***Alternative Energy Forecasts*** 21

[deltawhy]

Hello, so I know everyone here has at least an opinion on this subject. I would like to see what the industry experienced members think of alternative energy and the forecast for the near future.

Within the next 5, 10, and 15 years, what do you think will become dominant in North America, Europe, and Australia?

One of the main issues plaguing alternative energy is the method of energy storage. What do you think will become dominant? New types of chemical batteries, flywheel storage, compressed air, water pumping, etc.

How about less known about methods, like plasma gasification and MSW energy?

Will micorgeneration become a major player, with the addition of hybrid and electric vehicles putting massive amounts of stress on the already stressed grid?

Any thoughts?

Regards

 

[csd72]

I think part of the problem in the US is over-use of electricity. Many of the practices there would just not be done elsewhere for example:

Leaving on lights where no one is.
Leaving heating at 70 degrees during the whole day even though no-one is home. It really just needs to be kept above freezing.
Having the airconditioner on late into the summer evenings even when the outside air temperature is a comfortable 70 degrees. Why not just open the windows and let the breeze in.

As for the houses, it constantly amazes me how houses in the southwest of the US do not have eaves, these are a proven way of reducing heating costs, and if taken to the extreme can make a house habitable in 110 plus temperatures even without air conditionaing. A good example of this is colonial style outback houses in australia which have a 10 foot or so verandah all the way around which puts the walls in shade and keeps the house relatively cool.

Unfortunately I did not get to see the earthships when I was in Taos NM a few weeks ago but it would be interesting to see the things they do there and living off the electricity grid.

 

[YoungTurk]

I don't see how sinking my house is going to help me fire up the computer or watch a movie.

Sure you could gasify biomaterial and then run a turbine, but isn't that the most round about (and inefficient) method of getting electricity from sun?

Sun > photosynthesis > plant matter + heat > gas > electricity.

Takes a lot of moving stuff around too (and drying, etc.), whereas

Sun > electricity or sun > heat > electricity

Seems the much better engineering solution.

 

[cranky108]

Are you looking for efficiency, or cost?

I live without air conditioning, except for a single room unit. So I am not bound to 70 degrees in the Summer. In the Winter I do try to keep my house at least 70. If any of my family catches a cold I will spend more money on cold medicine, and doctor visits then I will save on energy.

My whole argument for wood gasification, or other stuff is that there are things in place to use Natural gas, and the infinsturcture is already there.

The infinstructure is not there for many of the ideas out there, and the total cost is much greater because of that.

 

[moltenmetal]

Economical and energetically sensible maximum transport distance for biomass for electrical generation is about 100 miles- maybe a bit more by rail. That's pretty limited.

Gasifying biomass doesn't make sense unless your product is something higher value than electricity and char. Burning it, especially co-burning it with coal, does make some sense- within the reasonable transport distance limit.

Lots of things work for an Earth with either 1/10th the number of people in total, or 1/10th the energy consumption per capita that we have in the developed world. When the rest of the world develops to the extent we have, the energy consumption in total is absolutely mind-boggling- unless we all get very serious about wasting a great deal less of it.

 

[cranky108]

Agreed that we do waste far to much energy. And I feel I do better than most about reducing that (I also look at reason and cost). But how do you change attitudes, without reducing freedom, or out right forcing people to waste less?

I took two seconds to look at riding the bus instead of driving. But haveing to walk a half mile to the bus stop, and another half from the bus stop to the office for less than a five mile drive just dosen't make since in terms of my time or my money.

 

[zdas04]

Its all economics, just as it should be. If fuel was $10/gallon and your car got 10 miles/gallon then you'd spend $10 to go back and forth to work--not worth 20 minutes of your time. If parking were $25/day now we're up to $35/day to drive, might be worth the 20 minutes. But fuel isn't $10/gallon, it is under $4/gallon. Your vehicle doesn't get 10 mpg, it probably gets twice that. Parking is free. The cost of driving is 1/2 gallon or $2/day.

That is the real cost. Environmental clean up and air-quality mitigation costs are included in the cost of fuel, so I don't think anyone should feel good about making dumb economic decisions because they are "green". The balogna I threw away this morning was also green.

On the other hand, if you feel you would get an intangible benefit from the walk, then it might make sense. Again a personal decision about allocation of resources--economics.

Davud

 

[rb1957]

you're lucky to have a 5 mile commute !

 

[moltenmetal]

"Environmental clean up and air-quality mitigation costs are included in the cost of fuel..."

You're not even CLOSE on that one David.

"I don't think anyone should feel good about making dumb economic decisions because they are "green"."

We agree completely on that one. All we disagree about is whether or not to truly burden the source fuel with the FULl cost of its emissions and other "intangible" costs. Do that properly via a tax and nobody will care how "green" something is- they'll only need to look at what it costs.

 

[deltawhy]

Thanks for taking your time to put in your two cents.

From what I have gathered, I assume that most people agree that fossil fuel use is going absolutely nowhere but up as demand increases.
Seems as though people think subsidies for alternatives (at least in the US) is diminishing.
As for conventional storage methods, seems to be the only economically feasible method is chemical battery and fossil fuels.
As no new economically feasibly storage method has been utilized yet, alternatives will always require a near 100% backup (and thus utterly useless).

Seems reasonable to draw the conclusion that a drastic shift in energy production methods will not be happening anytime soon.

Technology to increase efficiency in current extraction, production, transmission, etc. coupled with a decrease in consumption is likely to be the only near future advances (although already occurring).


Regards,
Daniel

 

[zdas04]

DeltaWhy,
I think you've lost control of this thread.

Moltenmetal,
At least one of us is not even CLOSE.

I work in Oil & Gas. I know the regulations that are in place under the Clean Air Act (in the U.S., other countries have roughly parallel regulations). I know that if I set a compressor driven by a reciprocating engine then I have to apply RICE MACT (Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine Maximum Achievable Control Technology) that results in total emissions from a 1,000 hp engine being fewer tonnes than you get from a lawnmower. I know that the MACT for tanks, heaters, and dehydrators result in very low emissions for a VERY high cost to producers. The release of regulated pollutants (VOC and HAP, not so-called Greenhouse Gases) is VERY low and the cost of that control technology is included in the fuel cost.

A non-trivial portion of the cost of my vehicles is emissions-control technology. So between the cost of the regulations to control emissions during the production and refining process and the cost of end-use control technology, I stand by my statement that environmental costs are included. What am I missing? Your bald-faced statement that I'm just wrong really didn't convey much information.

David

 

[deltawhy]

zdas, how so? Are you assuming most of the posts are not relevant to my original question? I think most of the information here is quite useful, including all of your posts.

 

[zdas04]

I'm glad you are getting what you need. My comment was about the several of us that have dragged it into weeds.

David

 

[TGS4]

zdas04 - the only thing that you listed above that is not accounted for is greenhouse gases. I too am curious about the "cost" of these gases. Cost usually comes about from a problem (health, etc) and subsequent harm, that also has a cost. The items that you lists: VOCs, HAP, NOx, particulates, all have a quantifiable impact and harm. Unfortunately, for GHG, the science is still out (contrary to what some may think). And even if there were a direct causal link, I still haven't seen a quantification that passes the smell test of the cost of the harm.

 

[rb1957]

i think the hidden cost referred to is "global warming", a newly "detected" consequence of burning fossil fuels and therefore not included in the pricing of products that use/consume fossil fuels. as i understand it the EPA has defined CO2 as a pollutant, no?

in the immediate term the demand and the price of fossil fuels is going to increase. this'll make alternatives more economically viable, as well as being "politically correct"

 

[zdas04]

Yep, I specifically did not include GHG because I can't make myself believe that cow farts and plant food (CH4 and CO2) are "pollutants". I've spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to find untainted science that uses unadulterated data to develop a proof (computer models are NEVER proof of anything, at best they can point out areas for productive research, at worst they can be used to manipulate simple-minded people).

I recently had cause to read a lengthy "scientific" paper on the impact of fugitive emissions of CH4 and CO2 from Oil & Gas. It was very long on unsubstantiated facts and very short on verifiable information (the references all lead to broken links for example). Then I read the "Peer Review". For 20 pages the reviewers quibbled about the placement of commas and the existence of hanging modifiers WITH NO COMMENTS ON THE SCIENCE or the broken links. I don't know if this dreck was normal "science" in this field, it is generally very difficult to find reviewer comments on AGW papers (which seems to only be true in climate sciences), but very easy to find "peer reviewed" papers. If this one set of comments is typical in this field (and I don't know that it is, you can draw any line you want through a single point), then I become even more certain (if that is possible) that this whole AGW scam is simply a wealth redistribution plan on a monstrous scale.

No, the costs of "mitigating" GHG are not included in the cost of fuel, the the EPA pending Subpart W work will change that. Expect industry profits to go down by $100-500 Billion/year or the cost of a gallon of gasoline to double, or some combination. Many of the AGW folks will applaud the idea of industry profits going down that much, but the return on capital employed in this industry is 5-8% (Disney starts firing people when theirs drops below 20%) because virtually all of the profits go into projects that eat up many billions of dollars for decades before the first molecule of hydrocarbon goes to sales. Without profits, there is no drilling. Without drilling we'll see an increase in the rate that our national treasure bleeds to countries that don't like us.

Enough. I've never convinced anyone that AGW was a scam. I don't expect that I ever will.

David

 

[csd72]

zdas04,

I dont know as much about this as I would like though my opinion would be more in line with that of moltenmetal.

One thing I do know from experience is that a Ford Focus in the US is significantly below the equivalent model of ford focus in the UK as far as fuel efficiency. I have owned both.

The USA has pretty much the cheapest fuel in the world, even cheaper than some middle east countries. Either the US has undertaxed it or the rest of the world has overtaxed it, take your pick.

 

[zdas04]

The concept of "undertax" is a hard one for me to get my head around, but since taxation is the main tool of government policy I have to say that the U.S. is significantly undertaxed with regard to motor fuel. In the 1970's when we were seeing motor fuel imports going from under 10% to over 30%, the Carter administration had a perfect opportunity to ratchet the taxes gradually upward (instead they created the Department of Energy which has just been a drain on the economy). Many of the governments of Europe did start gradually increasing motor fuel taxes.

The result, in the U.S. (which currently has cheep motor fuel, but by no means the least expensive, the last list I saw had us around number 30 of 90 countries listed) has been disastrous. The result of increased taxes in Europe has been a tendency toward smaller cars, better public transit, less concentrated retail, more bicycles, and reasonably stable import levels for motor fuel. The result of the U.S. lack of coherent energy policy is a tendency toward bigger cars, no public transit, more concentrated retail (that no one can walk to), fundamentally a non-existent rail-freight system, and imports of motor fuels in excess of 70% of demand.

The artificial price of fuel in Europe has done some really good things. The market price in the U.S. has led us to some pretty dumb decisions. But, the price of fuel in the U.S. does reflect the environmental mitigation that has been required.

David

 

[moltenmetal]

David is quite correct that there are some regulations that force people to do stuff and to spend some money to reduce the impact of their fossil fuel emissions. But the harm done by the emissions that remain is paid for by others, and not in proportion to how much fossil fuel they use.

The atmospheric disposal "tipping charge" in the purchase price of the fuel itself is ZERO. That's true whether or not you believe that CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion are harmful.

Atmospheric emissions are pretty much the only way you can dispose of a waste for free- legally anyway.

And the atmospheric emissions are not the only indirect cost that fossil fuels generate.

Very few renewable technologies and even fewer efficiency/conservation technologies can compete on that playing field. So instead you get market distortions in the form of subsidy, and idiotic governments betting on technology winners and losers. That system is doomed to failure, taking both a lot of our money and a lot of private "sucker" money with it- all of it subsidizing consumption.

Burden the fuels themselves with the entirety of these external costs- even a risk cost for the PROBABILITY of harm due to CO2 emissions- and all of a sudden all sorts of renewables- and more important, all sorts of conservation technologies- become economically sensible.

 

[csd72]

An interesting article that backs up some of the things I said above:

http://www.thehcf.org/emaila5.html

 

[KENAT]

csd, as to your point on the focus...

There are various factors at play, I believe the fuels are slightly different blends in US v UK. Also, emissions standards for many pollutants are actually higher in the US (especially the CA rules) and so the cars are modified to meet them at the expense of simple 'mpg'.

I have to agree with Zdas on the oil tax issue. I even read an article a while back that some in the auto industry were even pushing for higher tax as it would help mitigate the big price swings in fuel that drive people toward SUV purchases one season, and hybrid purchases the next and back & forth so creating a more stable market. Or something like that.

In the US over the last 8 or so years the price of gas has increased by between 2-3 times - and gone up and down between them a bunch (Data point - when I was first out here in CA 2002-2003 gas was a little over $1.50 most of the time when I bought it, currently it's somewhere around $3.75 though it has been close to $5 at times and I've seen over in remote locations etc.). While prices in the UK have gone up, I doubt the total increase is much more than 50% but I'm sure someone can correct me. This is because the price of the oil is a much smaller percentage of the total price at the pump, so fluctuations in oil price have less impact.

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