38 thoughts on “Renewable Energy”

    1. Actually, his best(e) energy articles aren’t on that list.

      http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/06/Energyscalingproblems.shtml
      http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/09/Obscureenergysources.shtm

      The key takeaway from all of these essays (and their sublinks, which are important) is that scale matters, and all of the ideas that people keep throwing at the wall to replace our current energy makeup do not and can not feasibly scale up enough to replace what we’re doing today. This includes solar, wind, and space solar, and nevermind for the moment their lack of dependability, because the raw numbers are orders of magnitude from practicability.

      The only reasonable replacements for coal and natural gas for power generation are large-scale hydro (already essentially exhausted; there’s not much left to exploit) and nuclear. The only reasonable replacements for petroleum distillates in transportation are *other* hydrocarbons (shale oil, coal via Fischer–Tropsch), or *maybe* electricity via carbon-based ultracapacitors (in which case, the demand flows onto power generation, and start back at the top of this paragraph).

      So, *are* there ways out? Maybe, but they pretty much involve burning (chemically or nuclearly) stuff that came out of the ground. Renewables and “conservation” just don’t (and can’t) cut it.

  2. Not quite true. Solar power/Renewable energy will do quite well in Space, where the two biggest Terrestrial issues, cost of land and weather, cease to be a problem. Alas, the eco-nuts will stop it cold, once they realize we will have to beam the energy down to Earth. “It’s a Weapon!!!”. Sigh.

    1. Solar power is a straight forward economic question. No new technology is required.

      If it made money, Elon or others would already be doing it.

      Note that space solar power is being used… for spacecraft where it makes sense.

    2. “Not quite true. Solar power/Renewable energy will do quite well in Space, where the two biggest Terrestrial issues, cost of land and weather,”

      In my opinion, those are not the two biggest Terrestrial issues. They’re big, but the biggest one is no storage mechanism

      1. Storage has always been simple. Just pump water up the mountain to your storage when you have a surplus, and hydro it down when you are at a deficit.

        1. That doesn’t scale well, though.

          Again, most useful hydro has already been tapped, and to implement a regenerable system (e.g., 2 reservoirs at different altitudes separated by a dam) on new land would run into even more scaling issues, because of things like the landscaping required, or the extra water needed to offset evaporation.

          Hydro is only cheap because it taps into natural water flows. A closed-loop system would lose a lot of that “fuel” efficiency.

          1. A “Closed loop” system can use other liquids then water, liquids that don’t evaporate nearly as much, and much heaver as well, so landscaping isn’t nearly as much an issue. (Not that it was to begin with, lots of valley above valleys in the Rockys……).

  3. You accept Koningstein and Fork’s opinion of RE, disagree with their conclusions on AGW, while, unlike Hansen, the two men apparently don’t know the merits and possibilities of nuclear energy.

    Your contention that “Anyone who understands basic math and physics knows that the notion it [RE] could replace fossil fuels was always insane.” doesn’t make sense given the technological developments that have led to such dramatic improvements in oil and gas extraction, you are effectively claiming that math and physics rule out the possibility, as an example, that that same technology can’t lead to similar improvements in geothermal energy extraction.

    I can’t wait to see the math and physics supporting your claims.

      1. In terms of the resource or in terms of storage for utilization?

        A few km down the road from me the Wairakei geothermal power station has been pumping out 175MW of power for near 60 years, fracking, and other technological improvements are leading to new research into geothermal power generation for locations less ideal than Wairakei.

        If You’re talking about the density of energy storage in mobile applications, again, developments continue.

        1. That’s cool but how many locations are suitable for geothermal? I suspect that much like hydroelectric, it isn’t universally suitable. We do have one spectacularly suitable place in the states. It is centrally located in a small population area. But if Yellowstone was to erupt, it would destroy the country so there is little chance of any support for meddling there.

          Having a mix of production is wise but the people who think we can bust all the dams and shut down all the coal fired power plants need to check their privilege. These are often the same people who live in a coastal city and have negative stereotypes for the people they take advantage of. Like in Wyoming, where coal is burned to power life on the East coast. They ought to be saying thank you but instead they have nothing but prejudice.

          2. Especially this bit:
            EGS potential in the United States[edit]

            Geothermal power technologies.
            A 2006 report by MIT,[38] and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, conducted the most comprehensive analysis to date on the potential and technical status of EGS. The 18-member panel, chaired by Professor Jefferson Tester of MIT, reached several significant conclusions:

            Resource size: The report calculated the United States total EGS resources from 3–10 km of depth to be over 13,000 zettajoules, of which over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements — sufficient to provide all the world’s current energy needs for several millennia.[38] The report found that total geothermal resources, including hydrothermal and geo-pressured resources, to equal 14,000 ZJ — or roughly 140,000 times the total U.S. annual primary energy use in 2005.
            Development potential: With a modest R&D investment of $1 billion over 15 years (or the cost of one coal power plant), the report estimated that 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more could be installed by 2050 in the United States. The report further found that “recoverable” resources (accessible with today’s technology) were between 1.2–12.2 TW for the conservative and moderate recovery scenarios respectively.
            Cost: The report found that EGS could be capable of producing electricity for as low as 3.9 cents/kWh. EGS costs were found to be sensitive to four main factors:
            Temperature of the resource
            Fluid flow through the system measured in liters/second
            Drilling costs
            Power conversion efficiency

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_geothermal_system#EGS_potential_in_the_United_States

        2. 175MW is chump change.
          1,750MW is chump change.
          17,500MW is a blip, lost in the noise.
          175,000MW is enough to put a dent in current US generation numbers.

          As of a couple years ago, the US (per EIA) had just over a TW of nameplate generation, and actually produced just over 4 quadrillion watt-hours.

          Even fracking didn’t come close to making up our total energy deficit; it just took us from a critical situation (anybody remember the imminent natural gas shortages expected ~10 years ago, or the plans to import LNG as a last-ditch effort?) to one in which we have solid supplies of the second-most-used fuel in domestic electrical production. That’s not to deny credit; we were really in a precarious situation, and it prevented a huge disruption complete with major economic displacement and misery.

          So, in order to be meaningful, a new/enlarged source of electricity would have to be scalable to hundreds of trillions of watt-hours just to move the needle, and several times larger in order to have a significant impact. Can geothermal with today’s resources and technology do that? Can solar/wind with pumped hydro (and its associated losses)?

          1. 175MW is chump change.
            1,750MW is chump change.
            17,500MW is a blip, lost in the noise.
            175,000MW is enough to put a dent in current US generation numbers.

            I’m sure you think you have a point. Maybe you posted before reading my November 22, 2014 at 11:17 am comment.

      2. Energy density is mostly relevant for mobile applications. In other applications what matters is the cost per kWh.

        1. Even if wind was cheap, the sprawl over the landscape is offensive. Windmills are a blight to the environment, both the beauty of it and on the surrounding wildlife. But I guess we must destroy the environment in order to save it.

          1. As it happens, Google bought a Makani Power, a startup that aims to build less expensive wind power generators that also happen to be less unsightly, more easily sited offshore, and (I’m guessing) less dangerous to birds. I hope they succeed.

        2. Maybe, but there is also the related issue of what else you could be doing with the land – particularly for solar power.

          Actually, I think renewable energy in some form is viable – just not ground solar and wind, for reasons which are obvious and have been endlessly belaboured. Renewable energy in the form of cellulosic biomass (maybe as a use for otherwise useless byproducts), wave power, tidal and OTEC have not really been seriously tried. I think the reason is precisely because they are better in all manner of ways (at least potentially) than ground solar and wind. Watermelons don’t want cheap energy – they want control.

        3. Try calculating sometime just the amount of material needed for support structure for enough solar and wind installations to generate just our current energy demands. You will find it is greater than our total global annual production of key materials at current rates over an entire century.

          No, the energy density, calculated as the amount of material needed per erg per fortnight, or whatever units you prefer, really does matter. And, the declining costs are always quoted with regard to the current niche application. When you scale it all up, and material shortages start to impact, the costs would skyrocket.

          1. I know where you’re coming from, but your first paragraph is just nonsense. Wind already contributes 4% of global electrical generation, it can be expensive but not that expensive.

          2. Here’s an example. It is often blithely stated that we could satisfy US energy demands by covering a 100 mile X 100 mile area in Arizona with solar panels. Let’s forget about all the transmission losses, the destruction of habitat, the UHI on steroids, and even the basic truthfulness of the claim, and just take it as given.

            Let’s assume the support structure is going to require the equivalent of carpeting this 10,000 square mile area with a 1 inch sheet of aluminum. How much aluminum is that?

            It is 1/12 X 10,000 X 5280^2 = 23,232,000,000 cubic feet. At 167 lb/ft^3, and 2000 lbs/ton, that is 1,939,872,000 tons of aluminum. Total worldwide annual production of aluminum as of now = 4,935,000 tons/annum. Total number of years to produce that much covering material at current global production rates: 393 years.

            So, in four centuries of cornering the market on this material, to the exclusion of any other uses, the US now has its energy taken care of (well, at least for the support structure, for generating power at 2014 levels, and of course, everything built during that time has to hold up for 400 years without replacement). The rest of the world… well, we probably had to nuke it all to claim all the aluminum anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

            You really have to start putting numbers to paper to grasp the immensity of the problem, and why it just isn’t feasible with current technology, or any technology of the foreseeable future which does not depend on splitting or fusing atoms. Steven Den Beste’s calculations, which others cited above, first opened my eyes to the scale. The whole notion of using ancient power sources for modern industrial society is just utter fantasy.

          3. Getting your numbers right is a good start.

            World aluminum production is 47 million tonnes not 4.9 million tonnes,
            an inch of aluminum is a ridiculous amount for support structures, that’s 60kg/m^2, 6kg/m^2 is more reasonable. Much of the structure would be galvanized steel, global steel production is 135 million tonnes.

            Sure it’s a huge and unrealistic undertaking, but it’s more like 4 years than 400 years of global production, and other RE options are more realistic.

          4. Ahh, I thought those steel production figures looked low, that 136 million is monthly data, so times 12.

          5. Looks like I made the 12 month mistake with the aluminum. OK, so, 4 decades of every ounce of aluminum produced in the entire world. Meh. It’s still ridiculous.

          6. Please note that total US production is less than a tenth of the world total, so we’re back to 4 centuries, if we’re not allowed to expropriate the rest of the world’s production.

          7. “Please note that total US production is less than a tenth of the world total, so we’re back to 4 centuries, if we’re not allowed to expropriate the rest of the world’s production.”

            And if you stick with the ridiculous guess of needing 60kg of Al/square meter.

          8. This isn’t some floppy space vehicle solar array meant to last 3 years in the vacuum of space, you know. This is a solid, ground construct which has to last for 400 years.

            Come on, Andrew. We’re talking every ingot of aluminum produced in the US for centuries dedicated to this project. If anything should be considered unrealistic in the scenario, it should be that.

          9. That, and the notion that thousands upon thousands of square miles of materials engineered with the specific intent of absorbing as much sunlight as possible would somehow have less of an impact on the Earth’s heat budget than a trace gas in the atmosphere which evidently has no impact at all.

    1. When I click the Barron’s article now, it’s paywalled. Maybe I got lucky the first time, or maybe it only allows you one look. If you can’t read it, google “zinc shortage” for info on the looming world zinc shortage.

    2. If anything, it’s an underestimate. Nonsense.

      Re zinc, You sound like a lefty, resource shortages everywhere.

      1. If I am going to adopt the pose of a Lefty imagining the need for this project in the first place, I have to do the full method act.

  7. Regarding ground solar: There is the small question of how thousands of square kilometres of solar arrays are going to be kept clean. The only places in which solar is a viable proposition are deserts (cheap land, lots of sun) and, oddly enough, deserts are dusty.

    Maybe that’s a job for all the millions of illegals that the watermelons would no doubt like the USA to take in?

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