Peak Oil Interview: Misconceptions, Replacing Oil, and False Solutions
Posted by Robert Rapier on October 7, 2010 - 10:18am
Back in June, I gave a presentation on Peak Oil at the Global Footprint Conference in Siena, Italy. (More on the event here). Following my presentation, I was asked to do a pair of interviews. One was for an upcoming documentary called Critical Mass. The second was for the conference itself, and that interview has just been made available and is embedded below.
Peak Oil Interview for the Global Footprint Conference
Some of the ground covered in the interview includes:
- The misconception that Peak Oil means we are running out of oil
- The idea that oil will be very difficult to replace, and impossible to replace solely with biomass
- The danger posed by false solutions (which I denoted the ‘fake fire brigade‘ in my presentation)
- The difficulty the developing world will have in attaining a ‘First World‘ standard of living
- What will happen if oil peaks soon and declines rapidly
- The reasons for the rise in oil prices over the past decade
- That we are now comfortable with $80 oil — and why that is dangerous
- The fact that some “renewable energy” is mostly embedded fossil energy
- The reason I prefer thermochemical technologies over biochemical technologies
- The types of projects that my company is working on; primarily energy projects that can be operated on low fossil fuel inputs and ideally off the grid (i.e., projects that could provide meaningful energy in a world in which oil supplies are declining)
The venue for the interview was not in fact a prison cell, although it was in the basement of a very old building. Yes, I am squinting and frowning a lot, because the sun was coming through the window in my face. And yes, I do smile, although you may think I have no sense of humor based on this interview.
I have watched the clip a couple of times, and there are times that I misspoke, and times that I should have paused for some clarification around a point. For instance, I said that it would be impossible to replace oil with the solutions proposed thus far. I am mainly thinking of biomass; in fact it would be possible to replace many uses of oil in theory with nuclear or solar power provided certain technological challenges are conquered. I covered this idea previously in a thought experiment called Replacing Gasoline with Solar Power.
I also said that China could never attain a Western standard of living because there isn’t enough oil to allow their citizens to motorize in large numbers. Again, I am thinking in terms of the way the Western world is motorized; one could envision a high degree of mobility with small electric cars (for instance). So the point is not that it is impossible for them to motorize, but that they can’t do it as we did it because there isn’t enough oil to allow it.
The presentation itself was also filmed, and ultimately that is supposed to be available. When it is, I will post that as well.
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There are a significant number of people with dialup only, so video interviews such as this can't be accessed by them. A great many other people prefer the written word to video.
Thus transcripts should be provided.
Who do you think is responsible for providing the transcripts? Surely not the oil drum, right?
A transcription can not only be expensive but also erroneous. Summaries can be helpful.
Myself, I have cable access (at present), but I have severe difficulties hearing, and hearing AIDS cannot help much. So I try to get an idea from the comments.
KeepVid is a site that will allow you to download a video from YouTube etc. It would take a while with dialup but can be done.
When I read all caps spelt that way, I think HIV induced disease...
In most American towns there are multiple businesses offering free, unlimited, wireless Internet access for their customers. And I'm talking about places with very low entry costs (e.g. a $1 cup of coffee at McDonalds or Panera's) and very relaxed attitudes toward those who wish to "linger" over their $1 purchases for several hours of high-speed Internet use. There are also completely free public places for wireless Internet, like most libraries.
Also, many people may not realize that high-speed access can be as little as $25 more per month (than dial-up). In my area, dial-up is about $20/mo and cable-modem broadband service starts at roughly $45/mo (assuming you already have cable TV) typically with free installation. I realize that an extra $25 per month may be a difficult proposition for some. However, that $25 buys you a wealth of amazing audio/video content (along with plenty of not so amazing content) on just about any topic you can imagine.
You might even be able to access just the audio portion of such interviews (i.e. no video) since audio generally requires far less bandwidth than video and an audio-only stream may be adequate over dial-up.
Lastly, I would keep in mind that TheOilDrum content appears to be freely offered to anyone with an interest in energy and the future - you might even call it a "gift horse".
All this peak oil stuff says one thing. Renewable Energy is sexy. That's what Renewable Girls think: http://renewablegirls.com/
Check us out.
Only 50%?!
Five whole percent?
Babes for BAU. Wish I'd thought of it.
Great interview Robert, spot on. Especially the part about having to get by with less. Of course we know that it will be less... and less... and less... and... That is the one fact that very few people are aware of.
It is also astonishing that so many people believe that "renewables" will be developed and replace oil as the supply declines. But as you pointed out it takes fossil fuel to produce these renewables. And even if they could be produced without the aid of fossil fuel there would still not be nearly enough to replace oil.
We are like zombies wearing blindfolds as we walk off the cliff.
Ron P.
Thanks Ron. I had seen you post this previously in a Drumbeat; the video got a lot of traffic from that. Gail thought it would be a good idea to post it here with ASPO upon us.
You can see a few times that I pause to answer a question in the most politically correct way. You had said something in the other thread about me answering a question in really the only way I could answer the question. Those tough questions are the ones where I had to pause to consider my answer. Like "What's the solution?"
as you pointed out it takes fossil fuel to produce these renewables (per Ron).
Not much. Wind has a very high E-ROI, and EVs require very little oil to produce.
"What's the solution?"
We know the primary solutions: raise fuel taxes (slowly, but to a high end point, with an income tax rebate); and raise automotive CAFE and other efficiency standards dramatically (say, to 60MPG).
Those two simple things will push Hybrids, EREV/EVs and diesel, and push freight away from trucks to rail (and promote electric rail).
Just because there are no easy/scalable substitutes for liquid fuel doesn't mean there's no solution.
In the long run the problem is not just liquid fuel, it is fossil fuel. Even coal and natural gas will peak and decline. And making liquid fuel from either will make them peak much sooner.
The world is already deep into overshoot and the world's environmental system is already stretched to the breaking point. Water tables are falling, rivers are running dry, deserts are expanding, forests are being cut down, the topsoil is both washing and blowing away and species are going extinct at an alarming rate. We are deep, deep into overshoot and there is no cure for overshoot.
No, there are is no solution that will keep the wolf from the door of all humanity for very long. The decline of fossil fuel will only hasten the inevitable.
Of course that is just my opinion, Robert will have to speak for himself.
Ron P.
In the long run the problem is not just liquid fuel, it is fossil fuel. Even coal and natural gas will peak and decline.
Of course. But, coal and NG will peak much later. We have a fair amount of time to transition to wind, nuclear, solar, etc.
making liquid fuel from either will make them peak much sooner.
True. I don't advocate CTL or GTL, and I don't think CTL will become all that large.
The world is already deep into overshoot
I think we have very large problems with climate change and species extinction. Will those dramatically reduce the world's carrying capacity? We don't really know. It presents large costs and risks, but a dramatic reduction in carrying capacity? I haven't seen any good calculations to support that.
The world could feed 30B people rather easily, with improved farming methods, more focused crop production (how much coffee and coca are truly needed?), reduced calories (the average world citizen could reduce calories by 40% and be healthier), vegetarian diet (most US grains go to livestock) combined with our current environment. World populations is likely to peak at 9B. Will these environment changes reduce carrying capacity by 70%?? It seems unlikely.
The calculations I've seen for human environmental footprint are heavily weighted towards energy: PO and climate change in particular. Fix our energy problems, which is eminently doable, and we fix most of the resource consumption, and reduce our footprint dramatically.
Really now! The world can support almost four and a half times as many people as it supports right now. Already the water tables in both China and India is dropping by meters per year. Farmers in India are committing suicide because they cannot feed themselves or their family. And they are already vegetarians.
China is headed for disaster because they cannot produce enough to feed their own people. They will, and very soon, lose much of their production because their water supply is drying up. The Yellow River only reaches the sea for a few months a year.
They are starving in Haiti. The land is washing away because they have cut down all the trees to make firewood and charcoal. The exact same thing is happening in the Congo, the last surviving habitat of two species of Great Apes. And you think those areas could support a lot more people if they only changed their diet? Give me a break!
Ron P.
You didn't really address what I said.
If you want to document problems, it would help to rely less on generalizations and anecdotes, and use something that quantifies the problem. For instance, you said "China is headed for disaster because they cannot produce enough to feed their own people", but when I look at Chinese food import and export statistics, they seem to still be self-sufficient.
There's no question that some places will have problems. Nevertheless, overall average caloric intake world wide is higher than is healthy, and obesity is a much larger problem worldwide than is starvation. Starvation is an enormous and tragic problem, but it's not caused by overall shortages of world food production, it's caused by local problems - bad governance, historical poverty, war, etc.
You'd agree that a large % of world arable land is used for non-foodstuffs?
You'd agree that a large % of world arable land is used for grains that are fed to livestock?
And disaster can be averted here? Is God going to stop the water tables from falling? No, in a few years North China will produce no grain because they have no water. I can post you dozens of such articles that warn of the coming disaster. Only someone in total denial would say China can continue to feet their people.
There is something you do not seem to understand. People with no means of support will starve because the people with food will not just give it away. That is why the people of Haiti are cutting down all the trees. They make charcoal and sell it in the streets for money to buy food. It simply does not matter what the caloric intake of people in the US or Europe is, that does not help the people of Asia, Africa or Haiti one whit.
Right, like cotton, flax, or wool. Yes a tiny fraction is used to grow tobacco. And some is used to graze cattle or grow grain for cattle. But much of that is dairy cattle and we must have milk. Anyway if we ever revert to a agrarian economy even more land must be used for domestic draft horses.
And it is just silly to believe that because some people in Texas, or wherever, could give up meat and eat only vegetables that they will do that just to feed hungry people in Zimbabwe. No, they will not. They will continue to eat steak while children in Africa starve. This silly practice of pointing out what could be done if everyone would sacrifice their good life, live like paupers in order to feed hungry children five thousand miles away is absurd. Human nature, being what it is, this is simply not going to happen.
Ron P.
Darwinian,
Nice thread, good reasoning. Thank you, I totally agree with you.
Thank you for the link of the water tables, do you collect these articles somewhere?
-Snomm
Naw, every time I need one I just google it and up pops about a thousand or so.
Ron P.
Ron, Nick has a very weak grasp of the whole picture (30B people!) so good luck with your conversation!
I presented the slide below yesterday as part of my talk at ASPO. (Me, John Michael Greer and Dick Vodra had the job of setting the context for the conference right at the start. The talk was very well attended.)
It's a representation of how the world economy will contract because renewable energy is not yet ready in large enough quantities to replace fossil fuels. Do we contract to point A or point B? My guess is closer to B because it will be very, very difficult to build out renewables as we contract.
I've posted my slides at my website but I don't have the audio yet and may not get that until next week.
P.S. The Congressional briefing was apparently very well attended, too, but I missed it.
Angel,
Maybe you should have drawn a curve C beneath B. I like this graph on Paul Chefurkas site:
Its an extrapolation of the present growth of different renewable energy sources until ~2065, when the collapsing industrial civilisation is no longer at the technical level to produce the fancy gadgets. After that point, the machines in use will slowly stop to produce electricity, so the renewable energy production will decline.
In my opinion this is quite realistic, maybe it will be faster because of feed-back effects. Its impressive to see the dramatic decline of spanish investments in renewable energy after 2008.
The site is www.paulchefurka.ca
-Snomm
Hi, Snomm.
I see what you mean but I'm really trying to get an idea across so their relative position to each other is more important than their relative position from the x-axis.
Nice picture, Angel. I note there are no units in the chart so A and B could be most anything.
I don't know where A or B might be, but it's still a good thought. I think people here are not quite with it on renewables. Solar and wind are ready for large scale commercialization NOW. Comments like "we can't do solar because we don't know how to store energy," or "we have to be able to charge EVs at night," do not inspire. We know how to store energy. We don't have to charge EVs at night. We can charge EVs during the day.
Actually, on second thought, looking at the scale of your curve, I'd say B is impossible. To get to that level of contraction will involve cataclysmic events. You can't have 70% unemployment before they angry mobs start a war -- have-nots against the haves, most likely. Unless you are well-armed and able and willing to shoot your neighbors, you will be dead. The smooth curve down will not be so smooth.
--Alan Dechert
http://www.safeenergyassociation.org/
Yikes, one person thinks the low line is too high and another thinks it's too low.
I think I'm quite happy where it is :-)
The graph's job is to convey a point not make a prediction and we're quibbling over a graph that purposely has no units because it is conveying a concept.
yeaa, but eyeballing point B (less than one third of today's GDP).... you are implying a gradual contraction of about 70%. The point I am trying to make is that a smooth curve to a 70% contraction is impossible. So, you are conveying an impossible concept with your graph.
It depends a great deal on the time span from current to point B. We are presently on course for rather sudden contractions, no? Nobody knows what it would be like to have so many people thrown out of work over such a period. (presumably short ... no more than a few decades, but possible over one decade). Stir this into your beautiful graph: billions of extremely pissed off people and nuclear bomb materials and technology all over the world.
A few nuclear bombs could screw up the smooth curve real bad.
-- Alan Dechert
http://www.safeenergyassociation.org
I understand.
However:
1. the graph is notional and when I discuss it I explain that we are going to experience a stair step situation (see slide below)
2. I think it's entirely possible that we go down 70% since a great deal of "the economy" is virtual or services that will rapidly disappear as we become poor. How much of the economy is actually "needed" to provide the basic services a human needs? 10%? 20%? Surely not anywhere close to 50%.
Wow. You're right! We can just go live in caves. We don't need no stinkin' laws, so we can just get rid of state, local, and federal law making bodies. Then we won't need any LAWYERS. We won't need any prisons either, because nobody will be braking any laws if there are no laws. No prisons will save a lot.
So, then we can get rid of the police. Probably don't need fire departments either. We can all just pitch in whenever there are fires, like they did in the olden days.
Surely, we don't need any military. So, we can eliminate that. We don't need to provide health care either.
Since we don't need heath care, we don't need to train doctors, nurses, etc. And we can eliminate all research on new medicine. No need for cancer research or any other work on curing any other ailments, like malaria, AIDS. Just drop it.
We won't need accountants, so we won't need any auditors. We won't need to train any accountants or auditors, so we can eliminate all those classes and all those books. We won't need any insurance industry. If someone gets sick or has an accident, too bad. We don't need social security or medicare for old people. So, we can eliminate all the costs of administering that.
We won't need any teachers or any schools for training teachers. That will save a lot. Higher education -- all those colleges and universities can just go away. That will save a ton also.
Eliminate all the regulatory agencies, like those that are supposed to be protecting public lands, public parks, food, water, air, and so on. They aren't doing a very good job now and we may as well just eliminate them all.
Public transit is not very good, so we can just eliminate it. No need to build any vehicles, so we can save a lot that way.
Don't need any professional sports teams, like soccer, football, baseball, basketball, and so on. We won't need school sports either since we don't have any schools. That will save a lot.
Movie industry can go away also. That costs too much. The whole entertainment industry may as well go away, for that matter.
We don't need to worry about building any houses, so that will save a lot and we don't need the lumber industry.
Tobacco and alcohol regulation should not be needed. We need firearms, though, just not regulation of firearms.
Sounds really great, as long as we have the Internet.
This staircase model might actually happen, but, imho, will never be confirmed by actual observation. I believe that after the first vertical drop, no new data will be gathered on the economy, so there will be no 'observation' to compare with 'theory.'
You are assuming cavepeople will not have Internet. They might. Who knows?
Andre,
As many people have pointed out, this graphic is not based on anything quantitative or based on any real evidence. This picture is highly unrealistic, and only impedes finding real solutions.
It's way too simplistic: it doesn't deal with the fact that our main shortage in any reasonable time frame is oil, not FF in general, and that this shortage is only relative: we have an enormous surplus of all forms of energy, including oil, or else we wouldn't have single-passenger SUVs, or houses conditioned to a 1 degree band of variation.
30B!
Did you read what I wrote? It might make sense to you, if you take a moment on it.
Yes, I did. I still think it displays a lack of appreciation of the big picture. We are already grossly into overshoot and we are temporarily feeding the number of people we are even as we mine the soils, deplete the aquifers and use fossil fuels to get the production levels we are getting. This temporary condition will change in the next two decades.
This is a pretty good overview, especially with regard to food:
"Let's begin with two very helpful UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports: World agriculture: towards 2015/2030, and the sequel World Agriculture: Towards 2030/2050. What these reports do is basically look at projections for population and economic growth and then estimate how much food people would want in the future, and what quantity of agricultural commodities would be required to fulfill that demand. The first report focuses a lot more on the supply-side factors of how this could be done, while the second report extends the analysis out further in time but confines itself much more to demand side considerations.
...As you can see, the history is that most regions of the world have been getting more and more food. The exceptions are some of the formerly communist countries which suffered a partial collapse of their societies as they attempted to transition to a different economic system. The FAO projects that as the developing countries continues to grow faster than the developed world, they will be able to afford more food, and thus they will continue to approach, but not completely achieve, developed world levels of (over)feeding."
Regarding Fossil Fuels, from the same article:
"In Powering Civilization to 2050 I argued it was potentially feasible to transition to power civilization with a mix of solar, wind, and nuclear energy, with the transition well on the way to completion by 2050. (Luis de Sousa made a broadly similar argument in Olduvai Revisited 2008). This would require a period of belt tightening and conservation in the next couple of decades, but once the transition had overcome the critical threshold (as solar energy in particular became cheap), I suggested energy in general would get cheap again. I adopted the UN medium population projection which has population at about 9 billion by 2050, with growth slowing sharply. "
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3702
"Human nature, being what it is, this is simply not going to happen."
PROBABLY CORRECT, though not a certainty. But then, this removes the discussion to the matter of human nature -- and away from the matter of "limited resources". It is true that humans, being today what they are on clear record as having been for a long time, will probably not change their ways in sufficient number in time to avert catastrophe. But if so, why spend so much time agonizing about resource shortfalls, peak oil, peak everything, when the real problem is said "human nature"? You can't have it both ways. Either we're running short of stuff, or we're running short of moral consciousness or the capability to behave substantially differently (for whatever reason) than we have behaved in the past. A serious investigation of the subject, beyond the useful but hopelessly biased dieoff.com (and the like), will I believe reveal that the latter is the case: it is a moral and/or behavioral problem, not a resources problem.
By the way, the main cause of the Chinese water crisis is... drum-roll... MASSIVE WASTE. Yes, the Chinese are incredibly profligate water over-users. They have fantastic water resources, and they WASTE most of it. So it is a question not of "running out" of water, but of running out of the smarts not to piss away the vast quantities that they piss away; i.e. a "human nature" problem (or a social psychology problem, or a social/economic organization problem, or a...?), not fundamentally a resources problem.
And how would one know that the Chinese waste water in massive amounts? Not difficult. Spend an hour or two investigating.
That is why the people of Haiti are cutting down all the trees.
We agree that Haiti's problems are a really good example of a local problem in a world that is overall much more affluent. So, we're not talking about a worldwide problem, but a series of local problems.
Yes, Africa has a lot of problems. Shouldn't we get more specific about the problems of war, dictatorship, etc that have caused them (a lot of African countries with food problems were large food exporters until recently, and the change has nothing to do with population growth or running out of resources), rather than wasting our time talking about worldwide resource problems?
thats a interesting take. the notion of breaking it down into a series of smaller manageable ones.
the problem there is that solving regional conflicts/food shortages/issues is all likelihood liable to increase resource stress in the medium term. It is going to be hard to disentangle global from regional.
you would need a global top down plan that budgeted each problem (or those parts of it that need budgeting). or some self organising system that auto-budgeted
solving regional conflicts/food shortages/issues is all likelihood liable to increase resource stress in the medium term.
I'm not sure what you mean. Perhaps examples would help.
In many cases resolving conflicts will allow local production to expand, improving the overall resource situation.
well if you improve the living standards and incomes of many African peoples [say]. They are going to consume more as they will have that aspirational consumer surplus spending thing.
or solving China absolute levels of poverty does not in of it self reduce global consumption of fossil fuels... even if one argues that china's economy will go on to produce a magnificent and heroic sustainable energy base they are going to burn a lot of coal and oil on the way there [if they get there?]
you would need to bootstrap up straight from nothing to renewable goodness with no in between or ration the FFs out as you went....somehow?
Again, Africa has enormous untapped food production capability. Less war, and better development would make Africa far less reliant on the rest of the world.
A major use of FF in Africa is kerosene for lighting. PV powered lighting is far cheaper and more sustainable. Oil for farming is a small % of overall oil consumption, and can be replaced in the long run with extended-range electric vehicles and tractors that use a small amount of bio-fuels.
china's economy will go on to produce a magnificent and heroic sustainable energy base they are going to burn a lot of coal and oil on the way there
Sadly, I agree. I see little cause for optimism about reducing CO2 emissions.
but your not addressing the problem or not addressing the front half of it.
yeah in the wild and wonderful far future... the long run
tell us something we dont know!
any of us can sit down and come up with a master plan destination. but yours is no more fleshed out than the guys who want to run and hide in a cave with a big knife. someways less so because the planning path between now and buying a really big gun and tinned food is easily attainable compared to reconciling ethno-religious warfare on foreign continents etc etc etc
your back to some top down command economy thing
that's what you have to push for.... the nuts and bolts of the thing is no big deal in comparison
its not enough to say it can be done.. the farming method or the energy production method is not the "how" the how is some sort of torturous path.... almost defies description.
you say it yourself if only etc....
I have no idea how too get to this "desirably" state of central planning not least because virtually everybody on earth thinks its a bad idea.
That might have been helpful when we were simply running around the globe identifying and gobbling up the resources initially, (See: Colonialism) .. but we ARE talking about a worldwide problem. What has happened in Haiti or Somalia is not just some local misbehaviour. It isn't 'because of Dictators' or such.. we, the US and Britain,(Democracies) Took Iran's democracy OUT, since we didn't like them nationalizing their oil fields, ie, trying to turn a global commodity into a local treasure to help their people. WE, the big, clean democracies put in Saddam, put in Dictator Puppets in Haiti, undercut (Commie) regimes in South America.
Yes, there are detailed problems to suss out.. but it's not like you can just point a finger at the bad guys or the victims. It's all mixed up.
What have the Romans ever done for us?
http://www.epicure.demon.co.uk/whattheromans.html
I like that.
Yes, it's complex and interconnected, and there are no easy first causes or people to blame...
Reality just called me on my cell.
She told me that we are using some 90% of all arable land, give or take some percent, and those are the best 90%.
And we are using 1 of every 2 drops of rain that falls on the planet. Or at least the amount of water coresponding to that amount. And our need for water is supposed to grow by 50% in 25 years. We are about to hit a water limit very soon, and very hard.
And we have already squeezed everything out we can from modern agriculture technices. No new technological marvels seems to await us, and that include GMO.
Soil depletion is going on in such a speed that even if we don't run out of anything else, we are soon going to see the food roof descend upon us when the soil get eroded, paved over, polluted or sucked cleen of all nutrients.
China? Well, they are exporting 5% of their food production wich means they have no great marginals.
And finaly, the worlds food stocks have been decresing 7 of 8 of the latest years. We can't feed ourself already, and when those stocks run down to the bottom (in 10 years given current speed) we will surely see we can't feed us today. Let alone 30 bilion people.
"our need for water is supposed to grow by 50% in 25 years. We are about to hit a water limit very soon, and very hard."
Our (true) NEED for water is to grow by 50%? Or our (uncontrolled) LUSTS for all kinds of things requiring massive amounts of water? The latter, of course. There's plenty of water for our needs. But not our lusts and greed.
"we have already squeezed everything out we can from modern agriculture technices."
Yes... defining "modern agricultural techniques" as fossil fuel-intensive, chemical-intensive, capital-intensive, monocultural, etc., etc. techniques. THOSE techniques are at the end of their rope. But that ignores a whole world of alternative techniques which are much more efficient, more yield-producing, while building the soil (instead of depleting it), while saving water (instead of wasting it), etc., etc. These techniques are never discussed or given due credence by the dieoff-bots. Of course, the dieoff-bots are PROBABLY CORRECT about the outcome of all this insanity; to wit: mass dieoff. But it will not be because of limited resources. There's plenty of resources. It will be because of lust, greed, sloth, envy, and all of our other frailties.
She told me that we are using some 90% of all arable land, give or take some percent, and those are the best 90%. And we are using 1 of every 2 drops of rain that falls on the planet.
Did you read what I wrote? I didn't talk about using more arable land, or even increasing production(although that can be done, to some extent, in some areas). I talked about using existing production more efficiently.
For instance, meat production uses about 50x as much water as primary grain production. Reduce meat production only a little, and you'll have more than enough water for basic food production.
"The world could feed 30B people rather easily..."
Quite naive as others have already pointed out. Many thousands of people are starving to death, including children, every day NOW.
The guilt generated flowery denial by those addicted to the oil industry does not change anything in terms of the ticking clock that has alarm bells going off all over civilization NOW.
Many thousands of people are starving to death, including children, every day NOW.
Of course they are. As many people have pointed out, that has nothing to do with overall resource limits. The world has more than enough food, but war, poverty, dictatorship, etc, etc prevent people from getting enough.
And, suggesting that PO will cause world-wide disaster only helps those in the fossil fuels industry keep us using fossil fuels.
Is that true?
at any level a system will only be able to access a certain amount of the total potential..in a way that is the total potential should be reflected in the ease a certain orgainised structure can access a portion of it
total limits are evident in a lot of calculations used in thinking here.
EG: OOIP vs URR
I think it makes sense to think of it as a set of choices, personal and collective.
Change is slower and more complicated than we'd like, but it is certainly doable.
well you are probably right in one sense... [streaming]
selling it as choices means you never have to address depletion or resource constraints irrespective of what they are
but you still need to give everyone a reason.... this is a conundrum
if its all doable (I think we can muddle through so I'm sort of with you on this)... "if it's all doable" they will say "why all the fuss, why do we have to change?"
and then your pretty much back with the doomers.. there is a circular self defeating component to it all.
you have to address the unsustainable nature of BAU with a coherent and simple message or have some more elaborate manipulation...
its sort of
"don't panic but we really need to do this" Ironically you get this a lot in these too camera pieces
mixed messages. which you are in the process of repeating here in typed threads despite decrying it.
Imagine yourself in RR's role..think how difficult it is to present your position in that time frame
most people can not get it here spread of hours/days of online musing. Sure you may state that is due to their innate bias but i think that avoids you addressing a failure to communicate your message.
its not easy to get a grip of this communication side of the issue.
I think the biggest failure as community we have is we end up talking to ourselves. There is gradual penetration but events outside of our control create greater audiences for "preaching the gospel" GOM spill etc... than our communication abilities
and waiting for events to unfold defeats the point somewhat.
I told you so is not really helpful after the fact [/streaming]
"if it's all doable" they will say "why all the fuss, why do we have to change?"
That's easy. Just tell people that our addiction to oil is costing us a lot right now (oil wars, pollution, etc), and that cost will only rise.
yeah that's not a bad line to take.. you would think that would work. it is touted a lot already
people like the foreign oil thing a lot
Independence is more convincing than depletion for a lot of folk..
you still have to ask for consumption cuts thou and it depends on the time frame which is late in the day.
it is actually the best simple message for the US population even if somewhat a white lie.
Does the Kitegen wind power generator require fossil fuel?
To build, yes.
They estimate an E-ROI of 1500. We can afford that.
And, of course, eventually all inputs could be renewable.
To build the first set, yes.
Then....
I'm receiving dozen of project proposals from different subject to power synthetic fuel production facilities with the KiteGen Carousel, I'm obliged to answer that is too early because despite the fact the concept is promising, tested in small scale and multi-awarded, the attention reserved to our development is insufficient to help us to accelerate the industrial validation.
The liquid fuels synthesis should reduce the KG Carousel original electrical ERoEI from 1500 to a figure around 150, about the full process, but I think it could be still feasible.
To synthesize liquid fuels, one part of the electrical energy is needed to the hydrogen production, the process decrease the ERoEI to 300-400 due to the energetic cost of the water desalinization followed by the electrolysis.
Another part of the electrical energy is needed to compress the atmosphere air and obtain the carbon-dioxide through a molecular sieve, this process is very expensive, only 390cc per each mc processed, but some tech-tricks could reduce dramatically the energy requirement.
With hydrogen and carbon-dioxide massively available, several viable process to obtain the hydrocarbons are ready to operate: Bosch, Sabatier, RWGS, Fischer-Tropsch, supercritical water reactors are the historical ones on the topic. Many other are quite new, recently patented and never developed due the electrical energy cost.
Some processes are even lightly exothermic requiring no energy addictions; other seems that could run without the expensive catalyses. Some proposal is focused on the DME that should be a good alternative to gasoline, and limit a bit the water side production that waste H2.
I'm not a deep expert of chemical processes, but it seems that the liquid fuel synthesis is really a secondary problem; the absolutely first challenge is still the availability of a novel, affordable and not-marginal energy source.
In my opinion is important to early and officially check the KiteGen claims, in order to eventually focus actions in the right direction and provide a chance to the "IMPOSSIBLE DREAM"(Honda 2010) to save the civilization or at least avoid to be spectator, victim or predator of the incoming urban cannibalism (ASPO newsletter 2005).
I extend a warm invite to everybody to take some action, i.e. Robert Rapier is definetively excluding the possibility that the wind or the sun will be able to replace fossil fuels, He could be right but do he knows that the troposphere wind carry at least 270 times the worldwide and current primary energy requirement?
Indeed spot on...I have one reference that studied the price level that economies can just handle (american economy, indeed, until 80 dollars/baril).
Oil: What price can America afford? Douglas Westwood, Energy Business Analysts, 2009
http://www.dw-1.com/files/files/438-06-09_-_Research_Note_-_Oil_-_What_P...
I know that on the oildrum this subject was dealt with quite considerably. Does anyone has other references?
Again, we shouldn't take it as a natural law. China is able to grow 10% per year with this price !
Probably they are still used to not using energy abundantly?
China uses 3 times as much coal as the US, and use 8 mbd of oil vs. 20 for the US. So, their mix of energy usage is different, leaning more towards coal which is still relatively cheap. But for China to reach our way of life they have been increasing their use of oil dramatically and it will catch up to their ability to grow their economy at double digits.
mmmh, but what about the other BRIC countries?? ok Brazil has a lot of own resources, but India?
There’s an old thermodynamic cycle that has been around for ever. It goes like this. A compressor is ganged to a turbo-expander. Between the outlet of compressor and the inlet of the turbo-expander a heat exchanger is inserted. Between the outlet of the turbo-expander and the inlet of the compressor another exchanger is inserted. The compressor compresses a gas to a higher temperature and pressure than the inlet and throws the heat away in the exchanger at constant pressure and lower temperature. The turbo-expander expands the gas to a very low temperature say -100 deg F-or lower-and discharges the gas into the second exchanger. The second exchanger picks up heat from where ever atmosphere, hot water, etc. and increases the temperature at constant pressure to the inlet of the compressor. The cycle repeats. Now ganged to the turbo-expander and compressor is a generator. Now if the net power to drive the compressor is positive, energy can be delivered by the generator. This cycle that is used in aircraft engines except there’re no exchangers.
There is a company called Mafi Trench who is already exploiting the cycle. I don’t own any stock in this company. There are other options to this energy mess but we are going to have to open our minds to other technology instead of solar, wind, kites and wave motion which has been to this hour been a total flop.
Professional students at universities with PHD’s are going to have to step aside because they are not design engineers. Brain storming and design support problems are not going to solve this problem.
Problems may have solutions, but I suspect that peak oil is actually a predicament ... predicaments only have responses or adaptations, which may not be anywhere near adequate solutions! ... and which we almost certainly won't like.
idonto -
Based on your description, I'm not sure I see this is much more than a variation on a heat pump or refrigeration cycle. As described, in this scheme the heat of compression gets thrown away to the environment via a heat exchanger, whilst upon expansion the cold gas then absorbs heat from the environment via the heat exchanger. Am I correct?
I guess the benefits of this scheme would depend upon what the source of energy is for the compressor. If it's electricity, then it would appear pointless ..... basically digging and hole and filling it back up again. If the compressor is powered by fossil fuel, such as in a gas turbine, then how is this more efficient than just directly coupling the gas turbine to the electrical generator and perhaps using part of the waste heat, as in a combined cycle?
I fail to see this as constituting an 'option' to our energy mess. Please clarify.
"we are going to have to open our minds to other technology"
You want to _really_ open your mind?
Here's a technology for you.
The NEGAWATT.
Google it.
idontno-
I think you a misunderstanding the application of this technology. Your mention of the heat exchanger picking up heat from "the atmosphere, hot water or wherever" makes it sound like a perpetual motion pipe dream.
The system you envision is real of course, but it requires an external heat input to function (that's where the "energy" comes from). From what I know the common application of this is as a way to use waste heat from another process to generate electrical power. The two turbines would be an enclosed system running a refrigerant. One heat exchanger (evaporator) picks up waste heat, say from the exhaust of an oil burner or diesel plant. This vaporizes the refrigerant and drives the turbine in the turbo expander. The refrigerant then flows through the second heat exchanger (condenser) and compressor to cool back into a dense liquid and restart the cycle.
Just another way to transform heat energy into physical work. Nothing new here.
Alas, it appears that indeed you don't know.
Look at any thermo text-- heat engines. A heat engine is any device working in a cycle that RECEIVES heat from a HIGHER temperature and produces work while DISCHARGING heat to a LOWER temperature.
The maximum fraction of the higher heat flowing to the engine that can be converted to work BY ANY HEAT ENGINE, WHATSOEVER, is simply the carnot efficiency, which is the HIGHER temperature at which the heat is received minus the LOWER TEMPERATURE at which it is rejected divided by the HIGHER temperature, so for example, if the heat is received at 500K and discharged at 300K, then the maximum possible efficiency is 2/5. No heat engine can do better, and in fact of course, all of them do worse, mostly way worse.
So, in the thing you describe, at what temp is the heat received, and at what temp is it rejected by this machine? And so what is it's thermal efficiency? (exercise for the student).
The song "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" by Paul Simon is applicable, because there are many ways to replace the addiction.
The methanol economy fits into existing infrastructure relatively comfortably. Its production is not limited to biomass, as ethanol is.
Methanol fuelled Indy Race cars for 40 years until 2006, so torque and power are not an issue.
"Get out the back, Jack, make a new plan Stan."
What if the sum of all 50 ways still adds up to just 50% of current energy supplied by oil daily?
What about peak methanol? Bottom line is earth will support X number of people and we are almost at the limit.
What if the sum of all 50 ways still adds up to just 50% of current energy supplied by oil daily?
Fortunately, it doesn't.
There aren't any uses of oil that can't be eliminated. A relatively small % would be harder to replace, of course, but we'll have some oil for a very long time.
.....from the guy that thinks the planet can support an additional 23 billion humans.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7017#comment-729953
Food-wise, sure.
If you disagree, why specifically? It's not enough to just say "that's a really big number".
Actually, my point is that we won't be prevented from feeding everyone (likely peaking at 9B) because of limitations on overall world food production capability. It's less a question of increasing production, and more a question of using the production capability more sensibly: fewer corn chips, less meat, less coffee...
We have people starving right now in Africa and Haiti, while there are billions who are dying from overweight elsewhere: it's not an overall production problem.
"It's not enough to just say "that's a really big number", or "that's ridiculous".
Since we obviously can't properly feed 6.8 billion humans, whether the reasons are economic, political, environmental, moral, philosophical, energy, water, nutrients or soil depletion/ ocean degradation, and we humans clearly aren't capable of solving problems on such a scale, I believe it is enough to say that 30 billion is off the scale.
BTW, what are the other 1.7+ million species on the planet going to eat? Soylent Green? Closed systems have limits. The time has come to accept that.
Having said that, any suggestions you have about how humans can exist on the planet, increase their population, and not seriously degrade the biosphere will be given due consideration. The idea that humans can re-engineer Planet Earth to suit their growth as a species is remarkable.
what are the other 1.7+ million species on the planet going to eat?
The items I mentioned are mostly about properly using our current farm production, not increasing it.
You have your answer right there. organisational structures at a "small scale" of 7 billion souls do not work now never mind adding 23 billion more. what makes you think resource depletion makes that task easier? irrespective of whether there is enough water/space /soil/ fertilizer to do it
you can not just fling simplistic back of the envelope figs around as thou "thats it" all the time with out developing the argument..even to your self...yeah?
organisational structures at a "small scale" of 7 billion souls do not work now
Don't confuse "not working well enough" with "not working".
People are better fed now than they every have been in history. Do we need to do much better? Of course, but that's not the same as thinking things are working really badly - they aren't.
"What if the sum of all 50 ways still adds up to just 50% of current energy supplied by oil daily?"
That would be GREAT! 50% is plenty. In fact, it is almost too much. Our problem is not an energy shortfall; our problem is having built a structure that requires vast amounts of energy, unnecessarily. And not only unnecessarily, but actually to our detriment. 50% is more than enough, considering the vast amounts that are thrown down stupid and harmful ratholes, daily. 50% reduction of energy use could be achieved with ZERO sacrifices in terms of any authentic human need, and in fact with a great enhancement in the quality of life for everyone.
Tell that to 15 million unemployed today. Peak oil means unemployment. Every job has an energy budget. If you eliminate the energy budget, the job is eliminated. We could be facing much much higher rates of unemployment. And you're going to tell the soon-to-be 30 million unemployed, "get by on less." If you say that loud enough, they'll kill you and take your stuff.
What you are saying just doesn't compute. You say the problem is we built this structure that is unnecessarily wasteful. That's is true, but it can't be change quickly or easily.
Consider Los Angeles (or most any big city) for example. I totally agree it should not have been built that way (it was built on cheap oil ... in 1923 Los Angeles produced one-fourth of the world's oil). And I agree that people there could have had a much better infrastructure that would use half as much energy (and cleaner air). But that is history. We have to deal with what exists.
Here are a couple of steps for 50% energy: First, people need to live closer to where they work. Since there are no houses and no land near their jobs now, construct high-rise energy efficient condos near to where people work. Tear down the old homes in the burbs. Second, get people out of their cars and on to electrified rail transit -- like they do in Europe!
Problem: you have to move millions of people. Trillions of dollars are needed for infrastructure changes over a period of several decades.
No can do. We don't have the time or money in the near term. We need to rapidly build out renewable energy while gradually creating energy efficient eco cities. You can't just take away 50% of the energy in the short term (next decade or two). Unemployment is the thing that will kill us all. We have to deal with that.
Robert,
Lots of great stuff in this interview, and I'll post it to my own site shortly.
One clarification, though: At the 4:00 mark, you say that there's no storage mechanism for using solar power at night. I assume that this was interview shorthand, and that you meant there's no economically acceptable way to store solar PV, meaning electricity, right? The cost of batteries would be prohibitive, I'm guessing. There seems to be a lot of work going on to use molten salt to store heat from solar thermal plants for non-sunny generation, e.g. the Andasol 1 and 2 plants in Spain, which will be 50MW each and have enough heat storage for 7.5 hours of operation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andasol_1) Plus there's the ongoing work with flywheels (presumably for PV) and probably a few other potential storage technologies that I've overlooked.
I'm not in any way suggesting that this will be cheap or that such an approach could be considered a silver bullet. (I stopped believing in silver bullets when I was about 12 years old.) But I think it's fair to say that minimally the jury is still out on how much of a contribution such systems (meaning solar thermal plus some sort of storage) could make and at what cost in the coming decades.
Yeah, storage is still expensive. But there are many systems. Batteries, hydro systems that pump water back up a hill, air pressure systems, flywheels, etc. If EVs catch on, the re-purposing of old EV batteries with reduced battery capacity for grid storage will provide the utility market with discounted batteries. But that won't happen for a decade or so.
I also thing demand-response systems need to play a bigger role. We need some standardized smart grid protocols so that energy consumers can voluntarily sign up for demand-response programs. I'm talking more than just the current 'dongle on your air conditioning system' token efforts.
At the 4:00 mark, you say that there's no storage mechanism for using solar power at night. I assume that this was interview shorthand, and that you meant there's no economically acceptable way to store solar PV, meaning electricity, right?
Hi Lou,
Yes, you got it right. Batteries are of course a storage mechanism, but if you have ever had a solar system you know you have to be careful not to drain the batteries at night. So I am thinking of something that would economically allow you to store a lot of the daytime solar at night that could then be tapped as needed (e.g., to charge your electric car at night). We don't really have that.
Some of the "power tower" designs are building 12-15 hours storage
It would be interesting to know how much that could be extended and at what cost/economics ?
Energy storage solutions will be critical. At the moment hydro pumped storage is a practical system used for peak demand. In addition we have these massive hydro dams, which are a natural form of energy storage. Basically these are gravity storage systems. I was reading the other day about tides...caused of course by the gravitational effect of the moon. It was remarked interestingly that a simple way of looking at the power of the moon's gravity on the ocean is to imagine one lifting a bucketful of water say 10 feet and letting it down again gradually...now instead of a bucket imagine a whole ocean...the energy involved is colossal...and this is happening twice every day. But obviously we can't harness all that energy...only a miniscule bucketful in the form of tidal power...no good to man or beast. But would it be possible to have another form of gravity energy storage, I wonder.
What about geothermal energy...The energy actually stored in the Earth caused by Gravitational pull over millions of years.?...Drill baby drill could mean drilling for energy in the form of heat. The heat can be easily used for the generation of electricity. Heat >>> Electricity might be the key.
We could have Sun Energy>>>Electricity + Heat Energy>>>Electricity + Gravitational Energy>>>Electricity + Chemical Energy>>>Electricity + Nuclear>>>Electricity...Oh what is the common factor...ELECTRICITY.
It could be that electricity will be easily generated. However not easily stored.
So transport within populated areas will be by electricity. (Underground and Tramcars).
The problem as mentioned in this article will be what replaces the internal combustion engine in cars.
Robert,
I think it's important to keep in mind that there are a lot of ways to generate electricity, so there's really no question about electrity supplies for EVs, electric rail and HVAC.
I would focus more on wind power than solar, because wind is 24 hours and available further north and in winter - it complements solar's availability, but is much cheaper. Further, EVs are a natural match for wind power, because EVs will provide night-time demand (which will also help nuclear), and the ability to dynamically charge EVs will soak up quite a bit of wind intermittency.
In fact, we have enormous amounts of fossil fuels that we can burn to generate electricity, including coal and "shale oil" (which is a terrible source of liquid fuels, but which burns quite nicely), and sadly there's really no question that we'll use them to keep things moving if renewables like wind and solar aren't ready. I think we'll continue to replace coal generation with wind, nuclear, (and even nat gas) as the US did in 2009 (a 9% drop in coal consumption for electricity!), but even if we don't do that quickly, we'll still have enough electrical generation.
We have technology, science, education etc, but nothing I can see, can replace or be a substitute for oil...
You see, talk of an alternative for oil, inevitably means that rare earth materials, come into the equation and the operative word here is "rare"...
EVs sound great, but I'm afraid that it's just not practical to think about EVs replacing the internal conbustion engine...
EVs are just another fanciful marketing tool to improve the public image of companies like GM.
Remember the " Clive Sinclair Car"...another gimmick that fell flat on it's face.
Imagine 1 million cars with 1 million large batteries with a finite lifespan using rare earth materials...and the weight of them in a collision...
Tram cars...now there is a practical solution...for city transport of the masses...Oh I forgot...Tram cars were invented a long ago....not really a new invention...and Edinburgh are now spending a fortune constructing tramways..a lesson from the past.
We require practical solutions and not ones dreamt up by the marketing people.
Spend money on research...Better to spend the money on research/ engineering etc. rather than lining the bankers/ financiers pockets....I'm afraid that I have to girn about those perstilences.
talk of an alternative for oil, inevitably means that rare earth materials
That's not necessary. The Prius uses neodymium in their electric motor, but the Chevy Volt doesn't.
There are lots of materials in cars that will experience peaks too. Not just oil.
Like what?
Cerium, dysprosium, indium and gallium off the top of my head. If not physical output, then political control. If not in the crust, in a landfill or in use. We aren't "running out" of these metals until they're all in use at any one time, but we're certainly not as well off with them as many would have you believe and I'd personally rather have my electronics going into an fMRI than a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt (the Volt may not use neodymium, but it sure does use electronics).
Cerium, dysprosium, indium and gallium
I'm told that indium isn't geologically rare. Demand for it has risen rapidly since the invention of flat screen TVs and mines have to catch up. "Based on content of indium in zinc ore stocks, there is a worldwide reserve base of approximately 6,000 tonnes of economically viable indium.[11] This figure has led to estimates suggesting that, at current consumption rates, there is only 13 years' supply of indium left.[12] However, the Indium Corporation, the largest processor of indium, claims that, on the basis of increasing recovery yields during extraction, recovery from a wider range of base metals (including tin, copper and other polymetallic deposits) and new mining investments, the long-term supply of indium is sustainable, reliable and sufficient to meet increasing future demands.[13]
This conclusion also seems reasonable in light of the fact that silver, three times less abundant than indium in the earths crust,[14] is currently mined at approximately 18,300 tonnes per annum,[15] which is 40 times greater than current indium mining rates."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium
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Apparently 2007 estimated production of gallium was 184 tonnes with less than 100 tonnes from mining and the rest from scrap recycling, and reserves were about 1M tonnes, for a reserves to production ratio of about 10,000:1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium
Cerium appears to be abundant. "Cerium is the most abundant of the rare earth elements, making up about 0.0046% of the Earth's crust by weight. It is found in a number of minerals including allanite (also known as orthite)—(Ca, Ce, La, Y)2(Al, Fe)3(SiO4)3(OH), monazite (Ce, La, Th, Nd, Y)PO4, bastnasite (Ce, La, Y)CO3F, hydroxylbastnasite (Ce, La, Nd)CO3(OH, F), rhabdophane (Ce, La, Nd)PO4-H2O, zircon (ZrSiO4), and synchysite Ca(Ce, La, Nd, Y)(CO3)2F. Monazite and bastnasite are presently the two most important sources of cerium. Large deposits of monazite, allanite, and bastnasite will supply cerium, thorium, and other rare-earth metals for many years to come.[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerium
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Dysprosium does look fairly hard to find (mostly in China), but it doesn't appear to be irreplaceable.
A little looking tells me that dysprosium is used in high-strength magnets like those in the Prius. Are you sure it's used in the Leaf or Volt?
I never said it was used in either car, I was simply listing rare earth metals that are used in modern electronics that could require a replacement or price increase down the road. There are others for ever more niche technologies e.g. LED formation, but I've not the numbers on hand. In any case, nominal abundance doesn't change the issue with politics. Neodymium isn't suffering a supply shortfall either, so the Volt not using it is really beside the point, geologically speaking. It's the economics and politics that make relying on this more efficient magnetic metal a folly. As with energy, we won't ever run out on a large enough scale, but that's like saying we've no energy crisis with 98+% of the universe being burnable hydrogen.
In any case, nominal abundance doesn't change the issue with politics. Neodymium isn't suffering a supply shortfall either, so the Volt not using it is really beside the point, geologically speaking. It's the economics and politics that make relying on this more efficient magnetic metal a folly.
The US and Canada have pretty good resources. We stopped mining rare earths because the Chinese under priced us. As you say, we probably shouldn't rely on the kindness of the Chinese.
As I understand it, the US is looking at potentially restarting mining operations for these metals given the sabre rattling this last month around China and Japan. This will take money and time, if it ever transpires at all, which given the economic climate, depends on whether they want to risk the venture for the sake of national security, or trust China's juggernaut with a technology monopoly.
Yes.
Rising prices will help encourage mine re-openings, but it would be nice to see a little strategic planning...
We also stopped mining rare earths because they are found in association with radioactive ores.
Buy the time that the environmental permits are approved and the mines developed in the US, it will be too late. Other countries will have captured the markets.
Clearly tomorrow's patents will focus on materials that are more readily available in the earth's crust.
All energy technologies use rare earth metals today.
At least these types of materials could be recycled since they are not burnt into carbon dioxide.
By the way, you can see a little more of the rubble in the interview room in this clip that was posted as an excerpt for the documentary:
http://vimeo.com/13938471
Robert, thanks for a lot of good information. There were just a few things that made my knee jerk, however. At 9:47 you spoke of the US drop in demand in recent years as a good thing. We have 15 million unemployed. If we lay off another 15 million, demand will drop a lot more. This is not a good thing. You rightly say we are headed for a recession or depression if aren't prepared for the decline in oil.
You are way too pessimistic about solar and energy storage. The reason we don't store energy is because we don't need to yet. There are plenty of ways to store energy. Sure it will cost, but it is simply a price we have to pay. Some storage technologies already in use are not all that expensive. In CA, we have 4000 megawatts of pumped hydro. It adds maybe a penny or two per kwh. Pumped hydro can be greatly expanded as needed.
Your solar thought experiment is interesting, but is a bit lacking. All the big solar projects in CA are for solar thermal -- concentrators.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/siting/solar/index.html
PV has a role but thermal is cheaper and potentially very cheap. A lot of the systems going in are solar trough, a technology we have had in CA since the early 80s, now being greatly expanded. However, I think the power tower approach will win out. This one has a 34 percent capacity factor with some thermal storage. It is expected that storage will increase for plants like this so that capacity factor can go over 50% http://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/ricesolar/index.html
PV capacity factor is about 15 percent or less.
I wrote about a lot of these things recently in an article for Safe Energy Association http://www.safeenergyassociation.org
It is very difficult I imagine to say the right balance of things... be it positive takes compared to the negative.
your in the domain of politics and larger scale messages.. what is the demographic here etc?
also there is the issue of prioritizing the message's bullet points.
you can not break it down into detailed components in a short section of a sub 2hr docu. you have to compromise and make a lot simplifications. Colin Campbell is good at that I think .Probably a bit too left of centre for the US mainstream ;-)
and the other thing its no use preaching to the choir. you need appeal.
Maybe some of the TOD crew could do with PR training or somefink... all that neuro-linguistic body language socio-manipulative Bene Gesserit training we all hear about?
thanks robert...nice work; helps to see & hear!
RR,
WOW - Great interview! What you surmised/condensed into 12 minutes is an enormous amount of research, I bet most people miss this fact, or don't understand.
I have come to the same conclusion as you on thermal conversion of bio-mass. I picked this your interview on your web blog first as I remembered that you were looking into bio-butinol.
Man, what timing!!
So we have pyrolysis,gasification and bio-torrefaction. Bio torrefaction gives charcoal as a by product that appears to increase the yield of farm crops- there by increasing the biomass available. This will of course reduce the carbon available for conversion.
http://torrefication.blogspot.com/
Here is a Canadian study of the effects from a single application. Soy bean yield increased 19% and forage bio-mass doubled.
http://www.dynamotive.com/assets/resources/BlueLeaf-Biochar-FT0809.pdf
Whether continued application of charcoal is required to maintain this increased yield is not known -yet. But indications so far are than soil carbon lasts centuries. Also whether there is a limit to soil/yield improvement is also not know but it seems reasonable that there will be some threshold of diminished returns if indeed it last centuries as many claim.
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/index.html
My researching has been on CHP. Having a greenhouse/nursery business in a wooded area this looks to me to be the best direction to focus. Having a use for the 'waste' heat makes a very big difference to the total benefits. Not fully gasifying the wood leaves the charcoal as a beneficial byproduct. Having liquid fuel would be ideal.
What I have determined is there is a 'mix' of wood torrefication liquids that can be used as fuel without the need for purification.
Can you address this( ie Are you allowed?)
D
Can you address this( ie Are you allowed?)
We have/are taking a close look at pyrolysis, torrefaction, and CHP applications using biomass. Your question about torrefaction liquids as fuels (pyrolysis oil) is one that I have spent a lot of time researching. It has been done; my primary concern is the long-term impacts aren't known. So things like excessive corrosion could be an issue. I think more long-term studies on this are needed to confirm.
I figured you looked into this, hence my search for your webpage. The corrosive liquids seem to be an issue.
It seems a large portion of the first distillates is acetic acid, then methanol then the minors + non-condensable gasses. Other research said the acetic acid turns to methane (+ other gases) at 800 deg. F in the presence of/reaction with hot charcoal. So this turns my attention back to complete gasification.
You probably have bumped into Larry Dobson's work using ceramic for gasification shells.
http://www.fundamentalform.com/html/energy_from_waste.htm
There is so much to learn and it seems too urgent, as this is a hobby for me(at this time).
bumped into this as well
New patent filing 10/7/2010, can't quit get the gist of it yet
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100251616
SEQUENCING RETORT LIQUID PHASE TORREFICATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD
Read more: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100251616#ixzz11o4uB7wf
PS I have built a (lack of technical term) radial chipper. Makes a curved chip from wood that is up to 4" in diameter. Most interesting part is that this chip is completely fractured while still holding together. Chips are roughly 1/4" thick, curved and fractured to roughly 1/8". The gas exchange must be close to sawdust while still having pathways for the gas to easily and readily escape. I think this is a huge benefit but won't know until I build a retort kiln.
Robert,
Good answers. I always enjoy reading and hearing your good clear concise questions and answers.
But,
I hate to beat a PC drum, but if population continues to grow at projected rates there is little hope that any of the supposed solutions/fixes for declining global oil production can do much good.
Theoretically speaking, if we could suddenly reduce the USA population back to 100 million people (or less) from the current 300+ million then the USA at that point would (at least for now) be energy self-sufficient. And we would be a lot closer to a long term sustainable solution.
The primary problem remains unsustainable overpopulation both on a national and global level.
Unfortunately the problem is way to politically incorrect to even begin to support a real civil dialog - Even here on TOD. I wish I knew of a solution.
It is the intractable population problem that has pushed me firmly into the "Doomer" camp - From which I would very much like to exit if we could just find some solutions to the population problem.
Correct. No one wants to discuss the 800 pound gorilla or they simply want to dismiss it with happy nonsense. Ergo, no solution can work and if no solution can work, look out below!
But discussing that primary problem on TOD brings out all the people who somehow think that 2, 3 or even 10 billion more people is not a problem.
If the people of the world adopted the standard of living that exists in India, then 10 billion people is a real possibility. This problem is a gang of gorillas. Don't imagine that everyone accepts the need for a high standard of living. There will be blood.
Anyone remember the _Logan's Run_ TV series? These people lived in domes, and at birth were implanted a timer in their palms (dumb spot, but that's where) that would blink when they hit 30 whereupon they were expected to report to the carousel to be terminated; anyone else not yet of age was welcome to watch as their fellow residents got zapped to oblivion.
A show before its time ...
I heard nothing in Robert;s comments that supported the "false fire brigade" series.
Alan
Really, I thought it supported it beautifully. The "Fake Fire Brigade" proposes that we can put out all energy fires, or problems with fuel made from biomass, solar or whatever. I thought Robert pretty well shot that theory down. The Fake Fire Brigade will not rescue us.
You missed that?
Ron P.
The statements made by Robert were logical and consistent, A few minor quibbles perhaps.
The "False Fire Brigade" series are anything but logical and consistent.
Alan
Alan,
I first referred to the "Fake Fire Brigade" in a presentation I had given earlier that week. I used it to denote the large class of pretenders who show up promising solutions, suck up time and resources, and then fail to deliver. I think we can agree that there are a lot of those out there. Hannes built on that idea of a Fake Fire Brigade in his series, describing what he felt were some of the fakers.
Robert, "False Fire Brigade" is a handwave. Let's stick with specifics. Your solar thought experiment did not demonstrate that solar wasn't feasible. On the contrary, you came up with a figure of 4719 square miles for solar thermal plants to make 444,000 megawatts -- probably an okay estimate. Since the US has something like 3.6 million square miles, we could probably find the real estate. 4719 square miles is about 3 percent of the land area of California (163,000 square miles), and small fraction of one percent of the total US land area.
Robert, "False Fire Brigade" is a handwave.
Not at all. I gave specific examples of companies who had promised the solution to our energy needs only to fail to deliver. Even the EPA used some of their projections to set the cellulosic ethanol mandates for 2010 and forward. They had to go back and revise them downward. Those are the kinds of things that distract us and keep us from pursuing real solutions. They are the false fire brigade, twiddling their thumbs while the house burns.
Your solar thought experiment did not demonstrate that solar wasn't feasible.
I wasn't trying to demonstrate that solar wasn't feasible. If fact, I was just trying to determine the amount of land area. If you read through that essay, I in fact mention that there is a lot of surface area on roofs now. Further, in my interview I said that solar could in theory supply our energy needs, but it can't today because we can't charge electric cars with solar power at night. So there are some hurdles that would need to be overcome.
Robert,
Thanks for the clarifications.
But what does this mean? Wait until we figure out a way? The characterization of the storage problem is just, well, unsatisfactory.
We don't store wind or solar today because there is no need to do so. The 5000 megawatts of solar California is preparing to install will not require any storage because they produce power when it is needed. It will all be absorbed.
As the solar increases to 40,000 megawatts or so in California, we will start needing storage. To a certain extent, this can be done at the solar power plants using thermal storage. Also, we would not be charging electric cars at night. As we increase the solar, cars would be charged during the day.
We also have 4000 megawatts of pumped hydro. Currently, pumped hydro is used for peak power, which is very expensive. The usage model would be reversed with solar. As we increase solar above 40,000 megawatts, we can use the pumped hydro to pump water during the day, and then generate the power at night.
Also, one thing I talk about in my Oct 3rd article is the hydrogen pipeline. I know some people around here are skeptical about the hydrogen pipeline but it seems quite doable to me. I cited this paper in my article:
http://corridoreis.anl.gov/documents/docs/technical/APT_61012_EVS_TM_08_...
I see no storage problem at all. It is part of the infrastructure that has to be built. It is a small piece of the whole thing -- certainly less than 10 percent of the conversion budget... depending on how you do the budget.
Robert, thanks for your clear descriptions of what that phrase was meant to convey.
I wish the Authors of the other series had come anywhere near to making such a clear distinction of what they would and would not include in their repeated handwaves about 'Renewables' .. I felt it was an insult to your name that they misused your language that way over 5 major posts..
Most insulting was the continued generalization that those who encourage the use of certain renewables were therefore concluding that these magical tools would allow us to continue on without addressing western lifestyle assumptions and habits, AKA, BAU.
Sure, there are those who think 'all will be fine','no sweat'.. nodding towards some generic pool of tools they know nothing about. It's their ignorance and the presumption of BAU that really needs to be targeted, not that tiny band of tools that actually does show some degree of bouyancy against at least a piece of our sinking energy ship. Lumping them all into the broadest category and blasting out FALSE over and over will see a lot of Babies washing down the Sewer.
argh.
Anyway, good to hear your reasonable and encouragingly honest thoughts here once again!
Bob Fiske
Bob,
I am not sure what to make of this. A renewable energy based economy will change a lot of things. It will change where people work. It will change where people live. It is hard to anticipate all the changes.
This much I can tell you for sure. Peak oil means unemployment, unless we aggressively deploy replacement fuels ... solar and wind being the sources ready to go. Every job has an energy budget with which to do the work. If you eliminate the energy budget for the job, the job is eliminated.
We have 15 million unemployed today. This is a very dangerous situation. We could have 30 million unemployed within a few years if we don't get busy.
I probably didn't express that very clearly.
I was referring to the 'Fake Fire Brigade' series, that was predicated on the idea that renewables were essentially being touted for their ability to maintain BAU, and since these authors were proving that this was impossible, that the act of promoting renewables at all was essentially perpetrating a fraud, let alone the fact that, as you say, solar and wind, and I'm guessing some forms of ocean energy, will be able to provide us some power, and even if we're getting less, it'll be better than nothing.
My argument to the authors was that a great many proponents of Renewable Energy are NOT simply going for BAU, and so their message lives within a very limiting assumption, and one which doesn't speak to any of the people pushing renewables who have a clear sense of the peril we are in.. in fact, it makes it seem like no RE fan is so reasonable.
Sorry if I'm still being unclear. Preoccupied with another task at the moment.
Bob
Robert, you used "Fake Fire Brigade" to describe pretenders that clearly could not do the job.
I guess the problem is that you did a good job of identifying such pretenders, and gave good evidence. Hannes arguments were highly unrealistic.
Articles like that series support BAU by suggesting that without oil that our economy will collapse. The de facto message: drill, baby, drill, because without it we're going to hell in a handbasket. Corporate interests aren't afraid of people making apocalytic predictions about PO - they know they're unrealistic, and that in the long run we're going to move to effective substitutes. But, they're terrified of those substitutes, and they're delighted to have people out there discouraging any move away from FF as long as possible.
Let me say it again: articles that attack good solutions like wind, solar and EVs, and that suggest that PO will cause collapse, are supporting FF BAU.
If I get your read correctly
So you would be in favour of supporting the notion that alternative technologies could support BAU just so entrenched interests do not become fearful of a transition to a non-BAU sustainable future until it was some sort of fait accompli?
in essence we all go round saying do this this and this and all will be fine on wall street but secretly know we are manipulating the manipulators?
you would be in favour of supporting the notion that alternative technologies could support BAU
The entrenched FF interests don't care about the long-term future, they just want to preserve our FF present.
Fossil fuels are BAU. A world without them is quite a lot of change.
That was not what I walked away with. Robert clearly said we will have to get by with less. No ifs ands or buts. he was also quite clear - at least to me- that all alternatives are helpful but there is no physical way to replace FF with any alternative that allows BAU.
Not only will we do with less 'energy' there will be less 'stuff' available.
I thought the interview was well done. He delivered a very no sense analysis in a 'dead serious' manner. I thought it very professional and again very, 'deadly serious'. This is not and will not be BAU not matter what 'we' do is the message I got. The seriousness of his delivery struck me the most. Clearly he has something to say and we 'need' to listen, no more sugar coating, no bombastic, or over hyped claims. Just serious....very , very serious.
To me his conclusion of the best possible area to look was the torrefaction of bio-mass, distillation or refining the liquids - "Wood chips to jet fuel" BUT not in the quantities we have have used in the recent past. He said less, and decentralized, and 'off grid'. BAU will be gone forever.
To me his outlook toward decentralized energy production is remarkably accurate in a no nonsense sort of way. This is what needs to happen or will happen through natural evolution. In the future we will no longer ship energy all the way around the world for every one to drive 40 miles to work. In the future we cannot drive 40 miles a day to work anyway.
Decentralized liquid energy production will change the face of the world as we know it. I can't imagine leaders no being scared of the implications, as they will not have control. This change will happen, best to embrace some positive possibilities imho.
Robert clearly said we will have to get by with less.
He was talking about liquid fuels only. And, I agree with him. As he notes in his introduction above, we can replace liquid fuels with EVs (as well as other things not transportation related).
That is the perfect example of a non sequitur. It simply does not follow that saying wind, solar and EVs are not good solutions supports fossil fuel BAU. And that goes doubly true if it is a peak oil article, saying clearly that we will have to get by with less fossil fuels. Getting by with less is by no stretch of the imagination business as usual.
It is extremely presumptuous to call wind, solar and EVs "good solutions". The argument was made that these cannot possibly replace fossil fuels. Yet you, with no rebuttal whatsoever refer to them as "good solutions". That is what the debate is all about. A simple declaration that something is a "good solution" is not an argument.
Ron P.
nah. It's perfectly okay to call them good solutions. They are good solutions.
Who made that argument, and why should anyone care about that argument? Mr. Rapier did not make that argument. He worked out some numbers and figured how much land would be needed to produce x amount of power from solar thermal. BTW, it came out to a small fraction of one percent of our land area.
--Alan Dechert
Nonsense! We are talking about solutions to the decline and eventual demise of fossil fuels. To say that these are good solutions means they will fix the problem. Absolute nonsense! There is no fix to the problem. Getting by with less means doing without, not fixing the problem.
Of course he made that argument. Perhaps you should watch the video again. He said, referring to fossil fuels, "We will simply have to get by with less" He clearly made the point that these things will not replace fossil fuel. That was what the whole thing was about.
Ron P.
Are you guys pickin' nits again?
Folks in my area have four conventional choices to heat and cool their homes. Electricity, primarily from coal, propane for heat/cooking/clothes drying, etc., fuel oil, and wood heat for some.
We have used renewables to directly replace 90% + of our home fossil fuel useage. We have also adapted some to a lower, more cyclical energy situation, but nothing extreme. So, for us, renewables have been a great solution. While our neighbors have been running their conventional heating systems for a few weeks now, we have yet to burn one stick of firewood or one ounce of propane for heat.
So, you guys are both kind of right and I think I understand better than most what Rapier is saying.
Now the problem of transportation looms.........
Hey Ron, I read some of your stuff. Like this:
You are a little off, but I like what you say! We need more people like you. Scream that stuff loud and clear.
It's not like I want to throw rocks under your hobby horse, but you might review the thread. Mr. Rapier did say at one point that solar could not replace oil. But then the equivocated a bit. He said he wrote this http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2008/05/12/replacing-gasoline-with-s... to figure out how much area would be needed. In this thread, he wrote, "I wasn't trying to demonstrate that solar wasn't feasible. If fact, I was just trying to determine the amount of land area."
He also said that we need to be able to charge cars at night, and that solar won't work as a replacement because we don't know how to store energy. These claims are both false. Energy storage is an issue but not a major issue, and we can charge cars during the day.
--Alan Dechert
http://www.safeenergyassociation.org
RE; Charging during the day.
Yes, I've been wondering when to toss that one in. Once you are parked at work, what's your car doing?
(and yes, this has to be 'figured out' a little.. but it's more akin to figuring out how to brush your teeth with the other hand, than it is an issue of trying to invent the toothbrush)
Yes, moreover, if we go for EVs in a big way, we could never totally rely on charging cars at home. There has to be an infrastructure in place for that. Perhaps you'd have something that looks like a parking meter (could even double as a parking meter) where you swipe your card and plug-in. These things would need to be all over the place, and would have time-of-use discounts so people will know when to charge.
Hey, Unreasonable Ron,
Far be it from me to suggest that you try to understand what a person is saying, instead of creating your own 'most unforgivable interpretation' for it, but it seems clear enough to me that as I know we'll have to 'Get By With Less', and I don't challenge that at all.. that supplying some or maybe even a significant amount of our energy from renewables will be a good SOLUTION to GETTING BY WITH LESS.
Naturally, no ONE solution is supposed to solve it all, right? Have you possibly missed any of the thousands of disclaimers at this site that mention 'BB's'? If you're hungry, is an apple a good solution.. or do you need to eat all the food you'll ever require for the rest of your days, in order to have a solution?
How about that as a mature and sensitive way of considering what Nick might have been saying? In fact, I think RR was not that far away from the same with his cautioned, "..in fact it would be possible to replace many uses of oil in theory with nuclear or solar power."
These petulant outbursts are really beneath you. Or I should say, it's time to PUT them beneath you.
And yes, I do agree that he's full of beans suggesting that the planet can feed 30billion people.
But it's your hollering that is really annoying. His misstatements or misjudgements are just 'wrong', and yes, debatable. They're not 'wildly uncontained and frothing'..
full of beans suggesting that the planet can feed 30billion people.
Yeah, clearly I put that wrong, cuz no one understood what I was saying.
I was trying to say that we could feed our present population, with 25% of our current agricultural output, with some fairly simple choices:
growing less non-food ag items: coca, tobacco, coffee, etc
feeding fewer livestock with grains: a majority of US corn goes to livestock, for instance.
fewer calories per person (obesity is a major problem not only in OECD countries, but in Africa and Asia).
Oh, I don't know. What if we had millions of people on street corners everywhere with "THE END IS NEAR" placards? It might get the masses to think there might be something to it.
--Alan Dechert
http://www.safeenergyassociation.org/
It could work!
See? There I am, doing my part for humankind.
Before investing in this new magazine of yours, I'd like to see the subscriptions growth projections for the next 25 years. ;-)
The publication admittedly has had problems getting support. Most folks, it seems, aren't interested in being told that their way of life will change drastically or may, in fact, be cut short. Go figure ;-)
Go to www.endisnigh.co.uk and get your copy ... before it's too late!
http://end-is-nigh.blogspot.com/
Getting by with less is by no stretch of the imagination business as usual.
My point: FF industries love the idea that renewables are inadequate. They will use that to delay getting rid of FF as long as possible.
Robert (or anyone else)
At approx 3:45 you mentioned a study that said we use the equivalent of 400 years of ancient biomass each year as oil
Do you have a reference to that study ?
Just curious as to how they arrived at that figure
Dukes, J. (2003). Burning Buried Sunshine: Human Consumption of Ancient Solar Energy, Climate Change, 61, pp. 31–44.
Thankyou :)
Given the fact that biomass has been around for several hundred million years it would indicate that there's a million years of oil left.
I doubt that this is what they were trying to say, or is it?
Such an interpretation would be an Unproductive Extrapolation.. or trying to use that logic like it was a clean two-way street.
Not all biomass went into this as feedstock, for one thing.. not all the resulting hydrocarbons are going to be 'sitting finished' as usable crude, for another.
We keep seeing these suggestions for euclidean (simple shapes, clean boundaries) translations of natural systems.
That's what I thought.
In that case it may be better to state that the yearly oil consumption rate is equal to x-million years of ancient biomass (which has happened to be transformed into crude-oil).
Regardless (and this is not to say that biomass can somehow substitute crude-oil): I still think that the yearly biomass growth is actually higher than the yearly crude oil consumption.
If you look at this graph you see how the CO2 drops due to the fact that there's lots of plant (not all biomass) growth in the northern hemisphere in summer time. And this summer-CO2-drop (ca. 5ppm) is still higher than the average CO2-growth (ca. 1-2ppm) due to all fossil fuel burning (not just oil).
Your interview illustrates one of the main reasons explaining Peak Oil is so difficult to those uninformed: people cannot accept such an abrupt end to their lifestyle. The message is so unpleasant, people will go to infinite lengths to avoid it. But if the oil isn't there, it isn't there.
I take an electric train to work; get around locally with an electric scooter (along with modest car usage - I'd get an EV if I drove a lot); and don't need central heat until the outside temps get down to freezing, and can use electricity below that.
Seems like a pretty good lifestyle...
Hey Robert, nice interview. I really liked the section on syngas production from biomass. I recall when I first started learning about peak oil a few years ago, this approach was my first, gut reaction. My lab mates still remember the ridiculous scene of me going outside the building and collecting some dry pine needles, sticking them into a furnace we weren't using, and making an terribly ill-researched attempt at distilling the volatiles; the lab stank like burnt pine needles for weeks! Ha!
At any rate, I thought this might be a good plan for returning to forest management: instead of letting forest fires burn out of control, teams of people could collect dead biomass, produce syngas/liquid fuels, and return the residual ash/charcoal to the forest floor for soil building. Kind of a take on the way some forests in pre-industrial times were tended for firewood. Solar concentrators maybe can eliminate/reduce the need to burn biomass to drive the process. Also, per a thread above, have you looked at methanol production from biomass? Just a hunch, but it seems like it might have a larger conversion efficiency than other hydrocarbons.
You can take pure C out of a forest (trunks), but you have to leave the twigs, These are full of nutrients and needed in the nutrient cycle of the forest itself (think of phosphor!).
I support the wood chips energy approach , as long as it is not "waste" from trimming/pruning. In that case it should be used for agriculture, in the form of direct mulch or pre-compost. See my earlier posts on "Ramial Chipped Wood"
Thank you Robert Rapier.
I concur completely with your point of view, so I have no argument.
The fact that has had me transfixed is the co-relationship between oil use and the population curves.
This is not the time for half measures. We either abandon the chemical reaction paradigm or perish.
I urge anyone with any talent to please grasp the CANR/LENR problem to their bosom in the hope that the third nuclear way will be our salvation.
I see no other.
Greetings from Finland,
I work with several renewable energy projects ranging from biodiesel and biogas to wind and solar. All the news and hype about new promising technologies easily give the false impression that we may count on advancing technology to find substitute for oil. There have been very few new major innovations in energy technology during the last 100 years. Most of the things we use today have been around for even longer. The more I studied the issue the more pessimistic I became. Many technologies we have today can and must be used to make the life after peak oil easier. But we don’t have what it takes to completely adapt to that situation. It would be wise to plan for a future where cheap energy is not available. It will be eventually but in the case of rapidly widening gap between oil production and demand we are running late with the substitutes.
A slightly different issue is the need to cut down CO2 emissions even much faster than we run out of fossil fuels. That would require us to speed up the energy revolutions even more. The situation looks very bad...but not hopeless (unfortunately I don’t have any real evidence for my hope).
I found it somewhat fascinating to listen to the tone-of-voice change in follow up questions. As if, the person has an inner dialogue of:
"Well, this certainly isn't what I want to hear. He seems smart, cogent and well informed; but if what he says is true . . . No . . .no no no. Maybe I'm not clear here. I'll rephrase and ask him so I can hear what the SOLUTION / ANSWER to this mess is. OK - here goes . . ."
And then, you calmly provide another thoughtful cogent substantively evolving answer that leads to the same cul-de-sac where wishful thinkers gather when they run out of steam and road. IMHO, an excellent interview and sober invitation toward reality. Thank you. g
It annoys me when the subject of corn ethanol arises the oil content argument is used. Corn ethanol production processes can all be performed using the ethanol fuel itself. The fact that this does not occur is the American disease at work. Saab in Europe were developing a 9 litre ethanol specific engine for this very purpose. So, yes, fossil fuels are used to produce corn ethanol, but, no, this is not at all an essential of the fuel production process. That part of the interview was not an honest delivery.
Corn ethanol production processes can all be performed using the ethanol fuel itself.
Because of the low energy return on the process, if one were to do that there wouldn't be much left over to sell. The fact is that we really don't know if large scale corn ethanol is viable with no fossil fuels. It has never been done.
The Friends of Ethanol group in Australia built a database to track costs for their cane ethanol production. The energy content for the agricultural content of the product including transport to the mill came to 3 to 5 percent. All mill energy comes from burning of the bagasse, with the surplus energy being sold as electricity into the electricity grid. Where corn ethanol yields are about a third of cane (guessing) this would be 9 to 15 percent. The other aspect of corn ethanol is the corn husks (stover) are used as stock feed rather than adding to the energy yield. This means that the claim that the product is marginal from an energy yield view point is dishonest, on the one hand, or that the claim that corn for ethanol deprives the nation of agricultural output on the other hand is misleading. Misleading where the stover feeds cattle, then the cattle are the supported farming return from the ethanol production.
I am also intrigued that you did not mention the possibility that corn stover might be a synfuel feed stock in place of wood chips.
How are you figuring on topsoil content if the bagasse is removed for energy supply? How do soil additives figure in inputs, and what is the durability of the soil in this regimen?
This means that the claim that the product is marginal from an energy yield view point is dishonest, on the one hand...
Be careful with your wording. We have a number of energy surveys from the corn ethanol industry. What the latest showed is that for 1 BTU of fossil fuel input you could get back 1.4 BTUs of ethanol and then some DDGS byproduct. If they allocate some energy inputs to the latter, then they can artificially push the energy return of corn ethanol to 2. But it doesn't change the fact that their numbers showed 1 BTU of fossil fuel yielded 1.4 BTUs of ethanol. Now, apply that to, say 10 billion gallons of ethanol, and use the ethanol to fuel the process. At 1.4, that means that to produce 10 billion gallons required the energy equivalent of just over 7 billion gallons, leaving a net of under 3. That is the problem with low energy return options in the absence of fossil fuels. As I said, we simply don't know if it could work, but we do know that if it did we would have a lot less product than we have now.
Stover is a more complicated topic; it can't simply be removed in large quantities from the soil. Corn is one of the most erosive crops we have, so the amount of stover that can be sustainably removed is limited. There are very good reasons we favor woody biomass over annual crops.
Sugarcane is also a different matter. I have been on record many times as saying I think a sugarcane ethanol industry can be sustainable. The situation is very different from corn, primarily because the bagasse ends up at the sugar factory and is ultimately washed, shredded, and is then a disposal problem. So they have free fuel.
I apologise if you feel offended by my comment, Robert.
I imagine if you mean by erosive you mean soil loss, perhaps there is another meaning, then the farming practices need looking at. Though not a farmer I would have thought that the non tilled seed drill process would be less energy intensive and more functional for a crop intended for fuel. If the energy yield is really that poor then they should be seeking out every method for minimising energy input.
Here is a report that verifies your figures
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/AF/265.pdf
and clearly the greatest energy cost is in the processing of the ethanol not transportation. So the question becomes why is some or all of the stover not used to fuel the ethanol distillation plant.
and with a very small amount of research here is an answer
http://paraquat.com/knowledge-bank/crop-production-and-protection/no-til...
it can be.
This comes back to the problem that I have with this whole corn ethanol debarcle, it is only half a story that is being used a political football.
Robert, that seems like a very odd thing to say.
The single largest Fossil Fuel input to ethanol is process heat: it accounts for very roughly 75% of the FF input.
Well, it's pretty straightforward to provide process heat using wind or solar powered electricity. Now, there's no question that such heat would be more expensive than BTU's from natural gas or coal, but it's certainly doable.
If electric BTU's are more expensive, than it might add $1 to the cost of producing ethanol. That, of course, is before further optimization and efficiency improvements. And, of course, it would probable be much more cost-effective to use solar heat directly. The point here is that there are straightforward and obviously workable solutions.
To say that something has never been done is inadequate: you must also raise a reasonable possibility that it can't be done.
Well, it's pretty straightforward to provide process heat using wind or solar powered electricity. Now, there's no question that such heat would be more expensive than BTU's from natural gas or coal, but it's certainly doable.
Nobody in the world does that because it would be incredibly inefficient. What that means is that the marginal energy return would probably go under 1.0. That is the possibility that it can't be done; simply because the energy inputs would be too high to justify the output.
What that means is that the marginal energy return would probably go under 1.0.
Sure, but if electricity were abundant, inexpensive and clean, and liquid fuel were scarce and expensive, who would care?
In other words, in a world with more than adequate electricity but inadequate liquid fuel, isn't it Liquid Fuel return on Liquid Fuel invested that matters, not overall E-ROI?
I agree that no one is doing it now, but that's not because of E-ROI, it's because natural gas and coal are much cheaper than electricity.
lets say the return is 2:1 (generous)
so for every Barrel of ethanol I put in I get 2 out but the next 2 have to come from those I have just made..1 goes into production 1 I can use
you can see how difficult it is to expand production
now what if the return is less than 2:1 say 1.5 to 1
and so on
Which is actually a small area considering the fact that 400,000 km^2 of the US is already built. Your 1,300 square miles do probably fit on the already existing roof and parking lot area.
This thinfilm Silicon PV factory can produce at € 0.50/Wp.
(But even at that price it's probably still cheaper to save electricity than to produce electricity especially considering the fact that the US consumes double the electricity compared to a country like Switzerland which has a higher living standard than the US).
With the current US defense budget one can finance 3 times your 444,000 MW of PV modules in just one single year.
Besides the US has an on-shore wind power potential of 10,458,945 MW according to the NREL.
And since Europe has an off-shore-wind potential of 30,000 TWh (which is 7 times the US electricity demand), one would guess the larger US coasts offer about at least as much.
And besides the fact that oil and natural gas heaters can be replaced by heat pumps: Cars, trucks, tractors and ships don't require liquid fuel and can all run on natural gas and natural gas can essentially be produced from CO2 and H2.
(Needless to say that even commercial jets can run on natural gas - of course if everything else runs on renewables and methane there's lots of oil left for air travel.)
And as far as storage is concerned: Keep in mind that interconnected wind farms provide baseload, more electricity is always needed during daytime when PV always produces more electricity and lots of energy is needed for heating, hot water and cooling and heat energy can be stored cheaply (as opposed to battery-storage).
And North America already has at least 167 GW of hydro power capacity installed. And turbine/pump power can be increased on existing dams - one example: A turbine with 4.4 MW is supplemented by a turbine/pump combination with 1000 MW.
And this 1000 MW pump/turbine works with a reservoir volume that has 0.07% of the capacity of the hoover dam.
Of course if the US wanted to reduce its dependence on fuel imports, it would create a lot of sustainable jobs, but the US is apparently not interested in either...
I would not quote this figure. Mr. Rapier's estimate, while accurate in some way, is so lacking in detail that it is not very useful. He simply took an output of 12 watts per square foot and figured out how many square miles that would be just PV surface area.
It is misleading because he put that next to how much area would be needed for solar thermal and came up with a much larger area.
There are two large variables Mr. Rapier did not consider in his estimate. One is the efficiency of the cells, which varies greatly, and declines with heat. Generally, for large utility installations in the desert, PV is not going to be appropriate because of the heat. Thin film can be cheaper, but the efficiency is going to be much lower than the 12 watts figure -- 5 watts might be more like it. Depending on the type of panel he is talking about, the result might be off by a factor of two or even three.
The other variable he did not consider is capacity factor. In order to have a high capacity factor, the panels have to be mounted to track the sun. A two-axis tracker will maximize the capacity factor but requires up to 10 times more land than non-tracking or flat configurations. Any utility installation is going to include at least one-axis tracking.
Then you come along and say put the 1300 square miles on roof tops and parking areas. Well, if you just mount the panels flush on roof tops, you might wind up with a capacity factor hovering around 5 percent. For a parking shade structure, you could include tracking and get a 30 percent capacity factor, but you'd have to use maybe 10 times the area to avoid shading.
In order to provide any meaningful comparison with solar thermal, Mr. Rapier would need to include some of this information (tracking or not, thin film or not). Depending on how the PV panels are installed (and what kind) the area could vary by a factor of 20 or more.
We are going to have a 150 megawatt plant in CA based on the power tower design described in this presentation. As designed, it will have a 34 percent capacity factor. Future installations may include more thermal storage, increasing capacity factor to 60-65 percent.
http://files.harc.edu/Projects/CultivateGreen/Events/20070212/SolarTower...
--Alan Dechert
http://www.safeenergyassociation.org
Ok. I agree that the area needed for CSP should not be higher than for PV. (But CSP can probably not be put on already existing roofs).
But let's do the math quickly:
111'000 MW is needed (24/7).
With a capacity factor of 20% (no tracking), one actually ends up with 555'000 MW.
The thinfilm panels in the link above have an efficiency of 10%, which leads to a PV-module area area of 100 MW per km2, such that one ends up with 5555 km2 which is still only 1.4% of the built area in the US.
And one loses area because of shading but one also gains some are due to the inclination of the PV-panels. At least the area lost is not significant for fixed installations in southern regions (example from Spain):
Also thinfilm PV panels on facades don't require any additional area at all. And thinfilm panels are meanwhile less costly than some non-electricity-producing black/glass facades (but then again architects don't pay electricity bills).
Anyway, the point was that the area requirement is not the issue here and this can be confirmed even if the capacity factor was reduced by another 50%.
I'm not knocking PV. PV definitely has an important role. But I'm not sure what your calculations are intended to show. 111,000 MW 24/7 (or 550,000 MW at 20 percent capacity factor) would make about one thousand billion kwh per year, which is about one-fourth of the current electricity generated in the US (according to DOE AER).
Also, 100 MW per km2 is not realistic for 10 percent efficient thin film panels with no tracking. Don't forget there are losses converting to grid-compliant AC power, and PV efficiency goes down with higher temperatures. So, it will also depend on what that curve looks like for the particular panel and where the site is located. If in San Francisco, PV is the way to go. Out in the desert, PV is usually not the best investment.
When siting solar electric, the proposed site has only so much area. Efficiency does matter. Panels are going to occupy valuable space. Cost of the panels is only one of many costs. Installed cost for commercial PV is running about $5 per watt right now in California. Solar thermal is costing a little over $3 per watt installed, and can yield a much higher capacity factor. If you have the space in the desert, solar thermal is a much more attractive investment. That's why all the big solar projects (5000 megawatts worth in the works) in CA are solar thermal.
--Alan Dechert
http://www.safeenergyassociation.org
..
This is based on the gasoline energy replacement Robert Rapier calculated in the link placed in his introduction. (And what my response was based on).
Although I would prefer a bottom-up calculation: An electric vehicle like a Toyota Prius needs 0.14 kWh /km and one wants to drive it 20,000 km per year, how much PV area is needed?
20,000 km require 2800 kWh. With 1500 sunhours per year 1.87 kWp is needed. If you assume a PV efficiency of 10% you'd end up with 18.7 m2.
This is the definition of the PV-efficiency. 10% efficiency = 100 W/m^2 = 100 MW/km2
The capacity factor takes care of tracking or no-tracking and temperature influence.
I guessed a capacity factor of 20% which lead to 5 times more power requirement (=555,000 MW).
I'm not saying that PV is better than CSP either and yes PV has a lower capacity factor than CSP.
However, PV has to compete at end-user electricity price-level (not whole-sale electricity prices) and if you believe the thinfilm factory link I placed earlier, they can produce for less than $0.70/Wp at 10% efficiency, which would make the costs per Watt for PV considerably cheaper than $5/W once you've added the inverter- and installation-costs.
This guy sells PV-modules for less than a buck /Wp (although these modules appear to have an efficiency of only 5%):
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/285944071/solar_photovoltaic_panel.html
Yes efficiency does matter, but if a new house needs a roof anyway one may just as well want to mount a roof that generates at least some electricity as opposed to none (if the costs of the PV-modules are low enough - which appears to be the case if you look at thinfilm PV).
Okay, now I get the picture. You are focusing on residential solar to charge cars. There are many many real world problems with your calculations. For one thing, the percentage of roofs that have favorable size and orientation (with no trees or other shading obstacles) that would support 18.7 m2 is low. Then add that you have to double that because these are, on average, 2-car families. We have almost as many cars as people in CA.
What you've described above would not work for most people. If grid-connected, net-metering may or may not work very well depending on the state and utility (you may or may not get full value for the kwh fed into the grid). If standalone, you'd need a separate battery pack that could be swapped easily when you want to drive your car. Feed-in tariffs would help make this work but very few states in the US currently have feed-in tariffs. http://solarfinancing.1bog.org/feed-in-tariffs/
Average capacity factor for residential solar is less than 15 percent. So, on average, you are likely to need quite a bit more like 25 sq meters instead of the 18.7 sq meters you are talking about.
The link you gave for the Swiss PV factory appears to represent a concept rather than a factory that is producing something we can buy now or anytime soon. The dollar-per-watt-panel with 5 percent efficiency probably won't work when you consider installation cost. It is also not clear if you are properly derating for DC to AC. 5 watts would come out to less than 4 watts with .77 derate factor. http://www.nrel.gov/rredc/pvwatts/changing_parameters.html So, instead of 25 sq meters to charge your car, you'll need about 63 square meters. For 2 cars, make it 126 square meters for the 5 watt panels. The 126 square meter installation might work if you have the land and do a ground-mount installation and do the labor yourself. That approach will appeal to about one-tenth of one percent of home-owners.
Right now, in California, residential PV costs about $7 per watt installed. Larger commercial installations come out to about $5 per watt. That's not what we'd like to pay, or want we think it should cost in the future. That's what is costs now. A DIY installation where you shop for components and do a lot of the leg work yourself, could come out substantially less. However, this is not relevant for large scale conversion. The vast majority of installs are done by companies with large numbers of employees, overhead costs, insurance, engineering, marketing, and so on. These companies also deal with permitting and grid intertie, which can be a major expense.
PV has an important role to play in energy conversion. But for large scale solar -- especially in the southwest US, it will be solar thermal.
For a quick reality check on what I just wrote, try http://www.solar-estimate.org/ and enter 95746 for zip code, Pacific Gas & Electric for utility, select Solar PV and then click on Estimate my system. Then enter 70 for monthly bill. It will quote a system that produces 2885 kwh per year -- about what you are after. Other online calculators (like http://www.pvwatts.org/ ) will give a similar result. So, it is probably fairly accurate. This is my area and excellent for solar. It comes out to about 16 percent capacity factor. Most places in CA will be less. It's about 19 square meters, but these are probably higher efficiency panels than you are talking about. So, my 25 square meter estimate is reasonable. With a .77 derate factor, you'd have to start with 13 percent efficiency panels to get 10 percent efficiency. I don't know what you are figuring there. With 5 percent efficient panels (4 percent efficient system), you'd multiply by 2.5 to get the same amount of energy as the 10 percent system.
As long as I am attempting to address some mis-perceptions, I may as well give this one a shot. The situation with rates is not so simple. Depending on a variety of unknown and, perhaps, unknowable factors, you may think twice about charging your car with your own PV system.
For charging cars, you get a special residential rate Schedule E-9 (PG&E territory, not sure about other areas).
http://www.pge.com/about/environment/pge/electricvehicles/fuelrates/inde...
In this case, you would charge your car at night to get the low rate. Early adopters of EVs might be penalized for also adopting PVs -- it depends on if you can get time-of-use rates for everything else (and depends on what that structure looks like), and it also depends on feed-in tariffs. By state law, we're supposed to get those although it is up to the California Public Utilities Commission.
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Renewables/hot/feedintariffs.htm
In this case, homeowners with PVs would benefit due to the fact they get a much higher rate for the electricity they produce because it is produced in peak hours (noon to 6pm) when the rates are very high. Assuming we get the feed-in tariffs, it will be good to have the EV and the PV system. You may be able to buy low and sell high every day, especially in the summer (i.e., charge your car with off peak, and sell your power at peak). It is possible you could have a net positive number of kwh used, but have a electric bill of zero (or they pay you!) due to the price differential. Until we have the feed-in tariffs and know the rates we will get, it may or may not be very economical to have both an EV and a PV system. I have no idea on the status of feed-in tariffs in other states. Some European countries -- Germany for sure -- have feed-in tariffs.
The other part of your statement that is wrong has to do with what commercial power producers get for solar. You say something about whole-sale electricity prices but I don't think you realize what is going on. Power producers sign a Power Purchase Agreement ("PPA") with the utility. The terms are unique for the project and confidential.
PPAs are similar to feed-in tariffs in that they define what the utility is going to pay for the power. Feed-in tariffs are like, "here is the agreement, take it or leave it." It is all according to a publicly available published schedule. PPAs are negotiated -- the rates are confidential.
It's not just some "whole-sale price." In fact, solar power producers get a very high rate because they produce power when it is most expensive for the utility to generate. It is very hard to find out exactly what they get, but you can get an idea by looking at the proposed feed-in tariff rates and the time of use rate in the link I posted above. Note that the off peak (when you'd be charging your car), rate is 5 cents or so. Then look at the peak rate, May through Oct -- it's 5 or 6 times higher, almost 30 cents. The big solar plants getting installed now will be getting A LOT of money for the power, not just some whole-sale rate. By having the solar, the utility is obviating the need to buy very expensive peak power from their sources. But the solar also obviates the need to build new peaker power plants as old plants are retired. So, the solar plants get a lot because the power they produce (at peak times) is worth a lot.
Notice that as the utilities get more and more solar, new PPAs will not be as lucrative for solar producers. Eventually, when California has 60,000 or so megawatts of solar, peak power will start to become cheap. If you are a solar power producer and you believe it is going to expand rapidly, it behooves you to lock in as high a rate as possible for as long as possible (25 year or more). There are a lot of unknowns here.
In the solar future, the utilities will want you to use the power when they have an abundance, which will be noon to 6 pm (especially in the summer). So the Schedule E-9 will change. As we phase out fossil fuel plants, night time power will cost more than it does now, relatively speaking. To avoid having to greatly expand storage (like pumped hydro), the rate schedule will encourage people to use power during the day.
Now, only industrial users have time-of-use metering, with a few exceptions like the Schedule E-9. Eventually, I believe, as we have an economy running on solar, time-of-use metering will become common for residential users as well as commercial users.
Ever hear a public service announcement (probably in the summer) urging you to use your major appliances (dishwasher, clothes washer/dryer, etc.) in the morning or in the afternoon? A little punishment and reward would probably be more effective -- higher rates on peak, and savings for using off peak. If you ever hear them encouraging you to use afternoon power in the summer, that will be the surest sign we survived Peak Oil and we're good with the solar age.
--Alan D
I would not quote this figure. Mr. Rapier's estimate, while accurate in some way, is so lacking in detail that it is not very useful. He simply took an output of 12 watts per square foot and figured out how many square miles that would be just PV surface area.
It is misleading because he put that next to how much area would be needed for solar thermal and came up with a much larger area.
But it was caveated as such. I had two pieces of information; one for just solar PV cells and one for an entire solar thermal plant. The calculation was just a thought experiment to put an order of magnitude around the area that it would take.