Life without transport by oil is closer than we think

[jpak]

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=a5a37e1e-3d2c-4b11-8313-4125a1d4cd3f

Minivans, global air travel and the transport of goods by diesel truck soon will become the stuff of yesterday as the world adapts to depleting oil reserves.

The planet, posits a new book by two Canadian academics, is on the cusp of a revolution in transportation that will steer people away from petroleum-fuelled vehicles and into ones that are either battery-powered or connected to electrical grids.

Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil, by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, is one of the most thought-provoking books to cross my desk in a long while.

Gilbert is an urban issues consultant and former York University professor and municipal politician in Toronto. Perl is director of SFU's urban studies program.

<more>

[grasswire]

1. but how are electrical grids powered?

hydroelectricity? what? coal?

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Sssssshhhhh... you might wake him from his wet dream.

:evilgrin:

[kristopher]

3. State of Rhode Island Seeks Bids for Off-Shore Wind Farm Development

Governor Donald L. Carcieri today announced that the State of Rhode Island is seeking bids from private companies to construct and operate an off-shore wind farm designed to generate 1.3 million megawatt-hours per year of renewable energy. The wind farm would be located in an area just south of Block Island.

The Request for Proposals (RFP), which was issued today by the Department of Administration, constitutes the next major step in the Governor's plan to expand dramatically the production and use of renewable energy in Rhode Island.

"Three years ago, I announced an ambitious plan to increase dramatically the production and use of renewable sources of energy in Rhode Island," Governor Carcieri said. "Every day, Rhode Islanders feel the financial pinch of heating and powering their homes. If we reach the goal I set of achieving 15% of our energy from wind, this burden will be relieved and we will reap long-term benefits for the environment."

"As you can imagine, creating significant sources of renewable energy does not happen overnight. Our Office of Energy Resources has been hard at work laying the foundation for success. We have conducted a detailed study on where wind farms can be located. We have hosted a number of meetings with stakeholders across Rhode Island to solicit public and local input," Carcieri said. "We recently signed an important agreement with Oceanlinx, so they can build a wave energy project in the waters off our shores and open a whole new source of renewable energy."...
http://www.govtech.com/gt/282768?topic=117688

There is more than enough wind and solar energy available to be harvested with current technology (at a cost competitive price to coal) to allow us to shut down most coal plants.

[NNadir]

4. Apparently you have no idea what a coal plant does.

Coal plants in the United States operate at 72% capacity loading, making them second only to nuclear plants, which operate at 89-90% of capacity utilization.

This makes them baseload power.

You don't have a fucking clue what base load power is?

Why am I not surprised?

The number of coal plants that have been shut by wind plants on the face of the planet is zero. If one attempts to power down a coal plant because the wind happens to be blowing, all of the heat that is invested in the heat capacity of water is wasted.

The dirty secret of the "wind will save us" fantasy is that wind is often backed not by dangerous coal but by dangerous natural gas, which is used to maintain spinning reserve.

You don't know or care what spinning reserve is?

Oh well, ignorance kills.

[kristopher]

5. More of your shit, eh, Marvin?

If you can't talk present day technologies and what they can do going into the future, then just piss off. I feel confident I know considerably MORE than your sorry ass about the nature of our grid system, the way it operates and what our CONCRETE PLANS are to modify it.

You constant attempts to paint the future by what happened thirty years ago is just plain stupid - no other word describes it.

[Systematic Chaos]

7. We can't stop BRIDGES from collapsing...

our roads are decaying, our infrastructure in general is in desperate shape, and you're gonna come here and try to convince me that we're going to magically come up with the - what, trillions? - needed to "modify" our entire electrical grid to suddenly accomodate massive shifts to energy technologies which have existed for decades already without having contributed squat to our energy demands?

le :rofl:

[kristopher]

9. A lot of people think that the amount of money we save waging war for energy

Is more than enough to pay for the transition.

Both Dem candidates are promising exactly the transition I'm referring to, an effort similar to the production of bombers during WWII.
The fact is that the post Reagan US has tried to starve government and we are seeing the results. Money on infrastructure (especially new energy infrastructure) is the way out of our economic problems. Aside for a couple of hundred thousand wind turbines properly sited, we need new transmission capacity (already being done) and ungraded control facilities for grid operations.

That isn't nearly the challenge you seem to think it is.

Added on edit: Especially since it is mostly market driven by capturing the carbon costs for fossil fuels and creating incentives for manufacturing investment through strong accelerated depreciation on the manufacturing facilities.

[jpak]

13. But...but..but... there are trillions of tax dollars available for $17-24 nuclear power plants

so sez Unca Dick

:evilgrin:

[NNadir]

20. Um, would this remark substitute for not knowing what spinning reserve is?

Apparently.

If you knew what spinning reserves was, if you were remotely educated about modern energy theory - this would require mathematical literacy which the entire anti-nuke cult conspicuously lacks - you would understand why Estonia, which is on the Baltic coast (I doubt you know what that means) rejected wind power.

What Estonia?

Now comes, I bet some smug Western conceit - this from a nation of mathematical illiterates who believe only what they want to hear.

With trademark derision for the anti-science rhetoric of religious cults I quote:

When the wind power appears in the system, the thermal generation starts to vary rapidly to keep the balance of power. Wind power is characterized by the maximum total power (sum of installed capacities of all windmills multiplied by the coincidence factor) and the mean power (total installed capacity multiplied by load factor). Load factor of wind generators is calculated as the division of wind generated electricity during the considered time period by the total installed capacity of windmills. e) Thermal power stations have to keep constantly additional spinning reserve capacity equal to the maximum total power of windmills (e.g. for the case when the too high wind speed stops full power operating windmills). This makes the thermal plants run inefficiently and increases fuel consumption (emissions).

f) Line 2 depicts the new fuel consumption (cost, emissions) curve of equivalent
thermal plant that considers additional cost for keeping the reserve capacity.
Values of this characteristic can be calculated with the optimal load
scheduling software under different values of reserve. The point of the new
characteristic that corresponds to the mean value of total wind power is
depicted in the figure.
g) Most important point of the line 2 is the one that corresponds to the maximum
wind power. Fuel consumption is calculated here in accordance with the
objective function (1) by the optimal load scheduling software under the total
load of thermal plants Σ Σ max Σ = − Tik D W P P P and the spinning reserve
requirement that equals to the sum of the reserve value in operation without
windmills Rk P and the maximum total wind power WΣ max P...

...If the wind turbines were ordinary controllable power plants that do not fluctuate and do not need keeping of extra spinning reserve capacity, then the normal static fuel consumption characteristics of thermal plants could be used in optimal load scheduling and 30,7% fuel consumption (emissions) reduction could be achieved under the maximum power of windmills. This is the logic of linear approach to the emissions calculation. In reality, only keeping the necessary additional reserve capacity will increase the fuel consumption (emissions) by up to 8,1%.

The bold and italics are mine.

Oh wait...

There's math in this paper, and necessarily it's immediately over the head of anti-science cults.

In these fantastic cults, words like "reality" are verboten.

Irrespective of cult thinking though, the Estonians, who fill their papers with something called mathematics have concluded that building wind power in their country will increase the release of the dangerous fossil fuels about which anti-nuke cults could care less.

http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/liik-emissionsreduction.pdf

Now, knowing as I do that science is held in contempt by the ignorant, it is probably useless to point out that if the anti-nuke cults had more than a religion, they could publish the results of experiments that show for instance, that wind power doesn't need spinning reserve back up.

They could point to an exajoule of renewably backed wind power using something called (by scientists) "data."

But instead of doing that, they mutter little kiddie curses under their pathetic, ignorant breaths.

Ignorance kills.

[kristopher]

22. You really don't know anything do you?

Spinning reserve is a term specific to coal fired generation. It is used to meet fluctuating demand, but it is considered something that is not particularly desirable if it can be replaced with an fast start alternative like natural gas (with or without CAES). It is necessitated in a coal dominated system because of the sheer size of the turbines on coal generators. They are so long that when they are out of use, the shaft sags in the middle. Once that happens it takes nearly 10 hours to get the shaft straight by very slowly starting it spinning. To avoid that, some coal generators are kept running constantly to meet fluctuating demand - a condition inherent to all electrical grids whether they incorporate wind or not.
Your website is a garbage pit, btw. It is almost certainly an astroturf outfit sponsored by the coal industry.

You really, really don't know anything about the grid or the electrical market, do you?

[NNadir]

28. Spinning reserve is a term specific to coal generation? Really?

I guess you have demonstrated that you did not read the paper or a single paper of any kind about energy.

Specifically, you haven't read this one either, and being anti-science, will now announce that the scientific journal, um, what was your cute locution, is a "garbage pit":

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/2005/39/i06/abs/es049946p.html

Now kiddie, you're going to announce that the abstract proves your point, because, being a kiddie cultist, you don't do critical thinking.

I suspect I know why you didn't read or understand any of these papers.

You don't know how to read them.

QED, kiddie.

Now that we have established, as is almost always easy to do with any member of the anti-nuke cult, I will site the text of the article, from a wind power advocate Paul Denholm. Since you have contempt for science, it will invoke undoubtedly no scientific response, but we can watch for another junk ass expression of contempt in any case.

CAES systems are based on conventional gas turbine technology and utilize the elastic potential energy of compressed air. Energy is stored by compressing air in an airtight underground storage cavern. To extract stored energy, compressed air is drawn from the storage vessel, heated, and then expanded through a high-pressure turbine, which captures some of the energy in the compressed air. The air is then mixed with fuel and combusted, with the exhaust expanded through a low-pressure gas turbine. The turbines are connected to an electrical generator. Turbine exhaust heat and gas burners are used to preheat cavern air entering the turbines.

The reference, kiddie, is Denholm, Kulcinski, and Holloway Environ. Sci. Technol. 2005, 39, 1903-1911.

Now, when I quote this scientific reference - which no doubt you hold in contempt because you neither read nor know any science whatsoever, two things become apparent. The first is that as always, the CAES "renewable" strategy is nothing more than fossil fuel apologetics. I have obviated this by adding bold to the text.

Do you know what "mixed with fuel" means?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

The second thing obviated is to simply demonstrate that you are unaware of what your hand-waving CAES reference actually involves, specifically dangerous fossil fuel burning.

Now. It actually happens that if someone were to build this system - no such system on a significant scale is under construction anywhere on this planet - it would be slightly more efficient than burning dangerous fossil fuels in a combined cycle or conventional gas turbine, but since you have no idea about what energetic efficiency is, and can only mutter phrases like, um, "garbage pit."

Now, I don't give a rat's ass about your yuppie fantasies - they're trivial and meaningless and frankly childish and demonstrate a lack of sophistication, insight, or knowledge of the basic literature. If you can get a CAES plant built somewhere and can jump around and up and down saying how wonderful it is, so be it. It will have no relevance to the scale of climate change however, and it will not amount to 5 exajoules in my lifetime or probably anyone's life time.

I am only interested in the ignorance that attempts to destroy for immoral reasons, the infrastructure and future of what has been the world's largest, by far, form of climate change gas free energy for more than 3 decades, and will be so as long as so called "renewable energy" fails to produce on an exajoule scale, as it has done for 50 years in spite of endless cheering from ignoramuses. The infrastructure and tool I am trying to protect from stupidity is nuclear power.

Quoth Denholm in the same paper you didn't read:

The dominant source of GHG emissions from the wind/CAES system is natural gas combustion, as illustrated in Figure 10, the distribution of GHG emissions from the simulated operating at an 80% capacity factor. As can be expected, the distribution of sources is similar to Figure 8, since there is a general relationship between energy use and GHG emissions. The large share from transmission construction is largely due to biomass losses. Methane leaks result in a higher contribution of GHG emissions from natural gas transmission, due in part to the high GWP of CH4 (21 times that of CO2).

Ignorance kills.

Denholm further states:

This rate is higher than the life-cycle emission rate of wind energy without storage or nuclear generated electricity but is substantially lower than any fossil technology.

What part of "higher...than nuclear generated electricity" can't you understand? All of it apparently.

Ignorance KILLS.

I could go into the gory details of the paper in the scientific journal Energy that you didn't read - because you are incompetent to read it - Energy 32 (2007) 575–583, by Johannes Rosen, Ingela Tietze-Stoeckinger, and Otto Rentz from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, that begins thusly:

To date, more than 15,000MW of wind turbines have already been installed in Germany, able to produce roughly 30 TWh/a of electricity <1>. All of this capacity is onshore, but the German Wind Energy Institute (DEWI) estimates that in addition about 15% of electricity production could be covered by offshore wind energy in the medium term <2>. Such large amounts of fluctuating electricity feed-in, which cannot be planned in advance, are of special relevance in the context of power production planning. The fluctuations occur in a random pattern and have to be compensated by the production of the schedulable, (mostly) conventional capacities in the power system.

Ignorance kills.

Typically the members of the anti-nuke cult are uneducated, don't read, don't do research and think that when they make stuff up it will be accepted because they say it.

This has been a pattern on this website for 8 years with nearly every anti-nuke cult member I have encountered here, each of whom generate moral disgust on my part, since Ignorance KILLS.

Typical of that ilk of morally vapid dangerous fossil fuel apologists is that they try to turn their lack of scientific education into a discussion of my personality. Why? Because they have no references (except dumb ass websites in the anti-nuke circle jerk) and because they have no idea about that which they are claiming to have knowledge.

When that fails, they make unsupported and unreferenced statements, some of which are appallingly ill informed, reminiscent of your wrong assertions about how spinning reserve works.

In 8 years of this discussion of their attempts to vandalize nuclear infrastructure because of ignorance, paranoia and credulousness, they have failed to demonstrate that they have any plan whatsoever to deal with climate change, except to evoke vague fantasies with no industrial reality behind it.

Anti-nukes can't count, but the world is now burning 500 exajoules. Do you know what that means?

You don't?

Why am I not surprised?

Now, among kiddies who appeal to ignorance, many of them deserve what is happening now. But I am not here to gloat about the world you will have to live in. I couldn't care less about you. But my children will have to share this planet with the ignorant, and it for my children - and children like them - that I fight.

As far as I am concerned, out of laziness, indifference and slipshod thinking you are trying to shove dangerous fossil fuel waste into my children's atmosphere. And I will not stand by quietly and allow that without comment. To do so would be grossly unethical.

[kristopher]

29. You are starting to learn but you aren't up to speed yet, Marvin.

Yes, spinning reserve is a term particular to coal. No other type of generation generally uses it either because the fuels are too expensive or they have a guick start and response time. There are several types of reserves, but they are not "spinning{ reserves because they don't need to be.
2. As to your statement "It actually happens that if someone were to build this system - no such system on a significant scale is under construction anywhere on this planet - it would be slightly more efficient than burning dangerous fossil fuels in a combined cycle or conventional gas turbine" Let me introduce you to McIntosh Power Plant"

"McIntosh Power PlantPowerSouth's generating units at McIntosh, Ala., include the compressed air energy storage (CAES) unit and twin gas-fired combustion turbines, for a combined winter capacity of 348 megawatts and a summer capacity of 338 megawatts.

Designated McIntosh unit 1, the CAES unit was declared commercial May 31, 1991, and officially dedicated Sept. 27, 1991. It is the only plant of its kind in the United States; the only other CAES plant in the world is in Germany.

The CAES unit uses air, compressed and stored in a 19-million-cubic-foot underground cavern, in the generation process. During peak load periods, the stored air is released and mixed with natural gas in a combustion process to generate electricity. The plant uses off-peak electricity to pump air into the cavern and then uses the air in the generation process during peak periods.

In June 1998, two single-cycle combustion turbines were constructed at the McIntosh site and designated McIntosh units 2 and 3."

And if that doesn't suit you:

3. http://www.isepa.com/FAQs.asp
"ISEP will be a valuable asset, allowing Iowa to produce environmentally friendly electricity

With hundreds of millions of dollars invested in construction, the Iowa Stored Energy Park (ISEP) will provide significant economic benefits for the entire state of Iowa. ISEP is a joint project of municipal utilities in Iowa and several nearby states.

ISEP will use the energy from a large wind power facility located in Iowa where there are good wind resources. This wind energy will be used to store air in an underground geologic structure. During peak power demands, the stored air will be released, mixed with a fuel and used to power combustion turbines that produce environmentally friendly and economical electricity.

ISEP will utilize some of the latest innovations in the generation of electricity. Wind turbines, deep underground air storage, and efficient combustion turbines will be used by ISEP to take the variability of wind and turn it into clean energy on demand. The project will enable utilities and their customers to add additional renewable energy to their power supplies.

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) enhances wind power

In a CAES at the ISEP facility, air will be compressed using low-cost, off-peak electricity, and wind that is not being sold on the grid at that time. The air is stored in a deep underground geological formation for later use in making electricity. When energy is needed, the stored air will be released, heated and used to drive generating turbines. The electricity it produces can be used as needed, especially during high-demand peak hours. This process uses less fuel than a conventional combustion-turbine facility.

CAES Flash Interactive Tour By using compressed air energy storage and wind power together, an environmentally friendly, alternative energy source is available to homes and businesses."

This is a report by sandia labs on the Iowa plant http://www.sandia.gov/ess/About/docs/haug.pdf.
<end>


I'll let you track down the 290 Mw one in Germany for yourself. The compressed air results in 60-80% fossil fuel savings on what is already the cleanest fossil fuel out there.

And I am familiar with Denholm. In fact, I've used his charts in presentations; they make the point very effectively, don't you think?

However, I actually prefer Greenblatt and the new fellow he's teamed up with lately, I posted a link to their work earlier here somewhere.

You are dumb as a stump on this subject aren't you?

Would you like a reading list? Seriously, PM me if you do and it can be our little secret. You might actually learn something that will make you happy for a change.

[NNadir]

30. I predicted a marketing report response, rather than a scientific LCA study and it's what I got

kiddie.

Now, since you only read marketing blurbs, and offer lazy powerpoint presentations.

Again, it is clear that you do not know how to handle the scientific literature and are unacquainted with it.

Since you have once again mangled the concept of spinning reserve - there is nothing worse than an ignoramus who repeats in spite of clear evidencewrong answers to simple questions - I will point out yet another scientific paper exposing your abysmal lack of comprehension of the concept about which you are speaking.

The paper in question is this: "Wind energy, electricity, and hydrogen in the Netherlands" and the authors are Niels J. Schenk, Henri C. Moll, Jose´ Potting, Rene´ M.J. Benders out of the University of Groningen.

Now in the previous two papers I cited in my previous post, there were two references to spinning reserve and both went over your head, because the words "spinning reserve" were not explicitly stated. It shows that you have no understanding, even primitive, of the concept.

The reference for the Schenk paper is Energy 32 (2007) 1960–1971. Here is the abstract.

Once again I will cite a statement from the article detailing the nature of spinning reserve to watch it once again go over your head. I may seem cruel when I do this, but so deep is my hatred of ignorance, that I feel one cannot not express enough contempt for it to measure the damage that ignorance does.

The electricity producer cannot rely on wind energy in the same way as conventional power plants because its electricity production depends on the often-variable weather conditions. Therefore, wind energy has limited options to regulate its load to the grid. When the wind blows and wind energy delivery to the grid increases, power plants—with fuel combustion—decrease their output and (fossil) fuel is saved in this way. This strategy is effective when wind energy penetration rates are low. At higher wind energy penetration rates, three classes of problems may arise. First, when actual wind energy production is lower than expected based on weather forecasts, electricity companies may face temporary capacity shortages. Improved forecasting techniques and international trade in electricity contribute significantly in reducing the size of this issue <14>. Second, periods with high wind energy may heavily load the high-voltage grid and cause blackouts. Improving the high-voltage grid and improved protocols are options to reduce the risk of blackouts due to overload of the grid to acceptable levels. Third, overall system efficiencies decrease because the remaining fossil-fuelled power plants need to adjust their operating policies, which result in losses. This adjustment of operating policies results in less-efficient operation of the system, hereafter referred to as ‘system losses’. This effect is further explained in Section 2.2.
This research focuses on energy inefficiencies due to system losses. There are several potential solutions to (partly) overcome the problem of system losses associated with renewable energy sources. They come in four categories: demand management, temporary storage, isolated hydrogen production, and integrated hydrogen production. The first category assesses electricity demand, while the latter three categories assess production. Demand management: The system losses associated with renewable energy sources can be largely attributed to the high amount of spinning reserve required. The amount of spinning reserve can be decreased when electricity consumption can be decreased at will.6 This requires changes in contracts between electricity producers and electricity consumers.

This time, because being a fundie anti-nuke, I have deliberately chosen an excerpt that uses the word "spinning reserve."

I hope you'll write another pathetic post mangling the concept as you have done in two posts. I promise not to mock you any more kiddie, because at this point you're as boring as any of the other cultists here, say like the ones who were cheering for the Kashiwazaki earthquake.

This one, like the other two papers from my files that you were unable to grasp, comes from my files on the LCA of wind power. I have plenty of papers, from the primary scientific literature on energy production and its environmental impact. Thousands of such papers, in fact. Since wind is a trivial form of energy that has failed to have meaningful impact on the serious tragedy of climate change, almost all scientific papers are like your low level powerpoint slide show that has no scientific references in it

I couldn't care less what you think. I see not a trace of analytical or critical thinking in any of your posts. They are all regurgitation of what you chose to hear because you wanted to hear it. In fact what you are here offering is not more than apologetics for system that - if it works - will burn dangerous natural gas and that have life cycle emissions that are a factor of 10 greater than a nuclear power plant.

It follows that you are a dangerous fossil fuel apologist, like all fundie anti-nukes.

The plant is not built, it has not operated, and thus an experimental determination of its external cost does not exist.

Consistently over 8 years here I have called for the banning of dangerous fossil fuels - not the reduction, but the banning. I have not called for more elaborate Rube Goldberg schemes to enshrine their use, even if designed to offer the pretense that they are not killing the planet. From sequestration to this asinine "well we'll burn less" with our CAES system bullshit, you seem not to have grasped two things. CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING NOW, AND HAS BEEN HAPPENING IN THE PREVIOUS DECADES while your wind pals have been drawing pictures.

What?

You don't get it?

Why am I in no fucking way surprised?

I have already expressed my contempt for your reading level. Thus I would like to say this with respect to your "offer" to PM me. I would prefer that you not PM me. I scan hundreds of papers a week and have no time to read puerile kidding stuff. In any case, maybe you have missed the possibility that we're not girlfriends or boyfriends. We're never going to be girlfriends or boyfriends. I despise ignorance, especially arrogant ignorance that asserts itself when it is obviously making wrong assertions.

I don't PM fundie anti-nukes, and with rare exceptions, they return the favor. So join the club, kiddie.

Why not just continue what you're doing, muttering curses, and mangling basic concepts. It's not the nicest part of my personality but I have a cruel side, and sometimes I enjoy shooting ducks in a barrel.

[jpak]

32. Yup - these are the *scientific* solutions...

<snip>

There are several potential solutions to (partly) overcome the problem of system losses associated with renewable energy sources. They come in four categories: demand management, temporary storage, isolated hydrogen production, and integrated hydrogen production.

<snip>

Any arguments to the contrary are anti-science...

:D

[kristopher]

33. Are you learning disabled or something?

All your reference says, in essence, is that we have a grid with variable supply and demand and that integrating the variability of wind into this system comes with a cost. Is that supposed to be news? The fact that you think so shows how grossly uninformed you are.

The actual cost varies according to the specific location where the wind is being added to the grid because of the variety in type of facilities and fuels that are used to meet the fluctuations. Spinning reserves are standby power generators that are running but are not under load. In the real world, coal generation is virtually the only option for the reasons I outlined in my last post; you might use hydro (I leave out nuclear just to piss you off) but neither hydro or nuclear are going to be an increasing part of our future energy profile. We can also meet the same requirement with rapid start systems such as petroleum or more frequently, natural gas. They can have oil and natural gas generators on line and running in-synch usually within 1-3 minutes. They don't keep them "spinning" to meet the reserve because of the prohibitive cost of fuel. An interesting aside to this discussion is that wind, since it has no fuel cost and sometimes produces in excess of demand, can act as spinning reserve also. In fact, part of the marketing of wind energy incorporates this by selling into the very short term markets. Since the cost of that electricity is set by th costs of fuels (such as keeping a coal plant running continuously to meet 10 minutes of need in a 24 hour period) wind then gets those very high prices that spot market electricity brings.

An even better approach to meeting this requirement, however, is demand side management; which is another area presenting huge opportunities for performance improvement because of new technologies (ie cheap computing power).


I don't know how you arrive at the conclusion that CAES technology hasn't been built and tested, however. The first instance I cited in Alabama has been reliably providing power for over 30 years and the one I steered you to in Germany has been around for a similar length of time. The Iowa plant is the first in some time and will be the first specifically designed to complement windfarms, but it certainly isn't the first. We KNOW the what a CAES system's performance characteristics are from its very long track record.

If you want to believe that the planet will be better of by building 5000-10000 new breeder reactors, then you are going to keep believing that no matter what options are presented to you. By routinely ignoring and lying about current technologies while pointing incessantly to stats tainted with data 30 years out of date, you show that you haven't the one fundamental ingredient required for critical thinking - objectivity. You are so fixated on trying to justify nuclear power as the only answer to climate change that you routinely, as now, make a fool of yourself.

What you see is a system where all we have to do is unplug the fossil fuel plants and plug in nuclear plants. Since that could easily (albeit expensively) be done, that is the preferred solution to you. Unfortunately for your position, most of the rest of us find that idea of has as many drawbacks as do the fossil fuels. Fuel limitations, waste disposal and nuclear proliferation may not mean anything to you, but they do to the rest of us.

Consequently we are looking for a way to not only replace fossil fuels but a way to replace fossil fuels in a such a manner that we aren't on another precipice of destruction in 75 years. To that end we see that there are a series of obstacles that must be addressed; and we are working to address them. Whether you like it or not, wind, solar, and various forms of wave/current/tidal energy are going to form the backbone of our new energy system. The more fossil fuels increase in price, the quicker that is going to happen. It will not happen in the cartoonish caricatured way you envision with nuclear, but it will happen with the formation of complex systems such as V2G and various applications of CAES.

The fact that you don't have the capacity for complex thinking doesn't invalidate the system that is developing, it just means you don't have the capacity for complex thought. Just for example, only an idiot thinks that it there is any authority on this earth that has the power required to BAN ALL FOSSIL FUELS. And only a bigger idiot gets as petulant as you when such idiocy is ignored. And only an even bigger idiot would fail to understand why those two point are valid.

[Javaman]

35. That was probably one of the most brilliant smackdowns I have ever read. :)

cheers!

[hunter]

37. Your technological utopianism is not going to keep us in our cars.

It's not going to maintain our current lifestyle in any way.

Sometimes the technology optimists horrify me more than the dreariest pessimists, or even the pro-nuke people.

Sure, wealthy people will keep the lights on. Wealthy people will have their zippy electric cars. Wealthy people will have plenty of food to eat. Wealthy people will move to nice new houses on higher ground when their beach houses fall into the surf.

The people who are not wealthy -- which is the vast majority of all people living on this planet -- are pretty much screwed. Climate change means many of them will perish in bleak refugee camps or resource wars.

It doesn't matter how many wind turbines or solar panels wealthy people manage to get up and running before the full force of the economic storms brought about by climate change and peak petroleum hit. Those things will be of little benefit to the poor.

We built our wealthy industrial civilization on inexpensive fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal power are not a "plug-in" replacement for oil and natural gas. Neither are coal and nuclear power.

When the survivors of this post petroleum economic disaster begin to dig themselves out of wreckage I don't suspect they will be thinking "thank goodness we didn't build more nuclear plants..." They will probably be running what nuclear capacity they have well past it's expected design life for the simple reason the power is needed to supply the agriculture industry with basic machinery and processing capacity.

I doubt there should be any competition at all between the various alternatives to natural gas fueled power plants, including nuclear power plants, but excluding coal.

The way I see it we are going to need every kilowatt we can get our hands on to hold this civilization together as the cost of extracting petroleum and natural gas increases.

[jpak]

23. Nuclear power plants don't need spinning reserves - they never trip or go off-line for

unplanned maintenance and therefore cannot contribute to fossil fuel consumption.

what a bunch of ignorant...

:rofl:

[Juche]

6. Quite effective

heres a book you should read.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671723650

On another note, geothermal can provide a high capacity utilization. From your own thread you said it was 78%.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x66106

High altitude wind power is more consistent, and will function better.

I'm not opposed to nuclear power as a baseload energy source, but clean coal, hydroelectric and geothermal can also function as baseload energy sources with solar as an energy source when demand is highest (midday in summer).

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/682/7930

[kristopher]

8. Hi altitude wind power isn't here yet, but we don't need to wait.

There is more than enough wind resource offshore to provide all the power we need. There are ways to overcome the problems with dispatchability and as the market penetration of wind increases, these strategies for capturing the spilled energy from wind are going to become a profit center in and of themselves.
The two main plans on the table are Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) and V2G.
CAES:
Powerpoint on CAES: http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/research/Capture/Presentations/CAES.ppt.

" Traditionally, CAES technology has been used for grid operational support applications such as regulation control and load shifting. But a new major possibility that is especially relevant for a carbon constrained world is to enable exploitation at large intermittent wind resources that are often remote from major electricity demand centers. CAES appears to have many of the characteristics necessary to transform wind into a mainstay of global electricity generation.

The wide availability of potentially suitable geology in wind-rich areas points to CAES as a technology well-suited for making baseload power from wind—thereby making it feasible to provide wind power at electric grid penetrations far greater than 20%+ penetration rates that are feasible without storage. And, to the extent that wind-rich regions are remote from major electricity markets, such baseload power can often be delivered to distant markets via high voltage transmission lines at attractive costs.

Previous studies on the combination of wind and CAES have focused on economics and emissions. This report highlights these aspects of baseload wind/CAES systems, but focuses on the technical and geologic requirements for widespread deployment of CAES, with special attention to relevant geologies in wind-rich regions of North America.

Large penetrations of wind/CAES could make substantial contributions in providing electricity with near-zero GHG emissions if several issues can be adequately addressed. Drawing on the results of previous field tests and feasibility studies as well as the existing literature on energy storage and CAES, this report outlines these issues and frames the need for further studies to provide the basis for estimating the true potential of wind/CAES."

The report behind the powerpoint is available on this page at the title: "An Integrated Optimization Of Large-Scale Wind With Variable Rating Coupled To Compressed Air Energy Storage"
click 'pdf'
http://www.princeton.edu/~ssuccar/


Then there is the killing of 3 birds with one stone: develop storage for intermittent resources, transition the transportation sector to all electric, and have the public pick up most of the cost as part of paying for personal transportation.
http://www.ocean.udel.edu/windpower/
Go down to this entry: "Kempton, Archer, Garvine, Dhanju and Jacobson, 2007, Large CO2 reductions via offshore wind power matched to inherent storage in energy end-uses. Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L02817" and click 'proof' for a free copy of the article. This paper assesses the offshore wind reasource within 50km or so of the coast.

And then go to http://www.udel.edu/V2G/ to see what happens when the wind isn't blowing.

The Chairman of FERC (along with many other policymakers) is pushing this solution.

[jpak]

10. Umm - you don't need baseload power to charge batteries for plug-in hybrids

or electric cars.

or produce hydrogen for fuel-cells

No need for nuclear power to do any of this....

the ignorance is appalling...

[diane in sf]

11. Certain people around here like Eeyore never like to let facts get in the way

of their dogma.

[Systematic Chaos]

12. AMEN TO THAT!!!

wait, what? :shrug:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[NickB79]

14. I have my suspicions that the vehicle of the future won't use batteries or the grid

But they will require a lot of leg power for those long-distance hauls.

Oh wait, we have to keep up the illusion that we'll all get to keep driving personal vehicles as much as we want, and that the transition post-Peak will be nice and seamless. In that case, carry on.

But I do agree with the title of the OP; we are a lot closer to a life without cheap oil than we think, but not in a good way.

[depakid]

15. The denial lobby is impressive, eh?

[kristopher]

16. What is a denial lobby?

[depakid]

17. Cornucopians who ignore physical laws

like thermodynamics (for starters).

[kristopher]

18. Specifically how does that apply to this thread?

[depakid]

19. Please...

one of the hallmarks of denial is coming up with all sorts of rationalizations and harebrained schemes to convince one's self that the inevitable can be averted.

I don't agree with Kunstler on a lot of things- but one deal he has right is that America's wasteful lifestyles, particularly the days of "happy carefree personal motoring" -and many of the things people take for granted that go along with it, are slowly but surely going to change profoundly.

That's reality- brought to you by resource depletion and macroeconomic laws (which Americans also like to believe that they're immune from).

[kristopher]

21. So you are offended by our "lifestyle"?

I can sympathize to a degree, but I think we can live a very comfortable life with little real change in behavior on about half the energy we currently use. That would bring us to a level similar to the French of the Japanese. Are you of a mind that their lifestyles are so "profoundly" different than ours?

It's a shame you don't have the courage of your convictions. If you did, you'd have been more specific about what you are referring to as "rationalizations and harebrained schemes" in this thread. No, you must not have much confidence in your judgment or you'd speak out and denounce the "deniers" and their "rationalizations and harebrained schemes" with more than slurs and innuendo. You know that type of dialogue can't be challenged, that's why you use it instead of using specifics that can be honestly discussed.

[The2ndWheel]

25. "That would bring us to a level similar to the French of the Japanese."

"Are you of a mind that their lifestyles are so "profoundly" different than ours?"

Well, the size of their countries, and the size of their populations, are certainly different.

"but I think we can live a very comfortable life with little real change in behavior on about half the energy we currently use."

And when does energy use start to go down? Do we use more total energy today than we have in previous years, or less?

[kristopher]

27. The only real difference is the cost of energy.

US energy has been extremely low as a result of different national attitudes toward free markets. Countries like Japan and France have actively managed their energy use through high taxes. We chose not to do that and now, with increased world demand the option is lost to us. We will adapt to the high prices in a similar way, we will use less. I think what a lot of people forget is that the energy curve has little short term flexibility. So a change in price, for it to effect long term alterations in behavior and infrastructure, has to be enduring. All your experiences in the past - with spiking energy prices not leading to structural change, - are no longer viable indicators because the price increase is a long term market driven shift. It doesn't mean disaster is right around the corner, either. Besides encouraging conservation to the Japanese etc standards, this permanent price shift is also driving the deployment of industrial scale renewables.
There is also the cost of carbon that will be adding to the constraining effect of increased demand. That hasn't really begun to exert it's full impact yet; but we are right around the corner from it.
The argument has been winning says that we couldn't afford to pay for the shift to renewables, but that is falling by the wayside and the argument now prevailing is that when you take into account the positive impact on domestic employment, a petro-centric foreign policy, the affect of energy on our balance of trade, and the no-longer-deniable need to respond to global warming; then we can't afford not to pay for the shift.

Chill out. It's going to be alright.

[depakid]

39. "Chill out. It's going to be alright."

You really don't get it, do you?

Climate change aside:

You cannot replace cheap petroleum and natural with any combination of renewables and still run a complex system of the scale and "type" of early 21st Century America. Extravagance and waste (think: Vegas, SUV's McMansions and big box stores) are only part of the problem.

As many of us have recognized for quite a while now- no other viable fuel has the energy density, EROEI, and relatively simple transportability as petroleum. Even if you had such a fuel, you couldn't produce it in sufficient quantities and create a new infrastructures in the time Americans have left to preserve their suburban lifestyles, replete with its predominant financial and service sector economies.

Neoclassical economists refuse to accept these maths. They're by in large stuck in a bygone era- 19th Century physics if you will, clinging to shibboleths like "substitution effects" and the "economic growth," as if they're divorced from the larger natural systems and isomorphic laws (see sig line).

They are not.

Fact is, most of America has poor to non-existant public transportation. Unlike Portland Oregon- or Newcastle NSW, many cannot commute by bike and/or mass transit, even if they wanted to and were physically able.

Take the research triangle of North Carolina, where much of my family lives. That place is 100 square miles of mindless sprawl. You can't even get a bus from the airport, much less to and from the shops and places of employment. I'm not sure you could put in a workable system- though I guess like much of the sunbelt, at some point they'll have to find a way. In the nearer term, I wonder wtf people and businesses who are already living close to the margin are going to do when petrol prices reach Aussie or British levels- and higher.

Where will the tipping points be- where will the cascading effects start, and who is most vulnerable?

As with any paradigm shift, there will be winners- those (individuals and larger groups) who foresaw what was ahead and took steps to adapt beforehand, and those who can't let go of their "prior investments," preferring to believe in magical thinking and divine intervention- manna from heaven and deus ex machina to maintain their regional economies and standards of living.

[gear_head]

24. the TH!NK electric car will be in showrooms later this year. n/t

[losthills]

26. I see no reason why everyone who drives a gas guzzler

could not just as easily have an electric car in their garage and a solar charger on the roof. I'm seeing more hybrids on the road right now, I pulled up behind a little all electric pick-up called a Zap the other day, and one of my neighbors just got a golf cart for running around town. This transition could be made fairly rapidly and effortlessly.

I'm not convinced about "overhead power grids," though. That seems illconceived....

[Summer93]

31. France

I was pleasantly surprised to see transportation was handled by much smaller vehicles. Two seaters were short so that they could be parked on a sidewalk. Commuters only needed to carry a briefcase so there was no need of carrying extra seating. Cool. An electric bus with the advertising on the side was small also could hold 8-10 people.

Americans commute in the largest vehicle they own in order to feel safe in traffic.

Food is held as a celebration. Even though the refrigerator there is half the size that we in America have. There are plentiful farmers markets and where I stayed there was bread, sausage, cheese sold from a van that came by the end of the driveway which reduced the number of trips to town. Meat dealer is open upon appointment. Cookies and pies are fantastic and usually available every day. Everyone goes for a nap at noon.

Americans are hooked on fast food and food that is prepared before it is purchased to save them time and effort.

Yes, Americans might have trouble with a lifestyle that included these amenities. To me it seems that we could learn something.

[diane in sf]

34. Good food, universal health care, 6 week vacations—there's a lot about France we

should emulate. Life here has been getting more and more rat race sucky over the last 30 years.

[hunter]

36. Nuclear Power?

:P

[diane in sf]

38. No, not nuclear power--they don't have a good place to dump the waste.