Is energy really scarce? What to do about it. What is being done about it.
Earlier this week while reading I noticed a diary here declaring that energy was "a
scare commodity" and another declaring the same thing about water. These
are the sort of ideas that drive me nuts.
One of the best things about being a parent is getting to read children's books
without having to do so in a closet. My favorite is "Cloudy With a Chance
of Meatballs." This is a story about a place called Chewandswallow which
(in the words of the publisher) "... was very much like any other tiny
town except for its weather which came three times a day, at breakfast, lunch
and dinner. But it never rained rain and it never snowed snow and it never blew
just wind. It rained things like soup and juice. It snowed things like mashed
potatoes. And sometimes the wind blew in storms of hamburgers."
Energy is not scarce. Water is not scarce and there may not be a place like
Chewandswallow but there are the two things which as long as I can recall actually
fall out of the sky. In case you have been inside too long these are called
sunlight and rain.
All of the energy on the earth with the exception of radioactivity and the
lunar component of tidal energy comes from the sun.
The solar energy which hits the earth's atmosphere is the equivalent of 10,000
times all of the energy usage on the planet. Granted, it does not all make it
to the surface but use the following as data points regarding what does make
it here. Using present photovoltaic technology (15% efficiency) a grid half
the size of the state of Nevada would produce all of the energy used in the
US from sources other than nuclear, wind and hydro. A grid taking up the entire Sahara
desert would provide 35 times the amount of all energy consumer by every source
on the planet.
Problems?
The issues are:
1) getting the cost of photovoltaic (PV) cells down and making them more efficient.
(Photovoltaic cells turn light into electricity.)
2) moving the energy around. We already have a network in place for that - the
electrical grid. It would need upgrading if it, in the future, had to move around
the energy now generated by fossil fuels
3) storing energy produced in the daylight for night time use. This could be
solved using energy storage devices such as flywheels or hydrogen
4) creating low cost, rapid recharge batteries for cars to eliminate entirely
the usage of gasoline and every other liquid fuel.
For some reading material see:
Nanosolar is a SF Bay Area company which not has the financing in place to build
a factory which will triple existing photovoltaic manufacturing capacity in
the US.
Lithium based battery technology may be developed so that cars which run on
electricity drained from batteries which can be rapidly recharged are practical.
See
this page.
What is Needed?
Upgrading of the electrical grid to make more capacity and redundancy available
and infrastructure to replace "gas stations" with battery recharging
stations or hydrogen fueling.
We talked about hydrogen previously. See: Rate
Watch #334 The Hydrogen Economy.
Issues with Solar
There are some annoying issues with solar. Solar power is much more practical
is places which get a lot of reliable sunlight but not everyone lives in Phoenix.
This necessitates a cost to move the power around. Solar is DC and we use AC
so there is an energy cost conversion. The sun does not shine at night so the
energy must be stored. There are potential solutions: batteries, flywheels,
and chemical conversion to things such as hydrogen which can then be turned
into energy at night. Energy storage can also use gravity. During the daytime
water can be moved uphill and converted, in effect, to hydroelectricity at night.
This is called "pumped hydro storage." There are about 90 gigawatts
of this on line in the world. It is costly and has long led time but is reliable
and low tech.
To be sure, methods of storing very large amounts of energy need to be developed
it we are to phase out the use of fossil fuels. There is an
organization devoted to energy storage. Another place to find info on this
is EPRI
(Electric Power Research Institute). In the interest of disclosure (right,
me doing full disclosure) I have done mortgages for some folks at EPRI which
is a local (Palo Alto) company and I will undoubtedly get e-mail from those
folks fleshing out my humble discussion of this relatively arcane topic. Use
the blog guys!
Try these: no pollution (except that associated with manufacturing this stuff,
energy independence (no OPEC), no carbon dioxide (global warming) produced as
is produced by burning coal and other fossil fuels.
Water Anyone?
Folks are always concerned about water. There is a lot of water in the world.
It even falls from the sky with regularity. If we get energy sources such as
PV down then we can use that energy to desalinize sea water and address the
annoying problem which is that folks have chosen to live in places where there
is little fresh water.
A common method or desalinization is reverse osmosis (RO). This is used on
naval vessels, cruise ships, coastal Mexican resorts, Caribbean Islands and
the Mideast. The limiting factor here is expense. Couple inexpensive solar energy
with RO an we have solved both the energy and water "problems."
The issues are technological. Making them social or political is idiotic. Yes,
people should not waste energy and they should not smoke but they do. Ranting
about the social meaning of how much of the world's energy the US consumes is
rendered moot if we can find ways to harness the sun's energy to produce low
cost, nonpolluting, don't give a damn penny to Saudi Arabia sources of energy.
Let me extend this. It is not merely technology but technology coupled with
capital that makes things happen. There are enormous markets for both energy
and water so the motivation to manufacture these two things inexpensively at
a profit is there. The fact that energy companies have made enormous profits
in the last few years should provide sufficient motivation.
It would also help to have an education system which actually teaches the basics
of technology (math and science) as well as it teaches recycling. It would also
help to have a media in which there are non-luddite writers who can actually
explain the advantages of technology to folks but wait a second my phone is
ringing, it's the tooth fairy. Oh and by the way the Spell Check in my version
of Dreamweaver does not recognize "photovoltaic." The problem is deeper
than I thought. Then again these folks (Macromedia) are here in SF so I may
give them a call.
A Last Word
I am not stating or implying that solar is the only answer. I am stating that
there is no shortage of energy but merely a shortage of the technology to convert
the sun's energy and store it.
Click this for a catalog of newsletters from my web site.
-- Dick Lepre
San Francisco