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Alternative energy can power the world in 20-40 years
- mrleinad 16y agoGuess The Venus Project is not so far fetched as it seems: http://www.thevenusproject.com/ http://www.thevenusproject.com/ But.. do we have the will and determination to dodge our own demise?
- Isamu 16y agoLinks to the actual papers (PDF): Part 1: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnP... Part 2: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnPolicyPt2.pdf http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnP...
- gaius 16y agoI guess in California it's easy to say "we can use solar". But I look outside my window here in London and it's overcast and hazy. I don't recall it was windy either when I went out for a sandwich.
- sgift 16y agoThe north sea is windy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Array http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Array
- sethg 16y agoIIRC one of the options presented in “Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air” paper (http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/) was setting up an array of solar panels in North Africa and selling the generated power to Britain.
- ajscherer 16y agoWell I guess that pretty much settles it then. It's not windy or sunny today in London so renewable energy is surely a pipe dream.
- stcredzero 16y agoThermomax evacuated tubes (developed in England) can get your bathwater and washing-input water nice and toasty, saving tons of carbon. They can even do this in the middle of an English winter. The trick is to use this as a water pre-heat. This way, you have complete control and reliability of your hot water, but you get the benefits of the sun's free energy input.
- PaulHoule 16y agoUgh. You can pave the Earth with solar panels and wind farms or you can save the Earth with nuclear energy. Intermittent renewables aren't a complete solution to our energy needs because they aren't available when we need them. They either need to be supplemented with fossil fuels or we'd need to build an energy storage system that would cost as much, if not more, than the energy production system.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoI'm also not enamored with the idea of planes flying around with tanks of liquid hydrogen. From what the article says, it seems that the paper hasn't considered very much of the follow-on effects.
- stcredzero 16y agoIt's not as if planes flying around with tanks of jet fuel are much better. I've read many folks' comments that hydrogen is better, since it tends to float up, out of the way of everything heavier than air.
- stcredzero 16y agoIntermittent renewables aren't a complete solution to our energy needs because they aren't available when we need them. In a lot of places in the world, solar energy is more available generally when it's most needed. That said, I'm all for non-intermittent renewables. Newer geothermal and tide-energy and wave-energy technologies could fit the bill. We could also develop infrastructure that would allow us to lob bulk cargoes cheaply into orbit, which would bypass the unfavorable economics of the rocket equation and enable orbital solar power. I'm also for saving the earth with newer nuclear technology. (Thorium wouldn't carry the proliferation risk of current breeder reactors.)
- PaulHoule 16y agoA modern FBR that uses commercial plutonium as a starting fuel and with no external blanket could breed with a ratio around 1.0 and, at all points in the fuel cycle, have the Pu be so contaminated with Pu-238, Pu-240 and Pu-241 that weapons use would be impossible. In fact, sodium cooled cartridge reactors are considered so proliferation resistant that they could be deployed to places where they could fall into enemy hands. Not only is the material inside not usable for weapons, but people trying to get the fuel out would probably be killed by a sodium fire. Now there's another risk that a government could use FBR technology to construct a system for creating weapons plutonium. For instance, a country like Iran could use an improved version of the EBR-II with integral reprocessing to produce 'supergrade' plutonium. On the other hand, any country that wants weapon grade plutonium can build a graphite or heavy water and use the well-understood PUREX process. It's too early to compare the proliferation risk of a thorium vs plutonium cycle. Solid fuel thorium systems are highly resistant, but liquid fuel systems are too immature to characterize. If a highly effective system of protactinium removal were perfected, it might be possible to extract weapons grade U-233 from a liquid fuel reactor. Another problem with liquid fueled reactors is that it isn't easy to verify the fuel cycle. In a solid fuel cycle, every fuel element has a serial number, and a random sample of them can be occasionally looked up to make sure that none have disappeared... Diversion outside of the reprocessing center can be easily detected with only intermittent surveillance. With liquid fuel systems, it's impossible to know exactly how much fissionable material was made and where it ended up.
- stcredzero 16y agoVehicles, ships and trains would be powered by electricity and hydrogen fuel cells. Aircraft would run on liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen carries a lot of energy for its weight. Unfortunately, it's not all that compact. I've seen comments online that even liquid hydrogen doesn't so much fall as floats downward. Still, for all that, I can see ships and trains, maybe even busses, using hydrogen. As you increase the size of a vehicle, the internal space increases by the third power, so space is not such an issue for large vehicles. A good interim step would be for the US to go to natural gas for vehicular energy. We have a lot of it. It would be more efficient, and it would help decrease the importance of petroleum in our industrial infrastructure.
- zeteo 16y ago"If someone told you there was a way you could [do amazing things at a cost comparable to the Moon landings], why wouldn't you do it?" Because such large and complex projects are bound to seriously overrun initial budget and time estimates, and sometimes fail altogether. I'm always suspicious when big and fancy promises are made, if only we're willing to pay an arm and a leg. Tell you what: pick the bluest of the blue states, where the political will definitely exists, and implement all this stuff there. (You did say it could be done with today's technology, and only political will was needed?) Then we'll talk about the world.
- chopsueyar 16y agoThis is one of the best ideas I have ever read.
- schwabacher 16y agoI don't think this is a bad idea, and would vote for this to happen in my state. The problem is that if only one state does this at significant expense, they won't see any appreciable benefit because the rest of the states and the rest of the world would still be emitting CO2. So one state has huge expenses with an unlikely payback, AND they won't benefit from the economies of scale that everyone else will if they do get around to converting. It's a hard sell. I think the best way to look at it is that non renewable energy does has huge hidden costs to society. Converting to renewables is the rational action, so if we use a cap or a carbon tax to price non renewables appropriately the price of each will reflect that. *edited for typos
- anamax 16y ago> AND they won't benefit from the economies of scale that everyone else will Most of the "economies of scale" happen at a fairly modest level. In fact, there are actually diseconomies at extreme scale. (The US Govt is a nice example.) > The problem is that if only one state does this at significant expense, they won't see any appreciable benefit The claim was that the expense wasn't significant, that it was mostly just "will". > if we use a cap or a carbon tax to price non renewables appropriately And what makes you think that the price will be "appropriate"? The arguments for carbon taxes and the like are comparing an abstract ideal with what we got through the political process. That's a meaningless comparison because that processh pretty much guarantees that the nice properties of the ideal won't be realized if we try to implement it. When a proposal contains basic errors like those mentioned above, what are the odds that the rest of it is sound?
- grammaton 16y agoYet another iteration of the soundly discredited "hydrogen economy" model. I'm really surprised this came out of Stanford, of all places. >They found that even materials such as platinum and the rare earth metals, the most obvious potential supply bottlenecks, are available in sufficient amounts. And >recycling could effectively extend the supply. >For solar cells there are different materials, but there are so many choices that if one becomes short, you can switch," Cornucopian hand waving. It reminds me of Julian Simon and his assertion that if we ever run out of Copper, we'll find a way to just make it or substitute something else for it. I'm really, really curious how they came up with their numbers on that. I'm also very interested to see if they accounted for the quantum limitations on solar cell efficiency. I think i'm going to have to actually read the paper.
- philthy 16y agoarizona should be paved over as a massive photovoltaic lot. you don't need to live there anyway you won't have water soon. as for questions of putting that energy into the grid, we already do it, just because energy is locally produced doesn't mean it is locally consumed.
- alabut 16y agoThat's along the lines of one of the bigger proposals I've seen - to cover large inhospitable and hot places like the Sahara. It doesn't have to be with expensive photovoltaic panels, you can take Spain's route and use the mirrors-heating-molten-salt technology instead.
- stcredzero 16y agoTechnology for super-efficient thermal insulation is literally centuries old now. Just what are the barriers to solar-thermal with storage?
- Gogmagog 16y agoYou need water to run a Photovoltaic farm. Mirrors or Solar panels, you need to keep them clean. The efficiency of both degrades with dust, which is not in short supply in the desert. While not technically necessary in the immediate process of power generation, as a practical mater, access to water is required for all power generation except wind.
- chopsueyar 16y agoEMPs?
- chopsueyar 16y agoHow viable are algae-based biofuels?
- samatman 16y agoNot bad, but far from a whole solution. Background: used to work for one of the raceway-pond based companies trying to commercialize this technology. The current frontrunner, IMHO, is NASA's Algae Omega project, to grow freshwater algae on sewage in membrane bags in the ocean. But there are serious problems. The one that isn't likely to be solved is the photosynthetic limit: plants just aren't very efficient at turning solar heat into chemical work. Yes, we will have more algae biofuels over time. No, this will not replace petroleum singlehandedly.
- chopsueyar 16y agoWhat kind of yields can you get from the raceway method?
- ScotterC 16y agohttp://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/wws-2030-critique/ http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/wws-2030-critique/ http://energyfromthorium.com/2008/12/11/a-review-of-mark-z-jacobsons-review/ http://energyfromthorium.com/2008/12/11/a-review-of-mark-z-j... http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2009/11/food-for-critical-thinking-in-light-of.html http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2009/11/food-for-critical...
- ajays 16y agoThis reminds me of the quote, "In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the five year period will begin." Yeah, we'll be totally on alternative energy in 20 years. It's just that we don't know when this "20 years" will begin...
- ivankirigin 16y agoI highly recommend watching this Saul Griffith talk, "Climate Change Recalculated" http://fora.tv/2009/01/16/Saul_Griffith_Climate_Change_Recalculated http://fora.tv/2009/01/16/Saul_Griffith_Climate_Change_Recal...
- innes 16y agoHaving read Prof Mackay's e-book[1] on the subject, I am massively, massively unconvinced by that article. [1] http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/
- wil2k 16y agoIt's simply time to think very much outside of the box and separate the wheat from the chaff in a truly scientific and unbiased way.. Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, also known as Cold Fusion: http://www.lenr-canr.org/ http://www.lenr-canr.org/ "Finding and facilitating breakthrough clean energy technologies." http://peswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page http://peswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page "In a July 9, 1998 keynote address at the Fifth International Conference on Composites Engineering in Las Vegas, Dr. Deborah D. L. Chung, professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University at Buffalo (UB), reported that she had observed apparent negative resistance in interfaces between layers of carbon fibers in a composite material. Professor Chung holds the Niagara Mohawk Chair in Materials Research at UB and is internationally recognized for her work in smart materials and carbon composites. The apparent negative resistance was observed in a direction perpendicular to the fiber layers. " http://www.energyfromthevacuum.com/Disc3.htm http://www.energyfromthevacuum.com/Disc3.htm "The reflexive response from mainstream science about the possibility of producing free energy from the vacuum is that it is not possible as this would violate the second law of thermodynamics. Over the last 20 years the absolute status of the second law has come under increased scrutiny, more than during any other period in its 180-year history. Since the early 1980's, roughly 50 papers representing over 20 challenges have appeared in the refereed scientific literature." http://www.energyfromthevacuum.com/Disc8/index.html http://www.energyfromthevacuum.com/Disc8/index.html Time to go back to the ORIGINAL work by Maxwell and dive into the quaternion notations and not follow the crippled rewritten version by Heaviside.