Greenpeace Seven Steps to “Renewable” Energy Future – Why they are dead wrong
June 25th, 2010
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Recently Greenpeace issued “seven steps to a future fueled by renewable energy.” At least one writer at ZDNet seems to have eaten the whole thing up saying:
I know how some of you feel about Greenpeace, but let me assure you that this is not mere rhetoric. The report was research and written in conjunction with scientists from the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Centre, and its focus is on how to phase out fuels and cut carbon dioxide emissions without compromising “energy security.” It offers several prospective scenarios for what COULD happen — sort of like the ghost of our energy future.
Having read the report, I can tell you that it could happen, and monkeys could also fly out of my butt, as Wayne of Wayne’s World would say. It’s based on a number of extreme assumptions, including the assumption that unlimited amounts of money can be spent by governments to “create jobs” with zero negative economic impacts. It also makes unrealistically optimistic projections for renewable energy efficiency and capacity factor.
All in all, the proposal is more of the same pie in the sky rhetoric about things that those of us with rational mindsets and some level of technical knowledge know are just never going to happen. Many of the steps proposed are just plain naive and others are likely to be counter-productive.
Since many out there still actually trust groups like this, here is why these just can’t stand:
1. Phase out subsidies for fossil fuels and energy
All well and good, but unfortunately, when it comes to subsidies, it’s the “renewables” that tend to get the big ones. Most subsidies to fossil fuels are indirect or only apply to a small segment of the fossil fuel market. Whether or not you have subsidies, coal is always going to be dirt cheap, because it’s nearly as plentiful as dirt and even dirtier.
Most fossil fuel energy subsidies are only directed at a small portion of the fossil fuel production system or are intended to address a fairly narrow circumstance, such as trying to encourage more domestic production of gas and oil or certain recovery methods . Many are indirect, such as exemptions emissions requirements or an understanding that the government will foot much of the bill for rescuing miners when tunnels collapse.
Removing all subsidies from fossil fuels is really not going to impact their market very much, although, personally, I’d still be all for it.
2. Embrace “cap and trade” emissions trading, which would force organizations to internalize the external social and environmental costs of energy production
There are a number of other problems with this whole idea. “Cap and trade” makes doing business extremely expensive for industries that depend on energy intensive processes, such as data centers, aluminum smelters, mining and chemical manufacturing. Invariably these industries will simply pack up and leave any country that enforces a cap-and-trade policy. It is completely unreasonable to expect that such regulations would ever be enforced on a global scale. If even one country fails to enforce the policy with absolutely universal, even tyrannical standards, it will become the haven for energy-hungry industry.
There is also the issue of the social costs of such a policy, especially when it comes to class impact. Energy costs are almost universally regressive. That is, lower income individuals tend to spend a larger portion of their income on energy while the wealthier are less likely to feel cost increases as acutely.
Of all the methods proposed to cut emissions, “cap and trade” is possibly the most destructive and counter-productive. As long as no other viable and affordable choice in energy is offered, it amounts to little more than energy rationing and rationing of energy is about the worst thing you can possibly do to a society.
But it gets worse. If you plan on enacting “cap and trade” then the price of energy for applications such as heating or powering residences is going to go up substantially. Since it’s impossible to measure the CO2 emissions at every chimney, the way such limits are governed is through the fuel – fuel quotas, carbon expenses built into fuel purchases and more expensive energy for the end consumer.
People are not stupid and if you jack up the price of fuel or electricity enough, they’ll find other ways to stay warm, such as burning wood. If people can’t get wood, they’ll burn something else – old motor oil, tires, garbage or whatever else they can find. Not that you can really blame them for it, if heating oil, gas and electricity were cripplingly expensive, and if you lacked the capital for major upgrades of insulation or moving someplace warmer, would you rather let your family freeze or burn wood or even tires and dirty motor oil to keep warm?
Germany has already faced this problem. In an attempt to reduce pollution, extreme restrictions were placed on building energy usage. People found another way to stay warm, they started burning wood (or whatever else they could get their hands on.) Now Germany is looking at a wood stove emissions restriction program.
A better idea: provide a clean source of energy that is as cheap or cheaper than carbon-intensive sources and there will be no need to resort to rationing. Consumers and companies will willingly switch to it and won’t need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, by using draconian measures.
3. Mandate energy efficiency standards for any energy-consuming appliance, building or vehicle
The biggest single problem with this idea is that it presumes that industry and consumers do not already want energy efficient appliances, buildings and vehicles. This is not the case. Since energy costs money, if an appliance, building or vehicle can preform the same task and use less energy, it’s a huge benefit and there’s no need to mandate that such efficient appliances, buildings and vehicles be used. This is all the more true for the most energy intensive industries, where efficiency is vital.
There is, however, a limit to the efficiency that will be produced by market forces. If the savings of energy is far exceeded by the cost of achieving such efficiency, the there is no gain. For example, if an air conditioning system costs $100,000 more than c0mpetitive models and saves $100 worth of electricity per year, then it would be a very poor investment. It would theoretically take one thousand years to pay for itself, and, of course, the unit is unlikely to last anywhere near that long nor is the purchaser going to even be alive to reap the returns.
It’s critical to understand what “efficient” means in this context. The efficiency of a system is a measure of how much of the energy consumed can be applied directly to work and is not lost. However, when groups talk about “efficiency standards” what they really mean is energy consumption standards. For example, a refrigerator that uses one kilowatt of power is not necessarily more efficient than one that uses two kilowatts, if the two kilowatt model is larger or has a lower temperature.
If the increase in “efficiency” comes at a cost of unacceptably reduced performance or capability, nobody is going to buy such a product. Therefore, when mandates for efficiency force greater concessions than the market would otherwise bring on its own, you’re actually forcing expense down the throats of those who do not benefit from it. Worse still, the total energy needed to overcome the problems caused by undesirably incapable items or the energy needed to manufacture them may make the situation much much worse in the long run,
4. Set “legally binding” targets for renewable energy and combined heat and power generation
When all else fails force it to be so by making it illegal not to be so!
Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can legislate and when you attempt to legislate your way around the reality of things, it will invariably come back to bite you on the backside very hard. The problem is that no matter what you require, if the capacity is not there and the capital is not available to build it, it’s not going to happen, regardless of how hard you try to force it. What do they expect to do in such a situation? start sending all the power consumers in an area to jail or jut slap them with enormous fines?
Forcing a power source into the market is not necessarily going to do any good anyway. Does southern Florida need district heating systems? Probably not, but if you demand they be constructed at any expense then they will be, and it will benefit nobody. Markets are all different and they change over time as industries come and go or populations migrate. You can’t use brute force to try to shove something down the throat of a region. (well, you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it)
It’s curious that they would include “combined heat and power.” Combined heat and power is the use of electricity-generating power plants to provide heating, usually in the form of district heat. It can improve the overall efficiency of a power plant by utilizing energy that would otherwise be discharged as waste heat. However, it is, by very definition, used with thermal power plants. Typically, this means fossil fueled power plants. It is possible that co-generation could be implemented with nuclear power plants, but presumably that would be sacrilegious to Greenpeace, so that’s not an option.
Some co-generation plants do use waste to energy (trash burning) or biomass to provide the heat, but this i not necessarily better for the environment than fossil fuels. Furthermore, there’s just not enough clean burning biomass to power a major industrial civilization on. We actually tried this before, in the early industrial revolution, and it cost the world a large portion of its loggable trees – not to mention whales.
While cogeneration does have advantages and may be economical in some circumstances, it’s certainly not a move away from fossil fuels, at least not unless it’s nuclear powered.
5. Guarantee priority access to the grid for renewable power generators
In most areas, “renewable” energy sources already receive special treatment by the power grid. Grid operators may be required to purchase from these power generators, even if the service is unreliable and unwanted. Some grid operators may even be required to construct the transmission lines to service the power generators.
“Priority access” really does not mean much, especially given the current generous accommodations made for “renewable” energy. In all to many cases, providing access for these generators takes priority over grid reliability and economics, including the rate that end users end up paying.
6. Ensure specific and stable returns for investors on their renewable energy investments
In other words, make sure that renewable energy pays back investors, even if it’s losing money hand over foot. How can you make sure there is a payback to investors even if the enterprise they invested in is failing? Simple, just pay them unending amounts of money out of everyone’s taxes.
Just stop for a moment and consider the sheer absurdity of this!
Investing money in a project, whether its your own enterprise or investing in a larger corporation involves risk and the potential for a return. Any savvy investor is going to attempt to seek out projects which are well managed, have a viable product and are likely to do well in the market. Only an idiot would invest in a scheme that is almost certain to fail. But if the government guarantees that the investment is going to pay a return, why the hell even bother trying to make it a good one? Hell, the whole project could be run right into the ground and everybody still walks away with a killing, at tax payer expense, of course.
Worse still, these kind of subsidy-driven cash cows are well known for paying out to already wealthy individuals and companies. Since the return is guaranteed and subsidies assure a profit, those who have the capital to build these useless projects can reap enormous benefits at the expense of everyone else.
7. Set aside additional research and development budgets for renewable energy and energy efficiency
There are already ENORMOUS amounts of money spent on research and development of “renewable” energy and efficiency. In the US alone, billions are spent by the Department of Energy alone each year and billions more are spent by the Department of Transportation, National Science Foundation and other agencies. Japan, Germany, Spain and the UK and numerous other countries all spend huge amounts of money on research and development of renewable energy sources and billions upon billions more is spent by universities, private organizations and businesses, hoping to get a piece of the massive subsidies awarded.
Yet this seemingly unending flow of copious amounts of national treasure into renewable energy research has yielded only the most minuscule improvements in energy conversion efficiency, reliability and cost. This is, of course, not surprising at all.
There is a pervasive myth that some great breakthrough or scientific discovery can make energy sources like wind or solar power become economically feasible and reliable sources of large amounts of energy. This is simply not the case because of the very nature of these power sources. The energy is simply very defuse. There is a finite amount of energy available from a given amount of illumination over a given area and, in general, it just isn’t that much. Wind power suffers from the fact that air does not weigh very much, doesn’t move very fast and does not move at a constant rate. No amount of research will ever change this. As long as this is true, the only way to gather significant amounts of energy will be by using enormous collection areas and hue amounts of material – and that, in and of itself will always be difficult and expensive.
The systems in place are already quite mature and there’s not a whole lot of room to squeeze much conversion efficiency out of them. Thermodynamics dictates that there is always a loss when energy is converted from one form to another. Many of the darlings of renewable energy have already just about exhausted any room for improvement that could be gained from added research. Take, for example, solar thermal power plants. The mirrors which reflect light to a collection point are about as good at reflecting photons as a material can get, so no matter how much money you throw at them, they’re not getting much more reflective. The power is produced by turbine-driven thermal engines, which have been refined and developed for more than a century. They’re already at the point where they’re approaching the theoretical limits of their efficiency.
It’s certainly possible and even likely that in coming years, design refinements will continue to improve energy conversion systems, squeezing a percent or so more efficiency out turbines and generators, but nothing enormous, because there’s just not much room for improvement left. Even if efficiency could be brought to near 100%, there simply is not enough concentrated energy there for the taking!
This entry was posted on Friday, June 25th, 2010 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Not Even Wrong, Obfuscation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 25th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Well they’re all bad, but “Ensure specific and stable returns for investors on their renewable energy investments” is probably the worst because it’s so very very stupid and shows a complete lack of understanding o the market. Why the hell even bother then? Jut use government money to build it if you’d resort to something dumb like that.
Some of the most innovative concepts come from venture capital that is known to be a big risk. High risk/high reward is a legitimate investment, as long as it’s within reasonable loss acceptance. If there is ensured specific return, then it’s really just more like a bond than an actual enterprise investment.
Anyway, when something is subsidized so heavily that it becomes profitable even if it fails completely you end up with BIG problems.
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June 25th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Each one of these points is ether a form of rationing or calling government support for renewables everything else but a subsidy.
They also seem to forget that the biggest impact of these stupid initiatives will be on the price of food, but I guess they think we eat too well, and will welcome doing without.
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June 25th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
You mention it, but I think you should call more attention to the fact that this could not work at all unless it was absolutely universal. If any place in the world, even a single small country did not enact draconian limits on energy usage and carbon emissions, it would suddenly become the haven for every refinery, aluminum mill, chemical factory, data center and fertilizer maker in the world. If you put limits on CO2 and don’t provide any alternative to generate power then they can’t get by in any country that does that and they will have no choice but to move. Whereever they move to the problem continues. They could burn coal for power anywhere because its so plentiful.
And what if the US built carbon prices into gasoline? Everyone who lives within 50 miles of the border with Canada or Mexico would fuel up there an in the process every gas station owner in the border area would take a bath. Heck, if it cost $10 a gallon, I might well drive to Canada, which is a few hundred miles from e, and fill up some 55 gallon drums. Of course, if Canada did it, Canadian citizens would run to the US to fill up, right? Same thing with Mexico. Then what? Maybe try to stop it by extreme measures at the border like make sure nobody drives across with half a talk and drives back with a full tank? Searches for hidden contraband energy items???
Also, goods from any country with strict limits on energy usage, efficiency etc would always be more expensive and they’d hurt economically.
So it has to be universal. The whole thing goes to hell if it’s not. You’d almost need a single world government to actually make that work because it’s so important to be very strict. It could even get to the point where it would be considered justifiable to declare war and bomb a region if the local authorities did not enforce these standards enough.
How else could it possibly work i it were not 100%???
Now stop and think about what that would really mean!
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June 26th, 2010 at 5:04 am
Good refutation!
Careful about them “legally binding” mandates and requirements on things. They might sound like the way to make it happen, but you can make anything legally binding with enough political support. They can set efficiency requirements and renewable energy standards. They can demand that all cars run on electricity and have a range of 8000 miles. They can require that all thermal engine’s have 99% efficiency. They can require that 4 x 4 = 82 if they want.
Laws of nature trump laws of man. It does not mean it will happen. What then? Send everyone to jail or fine them I suppose or probably just whine about how they didn’t try hard enough. You can’t repeal the laws of physics and that’s the problem.
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June 26th, 2010 at 6:39 am
I suppose crap like this is one reason why it was a bad idea for the United States to allow its legislature to be populated more than 90% by lawyers (whose profession is a purely verbal one, with no use for mathematics).
Here in Britain it’s not much better, with 70% of MPs being either lawyers or company directors by trade…
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June 26th, 2010 at 7:17 am
Your first graph is misleading — it lumps all “renewables” together, but not all fossil fuels. If all the fossil fuels are lumped, the total is indeed much higher than all the renewables.
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June 26th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Julie said:
I suppose. “Renewables” generally has come to mean wind and solar. Hydroelectric seems to have been all but forgotten, but that hardly matters since there’s little room for new hydro in the US.
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June 26th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I’m a little disappointed in the tone of this post. I generally accept its premise, but it’s too populated with straw-men and red herrings for me to take seriously. No one is suggesting that the super-rich and their Aston Martins make a significant contribution to carbon emissions or that carbon taxes are targets toward them. I don’t think anybody is mandating that Florida build co-generation plants for the same reason that no one suggests that North Dakota should build solar.
I really want to know what the true feasibility of renewables is, but it’s very hard to find good information. I can find posts and articles written with a snarky tone and peppered with appeals to ridicule that suggest that every single energy source is the best.
One issue I take with this and your previous posts is the assertion that renewable energy technology is mature. It’s possible that the production efficiency is nearly mature, but it’s unlikely that the cost of production is. It’s possible that algae farms–essential solar plants–could be very cheap to maintain and operate. It’s possible that new configurations for wind generation could use considerably less structural material. I don’t know what feasibility or potential payouts of new systems would be–I need to read skeptical analysis for that–but I want to find resources that are accessible, but that don’t resort to ridicule to make their points.
Regarding carbon taxes or cap and trade. Clearly these policies aren’t as destructive as you assert. In the case of cap and trade, it’s easy to imagine a institution under the cap that has two energy options and that the carbon intensive one is slightly cheaper. Since there is no system in place to incentivize them to use the lower carbon alternative (Tragedy of the Commons), a minimal cap-and-trade plan could provide a mechanism where this company switches to the lower emission alternative and *trades* their emissions to a company that has no alternative. Neither company has spent very much money, their energy costs are the same, but emissions have been lowered. Different industries would have different caps, so Alcoa wouldn’t need to flee to Argentina or something.
Alternatively, with a s simple carbon tax, you could offset or rebate the amount of the tax from other taxes elsewhere. The tax burden and revenues are *unchanged*, but the incentive to avoid the tax at the point of purchase results in reduced carbon consumption.
I want energy policy based upon reason and logic. Here is what seems reasonable to me right now:
1) Man-made climate change is probably real and any reasonable to steps we can take to reduce its costs and effects is worth serious consideration.
2) The cost of oil is much higher than its price: The military costs are astronomical. It’s insecure. It contributes to our trade deficit and doesn’t promote local employment. Burning fossil fuels in cars has significant health and environmental costs. These costs should not be ignored when comparing energy sources.
2) Nuclear power is a no-brainer
3) Coal is too dirty to use unless there aren’t other options.
4) Natural gas seems like a pretty goood peaker-plant fuel.
5) Heavy investment in R&D seems like a good idea. Fusion, algal fuels, cellulosic ethanol, dirt-cheap photovoltaics…the math might work on these and a significant resource investment is warranted.
6) Thermal solar and Wind seem to be approaching cost-competitive prices. Is this true? If not, what if we consider the increase in local productivity and the reduction in oil’s negative externalities?
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June 26th, 2010 at 10:46 am
I think you could do a decent job of internalizing the cost of carbon in a way that doesn’t scare away heavy industry or increases the size of government.
It doesn’t matter where something is produced if you apply the carbon tax nearer the point of consumption. If you produce something carbon intensive and then export it no carbon tax is applied. Where as if you do import something and consume it domestically you do pay the carbon tax.
The idea is to apply carbon tax to all domestic consumption, whether imported or produced domestically; while applying no carbon tax on exports
In order to make carbon tax revenue neutral you get rid of VAT or some combination of other minor taxes. You absolutely must not blow the carbon tax revenue on subsidizing solar or some other idiotic crap.
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June 26th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Eric said:
Electricity and oil are interchangeable in principle but not in in practice. You can make electricity from oil or you can make electric vehicles that do without oil; but the first doesn’t make much sense with the current price of oil and the latter doesn’t make much sense with the current price and longevity of batteries.
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June 26th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Eric said:
1. The man made portion appears to be pretty negligible with nature having the major impact. The claims of disaster are based on computer models and frankly working with computers I don’t trust them. Given that the temperatures have been much warmer at points in the past with the earth doing fine it seems very unreasonable to believe the disaster claims which appear to have a likely hood of less than 1% chance of happening in reality. Thus it isn’t worth the vast cost in time, money, and resources to try and mitigate the tiny impact that man is having on the world temperature. particularly since there is no evidence that spending that time, money, and resources on such a task would have any positive effect on anything.
2. Oil costs are high because it is primarily controlled by a small cartel. The price could be dropped dramatically by opening the extensive oil reserves in the US to drilling and flooding the market with oil from the US. This would have the added benefit of creating more jobs in the US and bringing in money to the US. But really oil is high because those producing it can keep it there not because it is rare or running out.
2. Yes nuclear is a very good solution and we should be actively moving toward it. The result is an amazing reduction in pollution and so called green house gasses.
2. b. Note that electric cars do not actually reduce green house gas/pollution production. They just allow the uneducated driver to believe he/she has done that. The energy to make the vehicle move must still be produced it just is produced at a power plant and not at the vehicle itself.
3. Coal is massively dirty. That said there are cleaner burning coals that could be used. The US even has a large reserve of such coal that was placed out of use by the government. Still and all replacing coal plants with nuclear would be wonderful.
4. Natural gas burns fairly clean and with the right venting it’s byproducts can be removed from the exhaust. This one isn’t a horrible source of power.
5. Heavy investments in R&D are always good.
6. Unfortunately no and they never will make good primary power generation sources. Each of them has specific issues that prevent them from ever being a good primary power source. That said each are good for specialty use and in that capacity are fine. But neither will ever make a successful cost effective primary power generation system. This is particularly true so long as you can get power from burning coal, gas, oil, hydroelectric, nuclear etc. All remain vastly superior power generation systems.
A last item for your consideration the cap and trade proposals are backed and wanted by the oil and gas producing companies. It is worth pondering why they are behind the idea.
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June 26th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Dr Buzzo said:
That may not be the case, because countries attempting to gain economic advantage by not pricing carbon dioxide emissions would not be able to export into countries with carbon taxes or their equivalent without paying carbon tariffs. Jeffrey Frankel has written a lot about this subject.
Shouldn’t you be trying to argue the merits of the best case of your opponents?
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June 26th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
crf said:
Just like environmental laws and labor laws that are much laxer than ours keeps countries from exporting to North America and Europe. Moving polluting industries, or those that need cheap, compliant workers off shore is just a standard business practice, and reciprocity of standards is not made law, or enforced.
It would be the same for carbon.
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June 26th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Eric said:
That is not so much about the impact as it is the social costs. This kind of policy will be shouldered heavily by the lowest income and will have less impact on the higher income. By extension this increases the class divide. The idea that it would cause across the board reduction of energy use is false.
Generally you hear about how unnecessary consumption should be targeted but this does the opposite. Jet skis an learjets are less effected than the people who will go cold at night for lack of heat or will resort to burning furniture and trash.
Would it reduce the CO2 emissions? Yes, it probably would, but only by putting it on the backs of industries and lower income persons. There will still be excessive use of fossil fuels, but by fewer. It’s a terrible social cost.
Times of scarcity have a nasty tendency to increase the class divide. Many people know of the few rich people who jumped out windows when the Stock Market crashed in 1929, but what they don’t realize is that the Great Depression was actually a fairly good time to be rich. When you have scarcity, fewer jobs and more social problems, those with the resources to corner the market on items do. The class divide is increased, sometimes dramatically.
Eric said:
It’s just as easy to imagine a situation where there are industries that do not have a lower carbon and only slightly more expensive alternative. There’s already incentive to use lower carbon when feasible, because fuel costs money. the way to do it one better is to provide low cost clean energy.
Eric said:
They already are, although more to Russia and China.
Eric said:
Now we have a simple idea that is really very very very very complicated. Carbon taxation would be paid directly indirectly. There would be some who used more energy, through no fault of their own, because they live in a colder area. Others need goods transported further because of their location.
The cost gets distributed, because even if you only tax big energy, the little guy ultimately buys all the products with a built-in energy cost. The more basic goods you buy and the larger portion of income goes to primary energy the more it will cost you, relatively speaking.
Accounting for all these costs and trying to get rebates back to those who paid the most is daunting. Worse still, tax incentives have a nasty tendency of going to those who are rich enough to hire private accountants to find all the rebates they qualify for and loop-hole every expense through.
One of the most chilling possibilities i the idea that this could lead to companies preferring labor-intensive methods to energy intensive. People think “Great, that means more jobs!” Well.. it’s not quite like that. Burdening the lower classes and creating a top heavy economy is a great way to return to the days where low level jobs were a half a step above slavery.
Eric said:
It will always come down to big collection areas. Possible that some cheap method could be invented…?? er… well, I would hardly bet the farm on it.
Anyway, there’s no need to force that to happen, if it will. There are venture capitalists for that. If someone actually had an idea that had that kind of potential it would not require subsidization.
The old adage “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” It’s not really about mousetraps, but about the market forces for innovation.
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June 26th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
crf said:
well, I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to police that. The tariffs would be based on what? Going to China and sticking a CO2 detector up the @$$ of every factory and power plant?
May as well also encircle the US and EU with a Berlin-wall type of system. It will serve dual purposes – keep the cheap external products from being smuggled in and keep our people from escaping to better lives in China.
crf said:
No. You don’t plan for the best and dread the worst. You don’t start off with the assumption that everything will go as well as possible with no problems. You do the opposit
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June 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Intermediate between the laws of man and the laws of physics are the “laws” of economics, that guide most human decisions. The best solution to the energy and climate crises is to end burning carbon by providing a more economical alternative.
It is definitely possible for the liquid fluoride thorium reactor to generate power cheaper than from burning coal. The high temperature also facilitates dissociating water into oxygen and hydrogen, which is a feedstock for synthetic fuels such as methanol CH3OH or dimethyl ether H3COCH3 — or even carbon-free ammonia NH3.
Visit http://www.americanscientist.org/ to read about the technology at the American Scientist web site, or visit Energy from Thorium at http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/download/file.php?id=791 for a copyrighted pdf of the article.
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June 27th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Little room for new hydro in the U.S.? What about all the reservoirs at different altitudes which can be converted to pumped storage hydroelectric facilities by adding turbines and pumps to their water pipelines? That should put those “sun doesn’t shine/wind doesn’t blow all the time” nay-sayers at ease. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working on pumped storage hydro and flood mitigation simultaneously. Remember “dual use” in the 1990s?
Here is my set of recommendations: http://3.ly/100by2030 + http://3.ly/BYDf3dm + http://3.ly/PSHy + http://3.ly/largeScaleIceEnergy — because each dollar invested in renewable power subsidies will save $7 in flood costs on a net present value basis, per http://3.ly/floodTrends and http://3.ly/floodCosts
Farmers in Colorado love the extra wind turbine income so much that state is already on track for 30% renewable by 2020 “with or without legislation” — http://3.ly/30by2020 — given expected ramp-up curves, that is not inconsistent with 100% by 2030, as Scientific American recommends in their November, 2009 cover story. With things like large scale thermal storage, it can happen even faster. Plenty of surplus capacity in the economy to support this.
The beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require a carbon tax, or cap-and-trade, or anything else which would inflate the cost of fossil fuel (though I would certainly love to see the subsidies for fossil fuel go away) or prolong phase-out of fossil fuel. The renewable subsidies pay for themselves in flood costs and unemployment reduction.
Where does nuclear fit in? We need to convert nuclear power to medical isotope production and research reactors to see if we can get fewer fast neutrons and other sources of radioactive waste. Fission has not been able to compete with wind and hydro on a cost-per-kilowatt hours basis in the past decade, and shows no signs of improvement without much more research. Now that pretty much everyone knows how to make nuclear weapons, do we need the “born secret” doctrine which requires people in the U.S. who learn about electroweak-nuclear interactions to keep quiet about them?
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June 27th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
drbuzz0 said:
That’s not what I meant. I’m not talking about assuming things “going as well as possible” when I ask that the best case of the opponents be argued (you’re melding this phrase with “best case scenario”). I mean, shouldn’t you be criticising the actual arguments being made? There is extensive literature on carbon tariffs (applicability, legality, measurement, usefulness, etc). Discussions about them formed a good part of the last international climate change discussions, and also will do so in the future.
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June 27th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Little room for new hydro in the U.S.? What about all the reservoirs at different altitudes which can be converted to pumped storage hydroelectric facilities by adding turbines and pumps to their water pipelines? That should put those “sun doesn’t shine/wind doesn’t blow all the time” nay-sayers at ease. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working on pumped storage hydro and flood mitigation simultaneously. Remember “dual use” in the 1990s?
My set of recommendations is listed under “energy and environment” at http://3.ly/USAbudget — I would post them here but apparently there is a (silent!?) spam filter which prevents too many URLs.
Farmers in Colorado love the extra wind turbine income so much that state is already on track for 30% renewable by 2020 “with or without legislation” — http://3.ly/30by2020 — given expected ramp-up curves, that is not inconsistent with 100% by 2030, as Scientific American recommends in their November, 2009 cover story. With things like large scale thermal storage, it can happen even faster. Plenty of surplus capacity in the economy to support this.
The beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require a carbon tax, or cap-and-trade, or anything else which would inflate the cost of fossil fuel (though I would certainly love to see the subsidies for fossil fuel go away) or prolong phase-out of fossil fuel. The renewable subsidies pay for themselves in flood costs and unemployment reduction.
Where does nuclear fit in? We need to convert nuclear power to medical isotope production and research reactors to see if we can get fewer fast neutrons and other sources of radioactive waste. Fission has not been able to compete with wind and hydro on a cost-per-kilowatt hours basis in the past decade, and shows no signs of improvement without much more research. Now that pretty much everyone knows how to make nuclear weapons, do we need the “born secret” doctrine which requires people in the U.S. who learn about electroweak-nuclear interactions to keep quiet about them?
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June 27th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Little room for new hydro in the U.S.? What about all the reservoirs at different altitudes which can be converted to pumped storage hydroelectric facilities by adding turbines and pumps to their water pipelines? That should put those “sun doesn’t shine/wind doesn’t blow all the time” nay-sayers at ease. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working on pumped storage hydro and flood mitigation simultaneously. Remember “dual use” in the 1990s?
My set of recommendations is listed under “energy and environment” at http://www.google.com/buzz/jsalsman/1z92AKJ4MSA/AmericaSpeaks-usabudget-town-hall-Saturday-morning — I would post them here but apparently there is a (silent!?) spam filter which prevents too many (or shortened?) URLs.
Farmers in Colorado love the extra wind turbine income so much that state is already on track for 30% renewable by 2020 “with or without legislation” — http://ecopolitology.org/2010/01/25/colorado-may-boost-renewable-energy-standard-to-30-by-2020/ — given expected ramp-up curves, that is not inconsistent with 100% by 2030, as Scientific American recommends in their November, 2009 cover story. With things like large scale thermal storage, it can happen even faster. Plenty of surplus capacity in the economy to support this.
The beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require a carbon tax, or cap-and-trade, or anything else which would inflate the cost of fossil fuel (though I would certainly love to see the subsidies for fossil fuel go away) or prolong phase-out of fossil fuel. The renewable subsidies pay for themselves in flood costs and unemployment reduction.
Where does nuclear fit in? We need to convert nuclear power to medical isotope production and research reactors to see if we can get fewer fast neutrons and other sources of radioactive waste. Fission has not been able to compete with wind and hydro on a cost-per-kilowatt hours basis in the past decade, and shows no signs of improvement without much more research. Now that pretty much everyone knows how to make nuclear weapons, do we need the “born secret” doctrine which requires people in the U.S. who learn about electroweak-nuclear interactions to keep quiet about them?
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June 27th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
James Salsman said:
http://3.ly/100by2030 + http://3.ly/BYDf3dm + http://3.ly/PSHy + http://3.ly/largeScaleIceEnergy — because each dollar invested in renewable power subsidies will save $7 in flood costs on a net present value basis, per http://3.ly/floodTrends and http://3.ly/floodCosts
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June 28th, 2010 at 12:39 am
James Salsman said:
Who the hell are you trying to fool, Salsman? In Europe they have to keep slapping taxes on the profits from NPPs just to disguise the vast efficiency and profitability of them, and to get the cash to continue propping up their useless ‘renewable’ sector. There is not one region in the world where ‘renewable’ power, such as wind, would survive one month if the subsidies and FITs were withdrawn. Hydro does not belong in this ‘renewables’ catagory, and the shallow attempt by liars such as yourself to conflate that reliable and proven source of power with useless technosolar scam tech (wind and the various forms of solar) will not go unchallenged. The only reason nuclear power has not completely dominarted the energy sector already is the stacking of government regulations against it around the world, in an attempt to continue the dominance of fossil fuels. Anti-nuclear activists such as yourself are the tools of the coal, oil and natgas industries.
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June 28th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Finrod said:
Do you have a source for those claims?
O…kay. Maybe you should take that up with the peer reviewers at Scientific American: http://3.ly/100by2030 Good luck with the nuclear dominartion.
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June 28th, 2010 at 12:51 am
Finrod said:
Do you have a source for those claims?
O…kay. Maybe you should take that up with the peer reviewers at Scientific American: http://talknicer.com/100by2030.html Good luck with the nuclear dominartion.
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June 28th, 2010 at 2:12 am
James Salsman said:
A source for those claims… lets see now…
How about these?
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Huge_nuclear_tax_on_the_cards_in_Germany_1506101.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hJ51b6JjotWILGS9JsM9M7ILqwsg
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June 28th, 2010 at 2:13 am
And this (Doc’s filter only allows 2 links/comment, if I recall).
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_Finlands_tax_on_low-carbon_power_0104091.html
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June 28th, 2010 at 5:12 am
Slightly off-topic, but I encountered another useless, feel-good, negative-return green measure in an in-flight magazine. The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers hooked up some stationary bike generators to their electric mains and is encouraging guests to generate power for a free meal. How much useless power do they have to generate? 10 kWh.
Here’s Reuter’s story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63D3UC20100414
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June 28th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
James Salsman said:
That’s not “hydro” in the sense of being a power generator. Pumped storage is not a means of producing energy. Actually, it’s a net consumer of electricity, but it has some use in dealing with peaking demand. Pumped hydro has a full cycle efficiency of roughly66 to 75% depending on how it’s set up. It’s also not exactly cheap to install large turbines, transformers and generators.
It has its place and its about the only method that can actually make wind and solar useful at all. Still, no matter how you slice it, you’re always dealing with piddle power. Solar especially. If you’re talking about a few megawatts of power at hundreds of millions of dollars, well then it really just plain doesn’t make sense to bother with it.
Then there’s the issue of what this would mean for reservoirs. If you’re talking about using existing reservoirs for power storage too, then the issue is that this compromises their primary purpose. You inevitably end up letting a lot of the water out and possibly introducing back in less pure water, unless you’re going to build a second low-level holding reservoir. Then the fact that they may not be full when water is needed…
“Dual use” for things like dams sometimes works out okay, but with this kind of thing all too often one use is too much in conflict with the other.
James Salsman said:
Well yeah, I’d love to get paid for nothing too.
James Salsman said:
A combination of wishful thinking and forcing it down the throats of utilities. They seem to think that they can just legislate their problems away by forcing the electric companies to provide “30% renewable” and at the same time put big price caps on rates.
Something is going to give if you try to force that. Either the electric company goes bankrupt, government money needs to be infused or the lights go out.
Magazines make big claims to sell.
James Salsman said:
What plan?
James Salsman said:
Uh…
Okay, this goes to show how much you don’t know about this. Nuclear power reactors and by and large not at all suited for isotope production. They don’t have the neutron economy, their cores are not designed for sample irradiation, they lack means of retreiving samples from the core etc.
PWR’s have been used to a limited extent for breeding cobalt-60 and tritium, but that’s about it. They’re just not then kind of reactor necessary to product things like technetium-99m or iodine-131.
James Salsman said:
Knowing how to make them and having the funds, resources and will to do so are two different things. Any number of countries in the world have been capable of making nuclear weapons for decades. They choose not to because it would be extremely expensive and, in many cases, doesn’t really offer them much strategic advantage.
James Salsman said:
Wait..
What?
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June 28th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
James is referring to the clause in the US Atomic Energy Act that defined a new legal term: “restricted data” as “all data concerning the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable material, or the use of fissionable material in the production of power,” unless the information has been declassified. The phrase “all data” included every suggestion, speculation, scenario, or rumor—past, present, or future, regardless of its source, or even of its accuracy—unless it was declassified. All such data is born secret and belonged to the government. If you related a dream about nuclear weapons, you are breaking the law.
Apparently it’s still on the books.
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June 29th, 2010 at 3:15 am
@ Salsman:
1) It can take a while for comments to clear the spam filters. Reposting is not necessary. It is possible to shortcut this by avoiding links, reposting an identical comment is in fact entirely superfluous.
2) I got as far down one of the articles as this bit:
Today’s question for all you smart kids: Which of the following is the energy source for geothermal power:
a) wind
b) water
c) sunlight
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July 7th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
[...] Source [...]
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