Milestones and Trends in Renewable Energy

Sterling D. Allan writes "Some reflections and projections: The year 2005 saw large wind power installments come into a price range where they are now competitive with traditional grid prices. 2006 could see several solar designs do the same. Cold fusion was boosted with two, concurrent and independent sonofusion breakthroughs, though the stigma in the name is still deeply seated. 2006 could see floating wind turbines arrive on the commercial scene -- floating in the water like oil rigs, or floating high in the air, courtesy of helium. 2006 will see at least three companies offering after-market kits for adding Brown's gas (H and O from electrolysis, common ducted) to the air intake of vehicles for enhanced mileage and performance. Many other fuel economizing systems are slated to mature in the marketplace. Climate change evidence will continue to mount. It will yet be years before we harness lightning, but stable tornado systems prototypes that tap waste heat from power plants could arrive this coming year. Will 2006 be the year that clean energy becomes more the vogue than cool computer gadgets?"

Comments

Gadgets

[edgr]

Clean energy sources will become as cool as cool computer gadgets because they are themselves cool gagdets. I mean, come on, how cool is a wind generator floating in the air?

Yes.

[Zarhan]

Finland and France are constructing new nuclear power plants - first new ones in Western Europe for many years, and China and Russia are also going to nuclear (with 40 pebble-bed reactors coming to China in the coming decades).

So yes, we're finally starting to see some clean energy.

Re:Yes.

[Da Fokka]

Pebble bed reactors are inherently safer and make efficient use of nuclear fuel. And they can be a lot smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, which makes them more attractive for smaller scale use.

However, PBRs have a very large drawback. It is nearly impossible to extract useful material from the spent fuel pebbles. Manufacturing these pebbles is not a trivial process, by the way.

Personally, I'd like to see more development of integral fast reactors. They are not modular in design, but these plants are designed with the entire fuel cycle in mind and can burn up nuclear fuel so efficiently that the waste degrades to background radiation in just 300 years.

Re:Yes.

[Yvanhoe]

And yet, strangely, in France and Germany, ecologists want to revert to coal plants to prevent nuclear pollution.

Re:Yes.

[pfdietz]

It is nearly impossible to extract useful material from the spent fuel pebbles.

It's also impractical to extract useful materials from spent fuel rods of conventional reactors, unless you're running a weapons program and don't care about the cost. Pu from commercial reprocessed fuel is expensive to separate, and it has a negative value once you've separated it -- the extra hassle of designing your fuel fabrication plant to be able to handle Pu (which is much more radioactive than enriched uranium) dwarfs the cost of the uranium you save.

If you're concerned about uranium running out, the incremental approach will be to go to cycles with higher burnup and fuel efficiency. CANDU reactors are like this, particularly if used with thorium-uranium fuel elements.

Re:Yes.

[natmakarvitch]

"Chernobyl killed about 3000 people" is an awful lie. The figure coined by a 'conclusion' published by the IAEA (a pro-nuke agency) is 4000, and is completely ridiculous because it:

• does not precisely define the population concerned (by those 4000 deaths). The official conclusion is "premature deaths of around 4000 people from the 600 000 affected by the higher radiation doses", but "higher radiation doses" and the 600000 group composition, are not defined. The group may only have nearly not-exposed people!
• this is not a scientific work, even if it is presented as such because nobody signed this conclusion. The WHO guys (Dr Repacholi), in charge of the pertinent study, even said that this "conclusion" was made by PR people... Read about it in Nuclear News (which is NOT a frenzy anti-nuke paper but a verious serious pro-nuke publication)
• this conclusion was 'drawn' from a report which only exists in draft stage and was not scientifically published. No peer review... no scientific value
• this conclusion is not expressed in the drafts reports
• the conclusion is presented as global, albeit the reports only covers 3 countries
• the 'health' report only studies cancers and leukemias, but many other problems arise (mutagen, teratogenesis...)
• the 'health' report states major limits for his model and data:
  • radio-induced cancers appear at last 10 years after exposition, and on average after 20 years... but the data used were collected between 1992-1998 (less than 12 years after the accident)
  • bad data quality (as already stated in 1995 in a real ONU report)
  • the model used is far from perfect
• low radiations were neglected albeit many experts think that they are dangerous, especially over long period and/or when ingested
• a model used came from observations done in another context (Hiroshima and Nagasaki: brief major and external exposition, instead of the "long, minor and often internal" after Chernobyl)

Here is a critic of those "conclusions" (French).

no mention of bio-diesel

[User 956]

They didn't mention bio-diesel that I could see. Though I have to admit, that's not really a technology I'm rooting for. I'm not sure if I could stomach a $50,000 mercedes that smells like french fries.

Until It Hurts

[ehaggis]

Until it hurts, U.S. consumers will not switch anything. The market will drive change. Gas prices are currently inconvenient but it is not something that keeps people from getting to work. When prices are prohibitive, maybe we will see changes.

U.S. citizens must also get out of the "grid" mentality. Electricty on site, not relying on the grid is a shifting in thinking for most. Lori Ryker addresses this in her book, "Off the Grid"

Re:Until It Hurts

[Toby The Economist]

The problem is that the deadly cost of using oil and gas is globally distributed.

It is one of the roles of the State to ensure the people who ought to bear a cost *do* bear a cost.

In this case, carbon taxes would be the solution.

However, this requires willpower on the part of the State.

When this is lacking, the people who ought to bear a cost do not and as such the fuel they are using is cheaper than it ought to be and so has a competitive advantage in the market.

Re:Until It Hurts

[syphax]

I think markets are good things, but I remember learning about external costs and market failure in like week 3 of microeconomics class.

Energy markets have HUGE externalities (national security, environmental impacts, etc.), so government involvement is actually necessary to achieve the 'right' solutions. Of course, that leads to the topic of governments' track record at successfully correcting externalities and market failure...

Re:Until It Hurts

[swillden]

The market is good at eventually seeking the best answers, however the market cannot handle very large shocks very quickly

Luckily, the oil is not going to disappear overnight. Even as we approach the end of the available reserves, the flow of oil will just slow, not stop. Long before that, as the easy-to-reach oil reserves are depleted, the price will rise as the needed oil is drawn from less and less accessible sources. At some point extracting oil from shale and tar sands will become cost-effective.

As the price gradually rises, more and more alternatives to oil will become cost-effective. As use of alternative sources increases, the investment into them will improve their efficiency, through process improvements and through mass production, making them even better competitors.

the problem is, oil is so ingrained in our current economy it's going to take the market a long while to find adequate substitutes for all its uses without an outside shove.

The transition from oil to other energy sources will occur naturally, through normal market forces, and without any extreme shocks. No "outside shove" is required to make the energy source transition. That said, I think there is value in governmental influence pushing toward cleaner energy sources, since market forces won't naturally push us in that direction. I think "pollution taxes" (or pollution credits, which are similar) are a good idea as they can both bring market forces to bear on keeping the environment clean and can also provide funding for alternative energy research.

Question for all greens

[sparks]

Let's assume that wind, wave, solar, and even cold fusion will be able to provide all our energy needs - in fifty year's time. (I personally don't think that will be the case, but - hey.)

How should we generate electricity until that happens? Let's assume that energy demand will not decline any time soon, but rather will continue to rise.

Coal?
Oil?
Natural gas?
Nuclear?

Which of these is the least-worst to you?

Re:Question for all greens

[Claire-plus-plus]

Oil won't last, cheap enough to use for power generation, for 50 years.

Coal is too damed poluting

Nuclear is not that easy to set up and then switch off again, that is... the nuclear waste will always be there and after switching off the reactor it will stay hot for years.

If I had to use one of the current technologies that provides most of our power (by no means all, Aussieland has quite a bit of wind power and solar these days) I would use natural gas, there's more of it than there is oil and it burns cleaner than coal.

Oh and by the way, I think if we can't find renewable power in 50 years we are screwed. Saying "I don't think that will be the case" won't help.

Climate Change

[Kohath]

Climate change evidence will continue to mount.

Yes. In fact, depending on where you are today, it's colder or warmer, wetter or dryer, brighter or darker, calmer or stormier than normal. Some places are even foggy. It's all evidence of climate change.

What else could it be? Can we afford to wait to find out?

Stop commerce now. Before the weather gets any less precisely normal.

Re:Climate Change

[LarsWestergren]

You are describing weather, and weather changes, correct. But when you measure weather over time, you get a climate average, and that average is shifting:

CBS: "The year 2005, the World Wildlife Fund said, is shaping up as the worst for extreme weather, with the hottest temperatures, most Arctic melting, worst Atlantic hurricane season and warmest Caribbean waters.

It's also been the driest year in decades in the Amazon, where a drought may surpass anything in the past century, said the report by international environmental group. "

BBC: "The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk for a fourth consecutive year, according to new data released by US scientists.

They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century.

The Arctic climate varies naturally, but the researchers conclude that human-induced global warming is at least partially responsible. "

Not this year

[dheltzel]

Will 2006 be the year that clean energy becomes more the vogue than cool computer gadgets?"

No, no, no!
2006 will be the year that Linux takes over the desktop, 2007 will be the year that Duke Nukem Forever is released and 2008 will be the year that clean energy comes into vogue!

Also, I think somewhere in there they discover the cure to the common cold, but that part of my crystal ball is still a bit fuzzy (probably due to that cheap antenna from Walmart).

Oil became expensive, not wind became cheaper

[Toby The Economist]

> The year 2005 saw large wind power installments come into a price range where they
> are now competitive with traditional grid prices.

Incorrect.

The year 2005 saw oil come into a price range where it competes with wind.

Wind Farms

[iBod]

Beats me why so many people seem to keen to build wind farms.

Surely, there is too much wind in the world already (witness recent events) and farming more of the damn stuff seems like utter lunacy to me.

Anyhow, couldn't we just import some foreign wind from some windy place?

More about integral fast reactors

[Flying pig]

You don't mention the biggest benefit - the ability to use the spent fuel from the slow neutron reactors currently in use, with reprocessing. They are actually part of the solution to the mounds of nuclear waste we already have.

There is only one thing worries me about modern nuclear plants, and that is the access to cooling water. If you plan on using rivers or lakes, you need to be pretty sure that global warming will not dry them up.

Much as I like relatively low overhead technologies like wind, solar, bio-Diesel and bio-ethanol, I have to admit that I'm a convert to the idea of fast neutron sodium-cooled non-breeder plants. They even seem to be relatively terrorist-proof. And they would provide some well paid tech jobs that are not just in moving bits around.

Re:A few grains of skepticism

[ThosLives]

You don't just need better technology to produce (more) power in a "clean" way. You also need better technology and awareness to consume less power. I'm proud of the fact that I only used an average of 3 kW-hr per day for the period between Nov and Dec of last year (That amounts to an average of only 125 W for the entire day). I'm not sure exactly what my transportation consumption was, especially because I'm travelling a lot because of work, but my "domestic" energy consumption has dropped quite a bit.

Generally speaking, consuming less requires no technology or additional cost. Sometimes it might cost something intangible, such as moving closer to work (think about it - if everyone who commuted 30 miles one way was willing to move to only commute 20 miles one way, or, if possible, 10 miles, the aggregate reduction in transportation energy consumption would be quite large).

The problem is the "consume less" mentality is not very popular, and, unfortunately, not a problem which is readily solvable through technological means. While more efficient devices are better, what typically happens is people just get more devices and use as much if not more resources than with the "less efficient" technologies. Ah, the wonderful ironies of life...

Re:why?

[pfdietz]

Why would it be a "disaster"? Really, expound on this a bit. All the proposed methods and techniques and crops are "wrong"?

Because it would cause very large areas to be replaced with unnatural monocultures instead of natural ecosystems. The underlying cause is the great inefficiency of photosynthetic energy conversion.

Biodiesel is fine as a boutique-scale touchy-feely fashion statement for those who don't think too much about what they are actually proposing. As a real solution to the problem of producing significant amounts of liquid fuel, it's a ghastly crime against nature.

What's wrong with using some of the huge quantities of biowaste produced every year to make fuel?

Well, aside from the fact that if organic waste is not recycled into the soil it can cause the soil to degrade, the biggest problem is that even if all of it were converted to fuel, it would not produce more than a small faction of fuel demand. US refineries produced about 125 billion gallons of gasoline in 2003; using all US corn stover (for example) for cellulosic alcohol production would produce maybe 12 billion gallons. And that's just gasoline, which accounts for just a third of the output of an oil refinery.

This is Science..?

[Ancil]

Climate change evidence will continue to mount.

Well I'm glad we settled that up-front.

Research goes a lot smoother when you decide ahead of time what the results will be.

Re:Did anyone read the article?

[Kohath]

Dude, real science is hard and boring. And it doesn't fulfil my emotional needs at all.

Plus, Katie on the Today show said pseudoscience is the new pop-psychology. And pop-psych made me feel so good about myself, you're not going to make me miss out on this new thing.

Chillax. It's all good.

Re:Wait a sec.

[Zoyd]

WindBourne: China loses 30000 mine workers a year? You are implying that they died from mining accidents or job-related sickness.

China loses 6,000 coal miners per year at the jobsites (in the mineshafts).

http://www.google.com/search?q=china+mining+deaths

What crap. A reality check follows.

[Animats]

Wind power is now working quite well. General Electric has over 2800 of their 1.5 megawatt turbines installed, so big wind machines are finally working commercially. The wind turbines of the 1980s were typically in the 50KW to 100KW range. By comparison, a big commercial power plant (coal or nuclear) is typically in the 500 to 2000 megawatt range.

These things are big - the towers are 200 to 300 feet high. It takes 500 of them to equal one coal plant. And bigger wind turbines are coming. The latest General Electric 3MW turbines are so big they're only being considered for offshore installations. The Cape Cod Wind Farm project has produced much grumbling: "A 24 square mile industrial park the size of the island of Manhattan, 40 story turbines permanently scarring our ocean horizon, 580 lights destroying our nightscape, 130 air and sea navigation hazards in the middle of some of the foggiest air and waters in the world..." This is a generic problem with wind and solar energy. Once it starts really working, the installations are huge, because the energy densities are so low.

The downside of wind power, of course, is that it's intermittent. Typically, average power is only 30% of rated power. Of course, you don't get to pick when you get power. So you either need energy storage (like a pumped storage plant) or excess capacity in non-wind generation. Which means building more plant.

Still, wind power is real. Unlike much of the other stuff mentioned, like the "magnet engines" (an entry-level bozo idea), the "neutron generator" (a misunderstanding of a well-understood device), and "blacklight power" (generally considered to be a scam).

Tidal power seems attractive, but there are only about 20 good sites worldwide.

The Athabasca Oil Sands projects are already producing 1 million barrels of oil per day, and that should double by 2010. The scale of the operation is huge. It takes two tons of sand to yield one barrel of oil. That's one Panama Canal every ten months. Want a job as a heavy equipment operator? Move to Fort McMurray, Alberta. They're hiring. Rents have passed Silicon Valley levels, and the apartment vacancy rate is zero.

The future looks like coal. Too much coal. China is building about 50,000MW of coal-fired electric plants per year. US coal consumption has been roughly constant for a while, but will probably go up as oil prices increase.

Nuclear may make a comeback, probably when coal gets too ugly.

Taxes...

[benjamindees]

Taxation is such an awful way for governments to "correct" market failures.

They never do it correctly. I'm sure if there were carbon taxes today, they'd manage to make you pay to burn renewable fuels like wood, ethanol, methanol, and biodiesel along with fossil fuels.

Tax revenue never goes to correct the problems it was meant to correct. In a democracy, politicians will always find a way to divert funds to pork projects or buy votes with dubious social programs.

In the long run, governments become dependent upon taxes from sources that they were originally meant to discourage. Taxes then become the perfect way for harmful industries to become legitimized in the eyes of their regulators. History is rife with examples of corrupt governments becoming one with those who profit from harming others.

What's really better, your neighbor spewing pollutants into the air and water, or him doing so with the backing of the government and military?