Alternative energy sources - why the hell not?

Great Debates
1

Reason magazine, one of the few magazines with viewpoints I regularly agree with, once made the cheerful announcement that “We’re not running out of oil! The world’s oil supply will last 80 years at current consumption rates!” This struck me as a rather strange thing to be happy out…the human race is still going to be around after that time, right? So what powers our cars and furnaces and electric generators then?

I mention this because of a recent school project which got me thinking about renewable energy sources. I continue to be amazed at how little they’re being used, especially in America. Even worse, while no one seems to have a problem with massive air pollution (the inevitable result of coal- or oil-powered plants, to say nothing of vehicles), just about any renewable energy source has apoplectic critics who can find a bazillion things wrong with it.

And I don’t get it at all. Here’s the rundown:

Nuclear: Few things more maligned from just about everyone on the sociopolitical spectrum. The thing is, all of the supposedly horrible problems seem quite managable to me. Nuclear waste? Seal it off and put it in an out-of-the-way restricted area; there’s plenty of land for that in the US of A. Meltdowns? The newer plants have safeguards to prevent them from ever happening. Radiation? The safeguards are all in place; hire workers who don’t do stupid things like take the suits home and there won’t be any problems. Cost? Nuclear energy is one of the most efficient forms of energy around; just let the plant run without endless lawsuits and protests and terrorist attacks and it’ll easily be worth the cost.

Solar: The rap, from what I’ve heard, is 1) Sunlight isn’t always available, 2) it’s inefficient, 3) the components cost an ungodly enormous amount of money, and 4) you have to replace the parts often, and this costs an ungodly enormous amount of money. Other than 1 (and this does limit the effectiveness of solar), I say humbug. We had a solar water heater installed in our home more than 20 years ago, it’s always worked fine, and we never had to fix or replace ANYTHING. And inefficiency? For crying out loud, sunlight is free, so what’s the problem? Hey, our space program has made pretty extensive use of solar-powered satellites, so you cannot tell me that this is completely hopeless technology.

Wind: Similar refrain to solar. “It’s too expensive.” “It’s inefficient.” “We never had a say in this, the damn environmentalists forced these useless hunks of junk” etc. etc. You’d think an energy source that the human race has harnessed for millennia would be better received.

Geothermal: I barely hear this discussed at all. Why not use the earth’s heat (which will last far longer than 80 years) as an energy source. “But it’s only practical use is near volcanic activity!” So build the plants near volcanic activity. There’s hardly a shortage of that on the big island (named “Hawaii”, same as the state, which is why we call it “the big island”). No one seems to have a problem with building hydroelectric plants “only” on rivers.

So what? Is our only option to use nothing but oil and coal for the great majority of our energy needs until we run out?

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I can’t remember this ever been discussed before. I need time to think about it.

3

I agree with you that our reliance on oil has to end soon.

The biggest problem is simply that our world is currently built around oil. Powering cities is a lot different than powering individual houses. A single windmill can do a good job powering a single mill, but vast wind farms have a habit of slicing up birds and getting all gummed up with bug parts. A solar water heater may do okay, but where are you going to put all the panels you’d need to power the millions of water heaters in San Francisco? Geothermal is a neat trick, but it is so costly to implement that it isn’t really viable. All of these work well on a small scale, but on a large scale their benefits kind of peter out.

I don’t know the answer. My personal solution is to simply use less power. I take the bus or train when I can. I turn out the lights and go easy on the climate control. Of course, that all is because i can’t afford energy and gas bills! But the answer to the world’s power needs are a little harder to find.

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First off, as I have posted ad nauseum, make certain that you know that overall, oil is not used to any real extent to provide electric power in the US.

OK, you are using some serious hyperbole here. “No one” seems to have a problem with “massive” air pollution??? The fact that the environmental compliance side of my one little company gets $1 billion a year in business tells me otherwise. And the thousands of environmental regulations.

And oil does not supply hardly any energy in the US for electrical generation! In fact, the fact that you say this tells me that perhaps you need to do some basic research that you have not done at all.

From a previous post of mine

Continuing.

In general I agree with your points on nuclear.

This is a far greater handicap than you are making it. Storage of energy and distribution of energy over the load-demand curve of the day is a serious problem with solar. It doesn’t throw it out by any extent, and solar is often there full-capacity during peak energy demand times of the Summer. But this is a large problme.

And a sample size of one is worth absolutely nothing. What research have you done, like sailor has, to show the average levelized breakeven cost, or the cumulative present worth of a solar addition? Or have you done any research into the average O&M cost of a solar setup?

I strongly urge you to use the search engine, and search for solar topics in GQ and include the Username “sailor” in the search.

Using the sunlight is not free. Shit, for that matter “Coal is free” and “natural gas is free”, until you have to try to use them for energy. And satelites use solar for three primary reasons - first, because people don’t want to keep sending radionucleides up in booster rockets. Second, the energy available to solar panels in orbit (outside of the atmosphere) is much greater than that available on the ground. And third, because there aren’t too many other options.

I’m unsure of what you are saying - are you saying that subjectively, because we have used the wind for ships, pumping water, and grinding corn that it is an ideal source of energy? It has many advantages, but it is another complicated issue.

Look at a map and note where the rivers run, and where easy geothermal access lies. There are many, many more options for locating hydro plants than geothermal ones. And transmission and distribution issues prevent us from locating plants in one location. Look at a map of how power plants are sited throughout the US - I have a huge map on my wall of all the coal plants in the US - they evenly dot the country for the most part. Why, when they could just locate all the plants at the minemouth? Because of T&D issues.

You need to see a bit more about learning about some of the key issues first. Try starting with an outline, listing pros and cons.

I see my friend sailor has already replied. And his point is good - try searching a bit, and you will find the detailed answers (or at least talking points) to all your questions here.

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The problem is, neither solar nor wind power are free. They use a godawful large amount of land. Same with biomass. If you relied primarily on these renewable energy sources, you’d be relegating an enormous proportion of the earth’s surface to energy production - and this is something environmentalists shouldn’t want either.

IMO - Go nukes.

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In your original post, you state that you are “amazed” at how little “alternative” sources are being used.

Besides the other minor errors Anthracite points out, your post strikes me as you’re equating “low usage” with “not being researched or developed at all”.

I believe that to be in error: I’m all but certain- not being privy to, say, GM’s R&D departments- that a great many ‘alternative’ sources are in all but full-scale research and/or development.

As far as oil is concerned, as an automotive fuel, it’s both well-suited for the task, and benefits from long-ingrained and developed infrastructure.

IE, it’s lighter than batteries and more powerful per pound as well, it’s far easier to store than hydrogen, easier to transfer than propane or natural gas, etc.

And there’s a gas station on every streetcorner. Even natural-gas and propane vehicles, in regular use and development for decades, must carefully plan any long trip outside a metropolitan area, since supplies of both gasses- in an automotive-fuel application- are nowhere near as plentiful as gasoline.

Tank runs dry? You can fill it with gasoline and be on your way in minutes. Even the latest electric-vehicle technology still takes an hour or better to “refill” the batteries. And again, there aren’t very many charging stations around, and after a while people will stop letting EV drivers just plug in anywhere.

And one of my favorites: California ain’t like the Rest of the World.

I live in Alaska. For six months of the year, temperatures average below freezing at best, and well below zero at worst. A typical EV battery can lose some 60% of it’s power in weather that cold, cutting “mileage” to well below that of a sixties’ gas-guzzler. Worse, when you figure that the driver will be using up a great deal of that remaining power just getting the interior warm and defrosting the windows.

Propane and natural gas are actually well-suited for the cold, being that they vaporize easily, have low pollutant levels and high octane levels. I see the occasional LNG or propane car, but not many. Cost vs. benefit has dropped with increasing propane prices, steady gas prices (in the long term anyway) and steadily increasing efficiency and longevity from modern cars.

And until an electric vehicle is perfected, gets more than about 90 miles per “tankful”, and can be fully recharged in less than ten or fifteen minutes, no “renewable” source you mention- wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and for that matter even coal or nuclear- can even begin to replace petroleum.

In fact, being something of a car nut, I can state with reasonable certainty, that unless an electric vehicle can get at least 150 miles on average (not a “theoretical maximum”) including normal heater or AC usage, radio/stereo usage and headlight/marker light/daytime running light usage, can be recharged in under… well, even two hours is pushing it… cost less than $20,000, and be recharged from any regular outlet (not a large, specialized 440-volt/3-phase computerized high-frequency power supply) then it’ll never catch on no matter how cool it looks or how impressive it’s performance.

As for the rest, such as solar heating… well, strange as it may seem, the areas where solar heating works best are among the ones where it’s needed the least.

Take me for example- the the middle of winter, it’s dark from 5 PM to 9 AM. The sun often barely rises above the mountains or treeline. I could sure use a little extra heat, but there’s none to be had.

Sure, your system works great in SoCal or Florida or Georgia. But those are all places where I personally almost never NEED heat. :smiley:

Geothermal? Much of Alaska is volcanic, what with being part of the Ring Of Fire and all, but how deep does one have to drill? We have a lot of very deep oil wells, and I don’t know of a single site that uses geothermal heat up here. I believe there’s some exploration occuring however. Perhaps there’s other facets to the resource we don’t yet understand.

Hydroelectric? We have a couple up here… which have to cope with freezing temperatures, ice buildup, ice damage to the dam itself (you’re familiar with the concept of a “glacier” and it’s ability to turn a mountain into a valley?) and widely varying water levels due to early or late thaws, heavy or light snowfall seasons, heavy or light rainfall seasons, and other factors.

Wind? Well, this’ll surprise you: Many very remote villages have begun to install windmills to harness the near-constant winds blowing over the tundra, to reduce both the consumption and the need for the diesel-fired generators.

I had some other points, but I’ve wandered from what I had in mind. :smiley:

7

even sven wrote:

Why, on top of the millions of rooftops in San Francisco, of course.

8

Doc Nickel - I live in Hawaii, a state which depends on oil for 88% of its total energy needs, this despite easy access to geothermal heat and good if unpredictable weather for most of the year. Somehow, I do not see anything good about this. Of course, I can understand how the situation is different in Alaska.

all else - As always, thanks for the good responses. This is a contentious issue and I’m not pretending that there are any easy answers.

Nonetheless, I still think it’s incumbent upon everyone who uses nonrenewable sources (which would include nearly everyone on the planet) to at least use them wisely and make some effort at conservation. I, for example, walk to a lot of places that I could drive to and do my best to avoid rush hour traffic. I’m already looking into a hybrid gasoline/electric car. If I have to use oil, I figure I can at least get the most out of what I use.

9

Sigh.

DKW You missed one. You missed my favorite one.

Methane: We make it in landfills and burn it off. (You have to get rid of it somehow, as it is heavy and displaces air at ground level, as well as being pretty flammable) At a few test sites, some landfills have added a few filters to clean the gas up a bit, dry it out a tad, and then burn it, using the burn off to run a turbine. Yea! Electricity! From garbage!

Its not a complete system. It probably can’t support all of our energy needs. However, rather than spending energy to get rid of a ‘waste gas’ we can get electricity off of it. Its a good deal.

Now if people just knew about it and tried to get it in place…

And therein lies what I think of as the largest problem. People are very comfy with the way things are. We have spent a long time improving the current system and it works very well. Alternatives are not only new (Gasp! change!) but they are not ‘as good’ as what we have. No clamoring for change, no 17 million children dying a year, no change!

And what others have said. Too many ‘natural’ sources (hydro, wind, sun) are too dependant on changing circumstance. People don’t like being dependant on cell phone towers, much less clouds, wind, and seasonal water levels. Infrastructure for alternative car fill-ups is lacking and diffcult to use. People don’t like waiting for their latte-skim-no foam, much less adding energy to their car, making battery re-charging annoying for long trips.

Infrustructure won’t happen until masses of people scream for it. Which won’t happen until masses of people ‘need’ the services. Which won’t happen until masses of people ditch gasoline as a car running material.

Now, go tell all your friends to get their local landfill to build a turbine. M’kay?

10

Una, is this true??? If so, it sounds like most of the petroleum electric plants in the US are in Hawaii.

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I say go nuclear. It’s the cleanest thing we got, and it’s much more effecient. Most other developed countries have nuclear plants as their main source of energy production. And nuclear power will only get better, once we figure out how to use fusion.

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I don’t believe the nuclear waste issue is quite as easy and clear-cut as the OP seems to think. For one thing, it’s still a HUGE political white elephant (is that the right animal term for a large burden you want to avoid?). Look at what’s happening in Nevada. What Senator would risk his political career telling his constituents, “Hey, you really wouldn’t mind housing incredibly toxic nuclear waste for a few centuries, would you?”

I mean, no matter how safely the government or companies say they’re sealing away the waste, who really likes the idea of having it buried in your backyard? And considering how much large companies put people at risk by cutting corners to save a few bucks, I think it’s at least somewhat a concern. After all, with the right lawyers and courtroom strategy, it might be possible that the cost of fighting lawsuits could even be cheaper than the cost of complying with safety regulations…

Secondly, from what I understand, the amount of waste can add up pretty quickly. We’re already having trouble finding places to put conventional garbage in some areas. Add that to the NIMBY thing above, and you’ve got a real problem on your hands. And remember, this is completely separate from the actual safety concerns. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, not to mention popular perception (not entirely undeserved) that large corporations would happily poison the environment to save/make money, has given nuclear power a big black eye that’ll take a while to remove, and until it is, I don’t see how nuclear is going to be implemented on a wide scale anytime soon.

13

I am amazed that we have yet to see any responses blaming “Big Oil” for keeping down all of these technologies by buying out the government. Those big corporations are just so evil!

14

Salt caverns are the most geologically stable places and so would be the most logical places for nuclear waste storage.

There have been large wind farms in California for at least 20 years. They have been appearing in Wyoming lately. There are two within 50 miles of me, and a third is in the planning stage. The power they produce is being sold to Colorado.

I don’t believe wind turbines are a threat to birds. The blades don’t move that fast.

15

They can get moving pretty fast, and the faster they go the less visible they are to birds. Birds end up getting butchered.

More worrisom than that is bugs. For a long time people could not figure out why the turbines on a certain Northern California wind farm did not put out as much energy as projected. It turns out that they are gummed up with the icky carcasses of literally millions of bugs.

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> And oil does not supply hardly any energy in the US for
> electrical generation!

This is not really true. Oil is used extensivly, but its role is hidden. For example, it is used to mine and transport coal from its source to the power plant. It is also used extensivly in the construction of power plants.

The original Reason article is flawed in an important way - you don’t mine oil at a constant rate until it is all gone. Instead, you mine more and more until you reach a peak, and then you mine less and less as time goes on, in a bell curve shape (the “Hubbert Curve”). We are close to the peak of worldwide production - maybe 10 years. Most non-OPEC sources have already peaked (the continental US peaked in 1970, the North Sea peaked in the last few years). Once we reach that point oil will become more and more expensive forever.

The reason this is important is that no sources of power (except hydroelectric) gives you the rate of return oil does in terms of net energy (energy you get minus energy it took to get that in the first place). A good sized oil well produces as much power as a nuclear reactor. The one that recently sank off the coast of Brasil produced 10 times that amount of energy. No alternative power source is close to as good. Wind is about as good as high-quality coal in terms of net energy (both being about 1% as productive as oil). Solar is worse. Ethanol is a net energy loser.

17

It gets wierder than that, douglips, for the case of Hawaii - a State with no real coal resources, little natural gas, and no real hydro potential.

From the DOE Total Net Generation by State, from Jan through March, Hawaii is shown as having generated 1551 Million kWhr from all sources, of which (from this chart on the same site), 1547 Million kWhr were from Petroleum - or more than 99%. But Hawaii is a special case, for the reasons I mention above.

18

I would love to see a cite that compares the energy of oil used in power plant construction versus the energy produced by the power plant after construction. I am betting it’s on the order of about 1 : 10,000 or greater.

Later today I will find out just how much energy is used to transport and mine coal when I talk to my mining and my transportation engineers.

19

How much energy does a coal train take to operate, relative to what it carries?

There are several things to consider in doing this rough estimate, such as:

  1. How much energy does it take to move the train?
  2. How much energy is contained on the train?

First, let’s see how much energy it takes to move a train, in terms of fuel consumption – worst case, and average values. Year 2000 average numbers for Class 1 railroads give values of:

188 ton*miles per gallon for loaded unit trains, worst case (trans-Rocky Mountains), and
fuel consumption of the empty train on the return trip is 1/5.5 the loaded value.

Average values, from a different source, give a diesel fuel consumption of 589 Btu/tonmile for trains on Class 1 railroad lines (FTR, This data also gives the following fuel consumptions per tonmile of truck transport at 2349 Btu/tonmile, and ship transport at 539 Btu/tonmile).

How do we compare the two?

Loaded unit trains can range from efficiencies of 188 to as high as 720 revenue ton*miles per gallon, for short-haul distances on very flat runs and good Class 1 track. But we will assume 188 as a worst-case example.

A unit train consists of a continuous run of coal cars to be delivered to one plant. New aluminum-steel bottom unloading coal cars have a net loading of 117 tons of coal per car. A unit train will have from between 84 to 110 cars, depending on origin and track conditions along the route. In a trans-Rocky Mountain run, you can expect 84 cars to be more common.

Thus, we have 84 cars * 117 ton/car = 9828 ton/train.

Now, at 188 tonmiles per gallon, we get 9828 ton / 188 tonmiles/gallon = 52.27 gallon/mile. Assuming a one-way haul distance of 1800 miles maximum, we get:

1800 miles * 52.27 gallon/mile = 94,097 gallons of fuel for the trip, one-way.
The return trip requires 1/5.5 the fuel, so 94,097 gallons / 5.5 = 17,108 gallons

Total gallons for the delivery: 111,205 gallons.

Now, assume 140,000 Btu/gallon for diesel fuel to drive the train, and we get:

111,205 gallons * 140,000 Btu/gallon = 15,568.7 MBtu/trip

Now…what is an average figure?

Now…other data I have from 1987 says that the average one-way length of a coal delivery by train in the US was 490 miles. However, this predates the huge switch to PRB coal by US plants, and the average is probably closer to 1000 miles one-way.

If we take 589 Btu/ton*mile and apply it to our 1800 mile case above, we get instead:

1800 miles * 9828 tons * 589 Btu/tonmile = 10,419 MBtu out
1800 miles * 9828 tons * 589 Btu/tonmile / 5.5 = 1894 MBtu return.

Total, round-trip: 12,314 MBtu/trip

Now…if we assume also an average trip of 1000 miles, we get a new fuel consumption of (1000/1800)*12,314 MBtu = 6841 MBtu/trip.
The train carries 9828 tons of coal, which we will assume is low-quality PRB coal from Wyoming, at 8400 Btu/lbm. Thus, worst-case, the train carries:

9828 tons * 2000 lbm/ton * 8400 Btu/lbm = 165,110 MBtu/trip delivered energy.

So assuming the worst case assumptions possible, looking at a raw energy, we get 165,110 MBtu of coal delivered for 15,569 MBtu of diesel fuel.

A ratio of 10.6 : 1, worst case.

Taking an average case, we will assume that average coal deliveries have a heating value of about 11,000 Btu/lbm. Thus, we now get a coal train energy delivery of (11,000/8400)*165,110 MBtu = 216,215 MBtu/trip delivered energy.

Or a ratio of about 31.6 : 1

20

DKW

If you use sailors methodology in defining the cost to install and use solar and compare it to coal you must also include many other costs currently hidden.

Anthracite just broke down the cost to deliver a load of coal 1000 miles. Or did she? Currently BNSF runs coal trains through Burlington at the rate of one every half hour or so.That means that they use the tracks more than all other users combined.If you break down the maintainence alone,and believe me there are always crews replacing worn out track,Her numbers become pale I’m sure.

If you’ve been lurking here for a while following these discussions you will find that in sailors last attempt at slamming solar I posted some numbers indicating the federal governments role in subsidizing energy.The numbers are in the billions. Something ignored by the big energy companies in discussions like this one.

We’ll probably never win a battle with Anthracite since she works for the coal industry. Her job is to fight these kind of battles and she is damned good at it.

Until solar is funded like coal oil and natural gas the numbers will not show a significant benefit to using solar.

Solar is free.
We don’t have to explore to find it.
We don’t have to dig to get it.
We don’t have to drill to get it.
We don’t have to maintain rigs out on the ocean or in pristine places to get it.
We don’t have to build and maintain pipelines or railroads to distribute it.

Solar and the other alternate energy sources are a small chunk of the energy answer but worth the consideration.

Not only that but solar is 100% of the reason oil and coal exist.