "rejected energy" box on the right of this chart. In fact this waste (26.1 Quads) is the single largest waste of energy in the U.S with transportation waste coming in 2nd at 20.23 Quads. Think of these losses as CO2 contribution to the atmosphere with no benefit to humanity. This is not entirely accurate as 31% of the electricity generated does not come from fossil fuels (nuclear, wind, hydro, solar and geothermal) This energy loss in electrical generation is a function of "conversion efficiencies" and "transmission losses". It is estimated that 7% of the electricity generated in the U.S. is lost during transmission.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=105&t=3

Now let's look at residential use of electricity.

The first notable observation is that only 20% of the electricity delivered and consumed by residences is waste, far better than the 68% in the generation and transmission of electricity. This conversion waste would be in the form of heat etc. (My laptop is getting warm as I type.) Anything we can do to locate energy generation at the residence will reduce transmission loss. Moving to solar generation at residences will obviously also eliminate CO2 released to the atmosphere. If we were to generate all residential electricity requirements using solar and located at the residence, (I understand this is not feasible but I am using this to make a point) we would reduce fossil fuel consumption in the U.S. and its associated CO2 emissions by 26.16 Quads or 32% of the total consumed.

Why aren't we doing this now?

Up till now, we have relied on individuals to decide to install the rooftop panels. The high costs and "payback periods"....

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

can make this a difficult decision for the individual consumer. When you factor in the current state of the U.S. economy and the general lack of disposable income, you get very low installation rates.

So, how do we do this?

While the capital outlay and 4 year payback may be prohibitive for the individual consumer, this represents an amazing opportunity for utility companies to turn a profit. 4 year payback is small and the elimination of resource costs out into the 30 year lifespan of a residential photovoltaic installation is a phenomenal long term ROI. Have the utility companies install and own the residential panels. Have them charge the residents for the energy generated and watch how quickly inefficient coal fired plants will be taken offline. This  business model is not unlike the way phone companies use to deliver service to residents. They owned the phones and serviced the lines for free.

[Neven]

But do not expect that small installations have higher EROI: You probably paid ~50% of the costs for craftspeople installing that modules and pannels. Indirectly you paid that for energy: The amount of cars and life style accessoires the worker needs to get out of bed and spend his time at your house translates to energy and other ressources quite well. That is also the reason why it is a bit more energy efficient to buy that stuff from China - they still need less stuff per day than European poeple...

The materials I bought were at least put together in Austria and Germany (probably prefabricated elsewhere, like wafers), but you're right that when you look at costs purely as a proxy for energy, the whole array will pay for itself about 2.5 times during its lifetime (25 years) without the subsidy (25% of total price of 10K euros), based on today's energy prices and one inverter change halfway.

It is indeed true  - intuitively - that large centralized solar arrays will be more efficient and thus have higher ROI than distributed solar on homeowner's rooftops. But when I saw how much energy goes into stuff for centralized that doesn't apply to distributed, I wasn't so sure.

From the article that Jim linked to are the energy costs of several aspects of Spanish PV solar plants (I assume these are the big centralized ones, and not the smaller distributed ones) in GWh/y. The total amounts to "2,065.3 GWe of the above energy inputs used annually to generate electricity is 40.8% of all the electricity generated by the solar PV plants of Spain, resulting in an EROI of 2.45". Here are things that are built especially for centralized, but already there for distributed:

56.6   Foundations, canals, fences, accesses

4.7   Evacuation lines and right of way

138.6   Security and surveillance

That's already about a 10% difference. I also think that a lot less metal goes into rooftop mounting vs building constructions for the modules to be mounted on. Another point would be less transportation losses when power comes directly from the roof. These are all aspects I don't have (time to find) the numbers for, sorry.

Some more detailed info from the previous link:

The access roads from the main highway to the plant, which across all the PV plants in Spain added up to about 300 km (186 miles),  used 450,000 m3 or 900,000 tons of gravel.  That takes 90,000 truckloads of 10 tons each traveling an average of 60 km round-trip, or 5,400,000 km (3,355,400 miles) at .31 of diesel per km or 1,620,000 liters of diesel. At 10.7 KWh/liter, that’s 17.3 GWh of fuel.  Then you need to add the energy used by other equipment, such as road rollers, shovels, pickups, and cars for personnel, and the energy to grind, mix, and prepare the gravel and the machinery required.

There are also service roads onsite to inverters, transformers, and distributed station housings, the control center, and corridors between rows of modules.  There are foundations and canals.  A total of 1,572,340 tons of concrete was used, requiring 489.3 GWh of energy.

Surrounding all these facilities are fences 2 meters high that used 3,350 tons of galvanized steel, and another 3,350 tons of steel posts, or 385 GWh of energy.

Maybe the difference between centralized and distributed isn't that high, but centralized will get precedence because centralized power (energy) is good for centralized power (the thing that corrupts) and thus fits in well in the capitalist growth-at-all-cost system.

Like SH says:

2nd, I believe that for us to eliminate BAU, we need to move towards "local" in everything we do. This is true for each and every activity that occurs in civilization today, agriculture, production, water management. The more we are able to move to local, the more we will cut down on waste. For example, U.S. domestic agriculture is better then flying strawberries from Argentina, family farms are better than industrial farms, home gardens are better than family farms. Follow this logic with anything that occurs and you will find the same, less wasteful results.

Like it says in the article: "Solar PV doesn’t come close to providing the 12 or 13 EROI needed to run a complex civilization like ours." The question is: what kind of culture/civilization can we run on an EROI of 2.5? And would that be bad or good?

[Shared Humanity]

I actually believe the single biggest obstacle to the mass installation of residential photovoltaic panels is the difficulty in monetizing the investment. Let the local utilities have a monopoly on the communities installations and watch how quickly they get installed.

One added benefit of residential installations is that it reduces the investment required for a smart grid. The reductions in electricity use will simply look like individual users being disciplined about turning off lights and appliances and using air conditioning expeditiously.

[SATire]

[To digress a bit I want to note that many seem to think that dumping 'civilization' implies we go back to being cavemen.  But that does not follow.  Human intellect and philosophy and how to live ethically and morally did not come from civilization.  If we give it up for a time we do not lose all the essential stuff.  Maybe it even helps us to return to the real meaning of such things.]

JimD - I understand and agree to most of the words in your article. But the words I quoted here are just wrong or I did not understand them: In my world civilization is the way poeple live together. It is culture, education, law system, philosophy and then also the scientific&technological background of that poeple. It is by no way related to the amount of stuff poeple consume or to the way they apply their technological background for business - you do not need that for civilization.

So civilization as I know that word is quite independent of EROI - as long as poeple can keep their society/education/culture together.

A lot of poeple have prooven that it is possible to life sustainable in small groups. And there are many of such groups and practical experience is old - some allready forked during the beginning of industrialization and a lot more switched back since the 80ies.

I think Neven hits the nail here:

The question is: what kind of culture/civilization can we run on an EROI of 2.5? And would that be bad or good?

To find a save way to future we should calculate with this EROI number - any progress would be appreciated but we must not rely on that to be on a save path.
Therefore, since any sustainable society must rely solely on renewables we should find a way to maintain human live at EROI ~2-3. We should organise that civilization to be good and not bad.

Surely that results in lower population density necessary - so more education is needed at places, where population degrowth is still not significant.

PS Neven: small scale renewables are the guarantee for the transition since nobody can stop individuals from installing renewables or a small group of 10-100 poeple from installing a efficient wind turbine right now. We do not rely on big utility which could have different interests. Furthermore, in some groups craftsmen install your modules not for energy (cars, electronics...) but for education/culture/health care/food - that would easily double the EROI of your installation.

[JimD]

SATire

I think our differences on this might be our working definitions of what 'civilization' means are different.  I use the standard encyclopedic definition of the word and use other terms to describe aspects of how people live together.

Civilization or civilisation (in British English) generally refers to state polities which combine these basic institutions, having one or more of each: a ceremonial centre (a formal gathering place for social and cultural activities), a system of writing, and a city. The term is used to contrast with other types of communities including hunter-gatherers, nomadic pastoralists and tribal villages. Civilizations have more densely populated settlements divided into social classes with a ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations, which, by the division of labour, engage in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale manufacture and trade. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over both nature, and over other human beings.[1]

In other words you cannot 'have' a civilization until you have cities, intensive agriculture, social classes, ruling elites, and manufacturing centers.  Then you end up with industrial civilization when one adds in the technologies requiring fossil fuels and all that other stuff.

So what I am saying is that before civilization existed humans had already developed morals, ethics, law, rudimentary philosophy (without which you cannot get to morals and ethics), religion, etc.  All of the really important and fulfilling aspects of human interaction predate 'civilization' so that is what I mean when I say that dumping civilization should not scare us off from the need to do so. 

Regarding your and Neven's comments on EROEI and sustainability.  Solar or wind renewable technologies require mining, manufacturing, produce pollution, transportation and so on.  Thus it is not possible that they are sustainable in any true sense of the word.  Are they better than using coal - sure, but they do not bring carbon emissions down to zero and thus will not stop AGW getting worse.  Eventually we must stop making it worse.

A lot of poeple have prooven that it is possible to life sustainable in small groups. And there are many of such groups and practical experience is old - some allready forked during the beginning of industrialization and a lot more switched back since the 80ies.

One would have to look hard at the living situation of each person claiming that they are living sustainably and see what one's own conclusion on that would be.  Many forget to take into account the benefits they are still taking advantage of that are provided by industrial civilization.  Are they using steel, making their own clothes from their own animals, going to the doctor in town, only trading with other farmers or buying stuff in town, etc?  None of my ancestors who farmed across America from the 1600's to the 1940's did so in a sustainable fashion.  It was less abusive of the land than depending on Monsanto and John Deere is today but would they have been able to live that way for 10,000 years.  Not a chance.  1000 years?  Highly unlikely.  Sustainable is very hard to achieve.

[SATire]

JimD - you are right, the definition of "civilisation" is variing with places. I just learned e.g. that the common distinction between "culture" and "civilisation"  in Germany is not typical in roman or anglo-saxon countries. However - a broader basis could be that civilisation depends on a lot of poeple interacting e.g. in cities and they develop structures to handle that. So - we could leave it at that.

You are also right, that we are not living sustainable. And also renewables will not make us sustainable. And another common background is, that population is to large for sustainability. And that this problem is due to the fact that education is missing.

But to come back to the topic here: If a society wants to live sustainable because it wants to stay, it must use renewables solely. So this thread still makes sense. So it come down to the question how to get energy sustainable. The obvious way is: to get it renewable. Renewable means, that the sources get back to where it came from: The sun and the earth. Renewables are renewables, if the materials are used again without degeneration and these processes are driven by the sun. 

Of course that is only possible, if population is not growing and the consumption of the individuals is not growing. If poeple need more and more stuff, you have to dig more and more from the earth. But I see now reason why to blame "interaction of poeple in cities" for that. Poeple love to interact and that interaction does not cost ressources or energy. So the only thing to do is to learn to live with the stuff allready digged and present while installing the renewable basis in the mean time...

[ccgwebmaster]

Though we have been taught to live for ourselves by this 'civilization' I think we should be living for our descendants.  They are the innocent we are not.  They are the future we are not.

I think this is especially pertinent - and yet - far too many people think only of themselves, even when they have children.

With respect to solar power EROI I think it's worth noting it's still relatively early days for the technology? But I think early days are all it will see in the end, particularly if collapse comes sooner than later. We shouldn't need to consume the vast amounts of energy that we do - and yet our collective energy consumption in many ways is the fabric of modern civilisation.

Take it away and what is left?

[Buddy]

I think this is especially pertinent - and yet - far too many people think only of themselves, even when they have children.

Agree....and the "Rick Santorum ban contraception" idea is easily one of the three worst ideas in history.  What the hell is he thinking?  We don't have enough food as it is in the world....so let's see how fast we can get to 10 billion and REALLY screw things up.  Incredible....



 

[JimD]

Wind power in the U.S. is on a respirator.

The $14 billion industry, the world’s second-largest buyer of wind turbines, is reeling from a double blow -- cheap natural gas unleashed by the hydraulic fracturing revolution and the death last year of federal subsidies that made wind the most competitive of all renewable energy sources in the U.S.

Without restoration of subsidies, worth $23 per megawatt hour to turbine owners, the industry may not recover, and the U.S. may lose ground in its race to reduce dependence on the fossil fuels driving global warming, say wind-power advocates.

Both wind and gas cost about $84 a megawatt hour to install worldwide, excluding subsidies, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That’s 3 percent higher than a coal-fired power plant costs and about half that of nuclear reactors.

The best wind farms in the breeziest areas such as south Texas can be built for $60 a megawatt-hour, below the $65 price of a high-efficiency gas turbine, according to New Energy Finance.

Behind those headline figures are hundreds of variables that determine whether a utility picks wind or gas. The best wind farms may operate 45 percent of the time, while ordinary ones work less than a third of the day. The tax credit often is the decisive factor in determining whether to build a wind farm.

No Parity

“Without the Production Tax Credit, we don’t expect wind to be at cost parity with gas” in most places in the U.S., said Stephen Munro, an analyst at New Energy Finance.

The political environment in the US right now is not favorable for renewables.  There is good reason to expect that global installation numbers for renewables for this year will not impress come next Jan.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-06/shale-gas-boom-leaves-wind-companies-seeking-more-subsidy.html

[Buddy]

I expect global installation of solar in calendar 2014 to be SIGNIFICANTLY higher than 2013:

1)  Natural gas prices have gone up in the US from $2.00 per unit in April of 2012.....to $4.42 per unit today.  Thus.....it has more than doubled in the past 2 years.

2)  Natural gas will move up over the coming 2 - 3 years towards $8 per unit.  Supply is NOT as great as many of the drillers had originally estimated.  In fact...if you look at many of the quarterly reports of publicly held gas drillers.....you will see that many of them have dropped their expectations for their "in ground inventory" of nat gas to be about 20 - 25% LESS than they originally expected (their initial expectations were based on a SMALL number of very good wells....which didn't turn out to be representative of additional drilling activities).

3)  US will be shipping more LNG later this year.....and in 2015 exports of LNG expect to rise again significantly.  Europe will be the primary user of the LNG exports......  Markets look ahead....and will price this in as time goes by.  I expect nat gas prices in the US to be around $6 per unit by the end of this year.  That will likely rise to $8 sometime in 2015 or 2016.

4)  India, China, Middle East, Japan, and US markets CONTINUE to gain strength in alternative energy.

5)  Politicians in the US are lagging other countries regarding solar........and it is starting to matter less and less as the cost differential between nat gas and solar continues to disappear.  Companies are now acting on (1) current costs, (2) expected FUTURE cost of nat gas.

6)  The "leasing mode" of installing solar for home owners is just now starting to take off.....in what will be a LONG run for the leasing companies.......taking away the "sticker shock" for the homeowner of installing the system, while at the same time getting a reduction of their monthly electric bill.

Interesting times indeed.....

[JimD]

Well we will eventually have real data to find out.

But it is worth keeping in mind that there are different definitions of growth that do not always give the same answer as regards the health of an industry.

For instance, renewable capacity every year for some time.  But global dollar investment in renewables fell 12% in 2013 as compared to 2012.

And global dollar investment in renewables fell 9% in 2012 as compared to 2011.

That is a real trend also and not a good one.

The political climate for government support is waning currently in many countries.  This matters a lot and it has a big effect.  All is not rosy.

[sidd]

To my naive mind, the fact that investment decreases as capacity increases implies more bang for the buck

but i am sure someone will be along soon to disabuse me of my oh-so-shallow conclusion ...

sidd

[crandles]

To my naive mind, the fact that investment decreases as capacity increases implies more bang for the buck

but i am sure someone will be along soon to disabuse me of my oh-so-shallow conclusion ...

sidd

Certainly more bang for buck is happening. Note that capacity largely accumulates while investment is an annual thing. The question is why more bang for buck isn't leading to more investment. I suspect part of reason is declining subsidies.

An expectation of more competition in future can also cause decline in investment as you get more bang for the buck with later investment. Possibly this is particularly true with energy market if the price moves second by second. If you expect or fear price while sun is shining to be nil and high when sun isn't shining. What is the point in investing if you expect that?

[JimD]

To my naive mind, the fact that investment decreases as capacity increases implies more bang for the buck

but i am sure someone will be along soon to disabuse me of my oh-so-shallow conclusion ...

sidd

Very correct.  But it does not have as big an effect as one might suppose as this effect is basically due to increasing efficiency of production, better efficiency of PV technology and such. In any such progression there is a diminishing return from such effects as one approaches technical limits to improvements.

The industry is still at a state where rapid growth requires govt support and subsidies.  Such things are always somewhat controversial and these especially so.  General economic troubles - like we are all facing - also contribute to forcing down govt support and, lastly, entrenched industrial competitors got to the public trough first and have a lot more bought politicians and plenty of money to buy more.

In other words, a tough situation and one must expect fluctuations in growth until the pure economics land solidly on the side of the renewables.  Not that that will end the competition, just that the tide will have turned finally.  We are some time from that point however - 10 to 15 years or so.

The above paragraph however just refers to the financial turning point and not to the carbon emissions turning point.  That happens when new renewable capacity is deployed in a one for one turn 'Off' of fossil capacity.  That is very hard to do when we are trying to grow the economy and deal with large population growth.

Now if our budding Super El Nino can cause enough havoc maybe we can ramp up the political will to grow govt support more and beat down the fossil interests.   "Cry havoc! And loose the dogs......."  and all that I guess.

[solartim27]

I believe this is my first post, been lurking for a while.

We have a 2.5 kW rooftop solar system, (would have liked to go bigger, but area was limited ) and drive a regular Prius and a Leaf.  We just received our annual electric bill, and will pay $300 US with 10k miles on the Leaf over the year.

When we installed the system the contractors were recommending against it because our electric use was so low the ROI was over 50 years out.  I am very happy with our decision.

[JimD]

I believe this is my first post, been lurking for a while.

We have a 2.5 kW rooftop solar system, (would have liked to go bigger, but area was limited ) and drive a regular Prius and a Leaf.  We just received our annual electric bill, and will pay $300 US with 10k miles on the Leaf over the year.

When we installed the system the contractors were recommending against it because our electric use was so low the ROI was over 50 years out.  I am very happy with our decision.

Welcome.

Your decision is a great example of what an individual can do even though the ROI does not justify the decision.  However, a corporation CEO who started to make decisions where the ROI was 50 years out would wake up and find they were in the unemployment line and the house in the Hampton's was up for sale.

Thus another argument for continued govt support for renewables being required to maintain growth in the industry.   

[sidd]

"However, a corporation CEO who started to make decisions where the ROI was 50 years out would wake up and find they were in the unemployment line and the house in the Hampton's was up for sale."

I disagree. Look at the movers and shakers of the financial world who took a big pile of our money and set it on fire a few years ago. Unemployed ? Ha! Rewarded, rather.

Huge investments were made which any sane person could have predicted had negative ROI, enuf to bankrupt everybody. Failure is rewarded. Failure is expected. failure is a part of the "great consolidation," one that will impoverish the 99% further, while consolidating power and wealth to the 1%

The only thing that is punished is any move to threaten the preeminence of the oligarchs. They don't care at all if you lose money for your company, as long as it furthers their purposes.

I see that China and Russia realize this, they have made a pact with their plutocrats, the thieves are allowed a certain amount of money, but not power. I fear they have made a devil's bargain, but we shall see.

sidd

[ccgwebmaster]

Huge investments were made which any sane person could have predicted had negative ROI, enuf to bankrupt everybody. Failure is rewarded. Failure is expected. failure is a part of the "great consolidation," one that will impoverish the 99% further, while consolidating power and wealth to the 1%

Failure isn't rewarded. Being friends with the right people and being born into the right families and having the right connections is rewarded.

[JimD]

sidd

I was sort of joking and largely agree with you regarding what would happen in the case of mismanagement by those in charge of the big financial institutions.

In the case of CEO's of non-financial entities to get the same treatment as the bankers one would have to be in charge of a critical industry like autos that is responsible for a large part of the GDP and employment.  If you are running anything but a power company ROI's like 50 years are just not acceptable.  And I don't think even power companies go anywhere near that far out.

[sidd]

1) "Being friends with the right people and being born into the right families and having the right connections is rewarded."

Not quite. Gore Vidal comes to mind, as someone who had all the right connections and background, and is hated terribly by the oligarchy for telling the truth. No doubt others will occur to you.

2)Power companies :

Enron, where the CEO conveniently dies, and the money is all gone, but the 1% prosper.  All USA power companies are caught in the tightening jaws of the iron triangle of coal, rail and transmission. Don't get me wrong, the oligarchs are not stupid and see this clearly, hence my interest in getting em to fight each other. The war of all against all is not a pretty thing, but i'd rather they do so first ...


3)In a larger sense, as others have explored, money has suborned state power in the USA, for example the rise of prison sentences for debt. A state retains legitimacy through monopoly of violence within its borders. Consider now the increase of private security forces in this context, or the employment of new york police and other city police forces to crush the Occupy movement. Try gatecrashing a gated community for example. We now see the rule of robber barons, unchecked. This will end in either a) a reassertion of state power through forcible expropriation of assets (ha! not in the USA) or 2) well you fill that in.

sidd

[JackTaylor]

Seawater to Gasoline

"Navy researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Materials Science and Technology Division, demonstrate proof-of-concept of novel NRL technologies developed for the recovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) from seawater and conversion to a liquid hydrocarbon fuel."
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/scale-model-wwii-craft-takes-flight-with-fuel-from-the-sea-concept
"The predicted cost of jet fuel using these technologies is in the range of $3-$6 per gallon, and with sufficient funding and partnerships, this approach could be commercially viable within the next seven to ten years."

Some loose ends, gasoline (AV-Gas 100/130) vs. Jet Fuel (JP-5 kerosene) ?

$3 - $6 (USD) seems like a good deal, before taxes of course.

Some claims it would help to reduce ocean acidification, a big plus.

Let's wait and see if this one has legs.

[JimD]

Hi Jack

Seawater to Gasoline

"Navy researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Materials Science and Technology Division, demonstrate proof-of-concept of novel NRL technologies developed for the recovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) from seawater and conversion to a liquid hydrocarbon fuel."
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/scale-model-wwii-craft-takes-flight-with-fuel-from-the-sea-concept
"The predicted cost of jet fuel using these technologies is in the range of $3-$6 per gallon, and with sufficient funding and partnerships, this approach could be commercially viable within the next seven to ten years."

Some loose ends, gasoline (AV-Gas 100/130) vs. Jet Fuel (JP-5 kerosene) ?

$3 - $6 (USD) seems like a good deal, before taxes of course.

Some claims it would help to reduce ocean acidification, a big plus.

Let's wait and see if this one has legs.

Some interesting tidbits about this idea.  It is not actually new.  I found info about it back to 2009.

From Energy Trends in 2012

mac  • 2 years ago 

From Seawater to CO2

Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) are developing a process to extract carbon dioxide (CO2) and produce hydrogen gas (H2) from seawater, subsequently catalytically converting the CO2 and H2 into jet fuel by a gas-to-liquids process.

“The potential payoff is the ability to produce JP-5 fuel stock at sea reducing the logistics tail on fuel delivery with no environmental burden and increasing the Navy’s energy security and independence,” says research chemist, Dr. Heather Willauer.

NRL has successfully developed and demonstrated technologies for the recovery of CO2 and the production of H2 from seawater using an electrochemical acidification cell, and the conversion of CO2 and H2 to hydrocarbons (organic compounds consisting of hydrogen and carbon) that can be used to produce jet fuel.

“The reduction and hydrogenation of CO2 to form hydrocarbons is accomplished using a catalyst that is similar to those used for Fischer-Tropsch reduction and hydrogenation of carbon monoxide,” adds Willauer. “By modifying the surface composition of iron catalysts in fixed-bed reactors, NRL has successfully improved CO2 conversion efficiencies up to 60 percent.”

Must process 23,000 gallons of seawater to get 1 gallon of JP-5 jet fuel.

Note the efficiency quoted is for what counts as a laboratory model and when one travels the path from the lab to a working commercial scale facility well over 50% of the lab models cannot be scaled up and no full scale facility ever results, and the efficiencies always go down of course.  They are still a long ways from success.

The Fisher-Tropsch process has been around since the 1920's and was used heavily by the Germans in WWII.  Note the efficiency numbers from Wiki when FT is used with coal or gas as a feedstock.  With seawater the numbers are likely to be quite a bit lower.  The military is not real focused in general on EROEI but rather on the ability to execute their missions in any circumstances.

Process efficiency[edit]

Using conventional FT technology the process ranges in carbon efficiency from 25 to 50 percent[38] and a thermal efficiency of about 50%[39] for CTL facilities idealised at 60%[40] with GTL facilities at about 60%[39] efficiency idealised to 80%[40] efficiency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process

[JimD]

In addition to the post above there should be a reminder that the process they are using is an energy conversion process.  Converting a kind of energy that will not power a plane into one that does.  The entire process is going to use more energy than is contained in the jet fuel by a substantial amount. 

The navy needs jet fuel and hauling it out to sea and transferring it to an aircraft carrier is very expensive and in time of war perhaps not possible.  If they can build a small plant that is installed on the aircraft carrier that uses power from the nuclear reactor to produce jet fuel they could care less if it ends up 25% efficient as it solves military problems for them. 

[ccgwebmaster]

In addition to the post above there should be a reminder that the process they are using is an energy conversion process.  Converting a kind of energy that will not power a plane into one that does.  The entire process is going to use more energy than is contained in the jet fuel by a substantial amount. 

It's still interesting though - as it shows that truly niche applications could still be fed fuel, and you'd still have hydrocarbon feedstocks for industrial processes such as pharmaceuticals and plastics and so on.

All one needs is a plentiful supply of sustainably sourced energy and to put the genie back in the bottle on all the other problems...

[JackTaylor]

"It's still interesting though - as it shows that truly niche applications could still be fed fuel"

Let's wait and see if this one has legs.

Hopefully the NRL researchers will not be ridiculed for chasing something like the philosophers' stone

[jdallen]

"It's still interesting though - as it shows that truly niche applications could still be fed fuel"

Let's wait and see if this one has legs.

Hopefully the NRL researchers will not be ridiculed for chasing something like the philosophers' stone

Many things may be said of the US Military, but logistics is not something they tend to slack on.  The Navy in particular has been working for a while to try to cut the fuel umbilical.   The efficiency 22000 liters of sea water to one liter of fuel - is actually not that far off from some values of ore extraction - and does not consider that the recovery is non-destructive and requires little beyond filtering to prepare it for extraction.  It also returns *cleaner* water when done.  The process appears to be catalytic rather than heat driven, so as such at first glance does appear to offer a very good energy storage solution.

Back to ROI on solar... I bluntly consider most business analysis of this to be fatally flawed - much as that done for the nuclear industry - as for conventional generation it consistently keeps indirect costs of activity on someone else's books, in the form of pollution, effects on public health, and out and out environmental destruction.  For example, one of Halls assertions for Spain was that it would require 2300 square miles of panels.  If you consider land lost to coal plants and land taken out of service for mining. I'd say that number is either irrelevant or comes down in favor of solar. Add to this, that much of the solar can be done in situ, in distributed installations, and that number gets smaller still.

We have seen also business has been ridiculously off in assessing long term non-fixed costs when evaluating their effect on returns. This includes such things as Nuclear decommissioning, commodity costs for fuel, and required remediation to address pollution and environmental destruction.

In short, i remain to be convinced of the validity of the markets assessment of solar ROI.

(Money where mouth is - currently working up an expandable 1KW solar installation in Seattle. Now researching Edison batteries because of their mostly unlimited life.)

[Neven]

Jack, FWIW, I had a long look at NiFe batteries, but in the end wasn't convinced (look around in this forum, lots of info and personal experiences as well).

Original Edison batteries might work better, but it still takes a lot of time, work and know-how to run them properly. And even then life isn't unlimited.

[jdallen]

Jack, FWIW, I had a long look at NiFe batteries, but in the end wasn't convinced (look around in this forum, lots of info and personal experiences as well).

Original Edison batteries might work better, but it still takes a lot of time, work and know-how to run them properly. And even then life isn't unlimited.

I will poke around. (Jeff, btw, but all good). I am also watching new tech.

[JimD]

Here is some good skinny on the making of jet fuel from sea water.  I (along with a few other people) contacted Robert Rapier a nationally known expert on bio-fuels and energy (I have a slight acquaintance with him from some years ago) to ask for an analysis of this announcement.

Here is what he has to say.  There is no free lunch as one would expect.

What I would say is that this is a technically feasible process (so far it has produced enough fuel to run a model airplane), but quite energy intensive and expensive. Nowhere have I seen an overall energy balance, but it’s going to be very unfavorable. If I had to guess, the process is going to require 5-10 Btus minimum of energy inputs for each Btu of liquid fuel produced......

Conclusions

Claims such as the one I have addressed today pop up often in the popular media, aided by ignorance of basic thermodynamics. When it comes to energy, there is no free lunch, and you should be very skeptical about claims that so much as hint that the lunch will be cheap.

http://www.investingdaily.com/20076/one-more-free-lunch-in-energy-2/

[JackTaylor]

Jack, FWIW, I had a long look at NiFe batteries, but in the end wasn't convinced (look around in this forum, lots of info and personal experiences as well).

Original Edison batteries might work better, but it still takes a lot of time, work and know-how to run them properly. And even then life isn't unlimited.

Neven, I agree that NiFe batteries for powering Naval Aircraft very unconvincing - weight won't work.

Many things may be said of the US Military, but logistics is not something they tend to slack on.  The Navy in particular has been working for a while to try to cut the fuel umbilical.   The efficiency 22000 liters of sea water to one liter of fuel - is actually not that far off from some values of ore extraction - and does not consider that the recovery is non-destructive and requires little beyond filtering to prepare it for extraction.  It also returns *cleaner* water when done.  The process appears to be catalytic rather than heat driven, so as such at first glance does appear to offer a very good energy storage solution.

jdallen, Yes "cutting the fuel umbilical" is probably the objective of the NRL seawater-to-gasoline research.  I doubt they're doing it to produce gasoline for our automobiles.  Their claim of cost $6 - $8 (USD) per gallon, is that say from the energy from a nuclear powered ship not sailing at full or flank speed.  Perhaps there is some time when an aircraft carrier is not at a high speed for launch and recovery of aircraft requiring less than near full output from nuke reactors for propulsion. Just reducing the cost of accompanying "oiler - refueling" ships could go a long ways toward $10 - $20/gal cost being a payback.

If it has legs (that is if it works out to be feasible) we'll hear more about it within ten years.

Alchemy ( philosophers' stone - Magnum opus) is much older and well before Harry Potter novels - movies.

How long did Navy "coalers" sail the seas?

[TerryM]

I'm totally ignorant about battery technology & curious about why the new batteries are preferable to lead acid when size and weight aren't a concern.
Reliability is high, costs are low & maintenance is fairly simple. Do the new batteries require less energy to charge? If not what are their advantages in stationary uses where space isn't critical.


Terry

[werther]

A critique on Krugman's recent blogpost (my thoughts in italics):

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/rising-sun/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body&_r=0

Apr 15, 11:37 am 70
Rising Sun
Joe Romm draws our attention to the third slice of the latest IPCC report on climate change, on the costs of mitigation; the panel finds that these costs aren’t that big — a few percent of GDP even by the end of the century, which means only a trivial hit to the growth rate.

The costs should be tracked from several different viewpoints. One is the specific conditions in a region. Another is the challenge rising from unknown feedbacks while the basic needs for a low emission scenario are followed. An example might be Dutch watermanagement. Under present IPCC scenario’s sea level rise might be manageable in the Netherlands. A question remains the energy-source needed to adapt and maintain the immense safety-structure. If, for whatever reason, the scenarios and forecasts are worse, the costs will rise significantly.

At one level this shouldn’t be considered news. It has been apparent for quite a while that given the right incentives we could maintain economic growth even while greatly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But there is, in fact, some news that greatly strengthens the case that saving the planet would be quite cheap.

Where’s the source that that has been apparent for a while? The Stern-report perhaps? This sounds like pep-talk…

First, a word about the general principle here. Actually, for once I get to play “balanced” journalist, and bash both left and right. For there are some people on the left who keep insisting that economic growth is incompatible with reduced emissions, and that therefore we have to turn our backs on growth. Such people have no power, and therefore don’t do any real harm. Still, it’s worth pointing out that they have a much too narrow notion of what it means to have a growing economy. It doesn’t necessarily mean more stuff! It could be better stuff, or more services — and there are also choices to be made in how we produce and distribute stuff. There is absolutely no reason to believe in a one-for-one link between real GDP and greenhouse gases.

Apart from the tone, where does Krugman think originates the basic energy that drives any economy? It looks like there’s an unspoken rule within mainstream economy, whether supply- or demandside, to regard the economic system as a ‘perpetuum-mobile’. No one-for-one link GDP-GHG? What link is he looking for? One in the past, or in the future? Looking at the past, is it so hard to accept that almost any material or societal productivity has been fed by the use of abundant fossil energy?Even wars were started and won on the stuff. Maybe he’s right that future deployment of renewables might change the link. It should be tried,even though it remains unclear whether it will successfully support civilization.

As a practical matter, the fallacies of the right are much more important — indeed, they may destroy civilization. What’s notable about right-wing commentary on the economics of emission reduction is how people on that side suddenly seem to change their views about the effectiveness of markets. Normally they extol the magic of the marketplace, which can brush aside all limits; but somehow they simultaneously believe that markets would be totally unable to cope with a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. Scarce resources are no problem; limited rights to pollute are catastrophic. It’s not hard to see the ulterior motives here, but it’s still peculiar.

It looks like Krugman puts his faith in integration of the mitigation in the market-system. Any way looked upon, mitigation is still a form of regulation. The scarcity of resources or the difficulty in exploiting them is ‘a natural thing’. The driver of the market-economy is profit; any regulation is ‘incompatible’ with the system. The relatively small success on regulating the emission of CFC’s was possible because there were alternatives (that didn't spoil profit).

In fact, you should be optimistic about the ability of a market economy to reduce emissions given the incentives. And now we know something new: the technological prospects for a low-emission economy have gotten dramatically better.

Given the incentives? Subsidizing renewables?Will that work because ‘technological prospects got dramatically better’? Does he really think there’s a chance ‘we don’t have to do anything’ ?

It’s kind of odd how little attention the media give to the solar revolution, but this is really huge stuff:
(see in his article for the graph)

Nice graph, but does it incorporate the energy needed to exploit the raw materials needed for these modules? The energy needed to support the maintenance of this exploitation infrastructure?

In fact, it’s possible that solar will displace coal even without special incentives. But we can’t count on that. What we do know is that it’s no longer remotely true that we need to keep burning coal to satisfy electricity demand. The way is open to a drastic reduction in emissions, at not very high cost.

Tell me why the Chinese government is investing massively in ‘liquidifying coal technology’? They are that good in solar modules. Why would they not do it?

And that should make us optimistic about the future, right? I mean, all that stands in our way is prejudice, ignorance, and vested interests. Oh, wait.

Wait. That’s exactly the situation. Waiting until it is too late to do anything at all. I hate to sound pessimist. I like krugman when he takes on austerity prophets from a Keynesian viewpoint. But I doubt whether he is realistic on climate change physics.

[werther]

Partly, the questions raised in the Krugman critique are answered on another thread:

(quote author=wili link=topic=66.msg24452#msg24452 date=1397829991)
Terry wrote: "I wonder if global GDP or GNP figures are available & how they would plot on your chart."
This guy has plotted global GDP with the Keeling curve itself and finds a close match.

http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2014/03/27/the-biophysics-of-civilization-money-energy-and-the-inevitability-of-collapse/

A quote from the content: “You cannot reduce emission rates without reducing the “wealth” of civilization. Wealth is energy consumption; energy consumption is carbon dioxide emissions. The two are inseparable.”

That looks like a straight riposte to the Krugman (and mainstream economy) axioma’s.

[Sigmetnow]

Partly, the questions raised in the Krugman critique are answered on another thread:

(quote author=wili link=topic=66.msg24452#msg24452 date=1397829991)
Terry wrote: "I wonder if global GDP or GNP figures are available & how they would plot on your chart."
This guy has plotted global GDP with the Keeling curve itself and finds a close match.

http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2014/03/27/the-biophysics-of-civilization-money-energy-and-the-inevitability-of-collapse/

A quote from the content: “You cannot reduce emission rates without reducing the “wealth” of civilization. Wealth is energy consumption; energy consumption is carbon dioxide emissions. The two are inseparable.”

That looks like a straight riposte to the Krugman (and mainstream economy) axioma’s.

But that is historical, right?  We now have the ability to generate new energy (wind and solar) without CO2 emissions -- at least, no emissions once they are up and running, compared to the 24/7 emissions of fossil fuel plants.  So after a couple decades of clean energy installations, we'll have more energy with less emissions.  Also, less energy consumption due to efficiency does not equal less wealth.  So, not exactly "inseparable."

[werther]

Hi Sig,
I hate to spoil anyone's positive energy. So I will retreat from the trenches on the general idea of GDP = CO2. But let me try to paint an example.

The only way to keep the sea out of the Netherlands in the near future is by adding billions of tons of sand against the (semi-)natural dunes.



Massive hopper dredgers (pic) do the job. They consume large amounts of diesel. The machines have to be built and maintained. From the myriad of raw materials needed to do that, one is iron ore. It is a 'common interest' plan to get that ore from new mines FI on Baffin Island.

To accomodate that exploration, the Canadian Gov is planning large infrastucture works. The ore will be shipped in massive barges. Guess where they can dock? In Europe only Rotterdam can facilitate that sort of vessels. To accomplish that, the hopper dredges (again) are deployed on a daily 24 hour basis.
If not, the river Rhine sediment will fill the ports' basins and the route, cut in the seabed, in a short while.

I guess I've made my point; it is a circular ideocracy, part of what we call 'economy'. I doubt very much that its energy circulation could be sustained on solar and wind power. Heck, even their 'raw materials' probably cannot be sustainably 'grazed' by their surplus energy budget.

At least, I fail to imagine how it could be calculated anyway....

[Sigmetnow]

Werther,
Thanks for the illustration.  I guess I'm struggling with the premise that "things have to continue on pretty much as they do today."  We've gotten ourselves into this mess by exploiting fossil fuel energy without paying for the damage it causes.  What if that were no longer the case?  What if the more energy you used, the less wealth you have?  What if the dredging and the ore were made so horribly expensive, pretty much any other alternative would be preferable?   I suppose I simply push back against anyone saying, "This is the way it is, and there's no way out."  There are always alternatives.

[Sigmetnow]

OK, prepare for another patented Sigmetnow head-'splody idea:   

Whereas:  Top levels of the military have, already, declared climate change as a national (global) security issue. (1)
And remembering that:  In WW2, industry was switched to making war supplies, practically overnight.

Therefore:  recognizing the threat (and acknowledging how fossil fuel companies have benefitted obscenely from subsidies, and no price on carbon pollution), governments act and require fossil fuel companies to pay for the building of a certain amount of renewable/grid infrastructure for every X amount of fossil fuels they extract or refine.  As the need for fossil fuel declines, the rate of fossil fuel extraction declines.  As we learn to live on renewables (and, more efficiency/less energy/less wastage) fossil fuels become an expensive luxury -- available if absolutely required, but not easy to get.

Because:
Navy Rear Adm. David Titley (US, retired):  "People working on climate change should prepare for catastrophic success. I mean, look at how quickly the gay rights conversation changed in this country."(2)

(1)
US:  http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121237
UK:  http://www.rtcc.org/2014/02/20/climate-change-is-a-national-security-issue-say-military-experts/

(2)
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/04/david_titley_climate_change_war_an_interview_with_the_retired_rear_admiral.html