Saudi prince: "We don't want the West to go and find alternatives..."

[wtmusic]

"...because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives."

http://www.autonews.com/article/20110531/BLOG06/110539991/1135

Sorry Al-Waleed, but that (electric) train's already left the station. Besides, being the 26th richest man in the world wasn't enough for you?

[Kolesar]

1. As if those creeps had unlimited oil to sell to the world

It would be justice if the House of Saud got "mubareked".

[KansDem]

2. That's why we don't have a booming renewable-energy industry in this country...

That's why we don't have cars that get 100 mph or electric cars in this country...

That's why we don't have clean, mass transit on par with Europe...

That's why we don't have real environmental standards and regulations in this country...

That would be "finding alternatives" in this country and that would mean some people who derive their wealth from the fossil-fuel industry would lose huge amounts of money...and influence.

...and power.

[HillbillyBob]

3. We are attemptign to do it ourselves to take the house offgrid

much of our power is coal,oil and hydro plus some 50 mega watts in solar panels down that the coop.
We have made a huge inroad with off the shelf stuff and about 4,000$ in materials. Insulation/gaskets(light fixtures, switch and outlet covers on outside walls leak much air).
Its a total electric house and with out going hungry, cold, or in the dark we have managed to cut the power bills down to about 150 for non peak months and 200 for using ac, we were getting 380 to 450+ power bills 4 yrs ago. Insulate curtain liners, shade structures on the west side of the house, white kool seal on the dark colored roof, turn off lights, change bulbs to LEDs(come in colors that look like incand now if that is what you want, but use about 10% of the power. We are not using the central, but now one window unit cools most of the house. Shade over the window unit with a mesh shade tarp is going up today. Until we can get solar water heating installed we still have to use the monster electric water heater, and using a small kero heater. We will retire the keros when the solar water heat goes in and put in a small HE wood stove. We have several acres of woods that need to be thinned out.

[JDPriestly]

5. Finally you are getting this.

I tell and retell and retell this story.

In January 1974, while working for a London-based company that was trading oil futures among other things, I attended the session on alternative energy at the January 1974 First World Energy Conference in London, England. I met executives from the oil industry over the world. As I recall, Sheik Yamani sat a few rows behind me, and the Baron de Rothschild as well as a team of scientists from MIT made presentations.

The team from MIT described how they were providing enough electricity to a home in Boston, MA with solar energy, needing to supplement with gas only on the most dreary, cold days. (Note they were testing the equipment in a rainy northeastern area in January 1974. We aren't moving very fast on this when you consider how long ago that was.)

After the excellent presentation, a man stood behind me and said something to the effect of (not the exact words): "I'm from the nuclear energy industry of Canada. We don't want solar energy because we won't have a product to sell."

That is why the energy industry hates solar. It deprives them of a drug to which they can addict their customers. Instead, it permits the consumer to become independent.

Note, while Mass. is not the dreariest of climates, it is also not as sunny as Tucson, Arizona or Southern California or Albuquerque, New Mexico. So, if solar showed that potential in Mass. in 1974, may I repeat 1974, think how well it would work today.

But no, we had to go the Fukushima, Chernobyl route -- and why? Because there is a product to sell. In other words, because it makes the public dependent on big money and the corporate machine.

We are oil dependent because we are fools. We watch the corporate TV news. We trust the corporate fat cats. I see this on DU everyday. We even have apologists for nuclear energy from time to time. The nuclear energy industry is a thief in the night in my view. The world is full of fools.
]

[robinlynne]

6. exactly. i read once that the mojave desert alone receives enough soalr energy to power

the country. Dont remember where that was, nor does it matter. Solar is the obvious choice. energy consevration is a must. electric cars and trains are obvious. It is only greed holding us back. All the other arguments are false.

[kristopher]

10. That is a good visualization but it works everywhere

The reason the focus is on desert is because of the economics of solar. Places like NJ, Oregon, Mass, and Germany are good examples of how solar will be used.

This Dept. of Energy brochure on Solar can be downloaded by clicking the link provided.

Myths about Solar Electricity
Produced for the U.S. Department of Energy by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a DOE national laboratory
DOE/GO-102003-1671 January 2003
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/32529.pdf

The area required for PV systems to supply the United States with its electricity is available now from parking lots, rooftops, and vacant land.

Solar electric systems are an important part of the whole-building approach to constructing a better home or commercial building. Although these systems have delivered clean, reliable power for more than a decade, several myths have evolved that confuse the real issues of using solar electricity effectively.

Myth #1
Solar electricity cannot contribute a significant fraction of the nation’s electricity needs.

Solar electric panels can meet electricity demand on any scale, from a single home to a large city. There is plenty of energy in the sunlight shining on all parts of our nation to generate the electricity we need. For example, with today’s commercial systems, the solar energy resource in a 100-by-100-mile area of Nevada could supply the United States with all of its electricity. If these systems were distributed to the
50 states, the land required from each state would be an area of about 17 by 17 miles. This area is available now from parking lots, rooftops, and vacant land. In fact, 90% of America’s current electricity needs could be supplied with solar electric systems built on the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation’s cities.

Myth #2
Solar electricity can do everything—right now!

Myth #3
Producing solar electric systems creates pollution and uses more energy than the system can produce over its lifetime.

Myth #4
Solar electric systems make sense in only a few applications.

Solar electric systems make sense nearly anywhere electricity is needed. Homes and businesses that are already using electricity from the utility, such as homes, businesses, and electric-vehicle charging stations, represent nearly 60% of the market for solar electric systems. The number of these grid-connected applications is growing because they make sense economically, environmentally, and aesthetically. Solar electric systems make economic sense because they use free fuel from the sun and require little upkeep because they have no moving parts. Every bit of electricity produced is used in the home or sold back to the electric utility for use by other customers. Solar electric systems also make sense for the environment and can blend seamlessly into the design of a building.

Myth #5
Solar electric systems are unreliable and produce substandard electricity.

Myth #6
It is difficult to make solar electric systems aesthetically pleasing and functional for homes and businesses.


Produced for the U.S. Department of Energy by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a DOE national laboratory
DOE/GO-102003-1671 January 2003

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/32529.pdf

[wtmusic]

18. A back-of-napkin cost estimate to cover the Mojave Desert in solar panels.

Solar panels cost roughly $100/ft². The Mojave Desert is 25,000 mi² or about 784 billion ft². The cost for the panels alone would be about $78 trillion dollars, or about six times the entire national debt.

But wait, there's more. Solar panels are only about 13% efficient, so we'll have to cover the rest of the states of Arizona and Utah with panels, and multiply our figure by 7.7 = $600 trillion. Add 30% for infrastructure and storage (we do want to be able to watch TV at night) and we're very close to $1,000,000,000,000,000. $1 QUADRILLION.

Impossible.

[XemaSab]

21. And then we're still sitting in the dark all night

because there's no storage.

[KansDem]

7. "We don't want solar energy because we won't have a product to sell."

Does this about sum it up?...

[JDPriestly]

14. Thanks. That is a great cartoon.

[kristopher]

8. That is a great story.

Thanks for sharing it.

[GliderGuider]

9. +1 Very instructive. nt

[wtmusic]

11. I suppose I fall into the category of nuclear "apologists"

although there's nothing to apologize for.

Solar and wind are hopelessly inadequate to take care of our energy needs, and in fact exacerbate the problem by forestalling taking effective measures to curb global warming with false promises.

"If we are to stabilize the emission of carbon dioxide by the middle of the 21st century, we need to replace 2000 fossil-fuel power stations in the next 40 years, equivalent to a rate of one per week. Can we find 500 km2 each week to install 4000 windmills? Or perhaps we could cover 10 km2 of desert each week with solar panels and keep them clean? Tidal power can produce large amounts of energy, but can we find a new Severn estuary and build a barrage costing £9bn every five weeks?

Nuclear power, however, is a well tried and reliable source, whereas the alternatives listed by Anderson are mainly hope for the future and have yet to prove themselves. At the height of new nuclear construction in the 1980s, an average of 23 new nuclear reactors were being built each year, with a peak of 43 in 1983. A construction rate of one per week is therefore practicable. "

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/128/2

I've posted this many times, and have yet to see anyone who opposes nuclear power who appreciates the seriousness of the situation. 4,000 turbines or 10 square kilometers of panels per week is never, ever going to happen.

[JDPriestly]

15. Nuclear is the technology of the 1950s.

We still don't have a safe way to rid ourselves of the waste. If it blows up in our faces (as almost anything can), it creates catastrophic damage.

It may have been worth the risk when we had no alternatives, but you are wrong, we have better alternatives now. We don't need nuclear energy. It is preferred by investors who want to take a cut from satisfying people's needs and addicting them to services.

My husband remembers working on the computers of the late 1950s. They ran on tubes that had to be replaced and repaired frequently. Look at our 21st century computers.

Solar energy has been treated like a stepchild. It is in fact the hope for the future -- safe, clean and as it becomes more widely used, it will become cheaper, more efficient, more reliable and usable in less sunny climates.

Nuclear energy has had its day.

[FBaggins]

16. Wind is the technology of B.C.E.

Solar is even older.

What's the point?

[JDPriestly]

22. Solar technology has been ignored.

CalTech scientists are now exploring new ways to make it more powerful. Eventually, solar will replace other sources of energy.

When Marie Curie first did her experiments with radium in the late 1890s, no one would ever have believed that within about 50 years, man would develop an atomic bomb, much less than not that much later, people would use uranium to build reactors for peaceful energy purposes. A lot of investment and work happened between the late 1890s and the 1940s.

http://www.aip.org/history/curie/resbr1.htm

The kind of investment and work that went into the nuclear industry has not been put into developing solar energy. It's time we focus on what is important.

The Germans are simply putting solar equipment on houses and slowly but surely converting much of their economy to solar-based energy. They are way ahead of us. We need to watch our backs because they are, although a small country, way outpacing us. Germany has far fewer natural resources than we do -- no or next-to-no oil for example. But they are being much smarter about the environment and energy than we are.

Solar is the way of the future.

[wtmusic]

23. There's a reason.

You can improve the efficiency of solar energy collection, but there's no way to make it "more powerful". The amount available per unit area on average (and this is key) - is trifling, especially in northern countries with little sunshine like Germany. Even at 100% efficiency the environmental damage caused by creating and maintaining the infrastructure cancels out any net benefit.

There are exactly two areas of solar power which are worth pursuing:

1) Daniel Nocera's synthetic photosynthesis experiments at MIT:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

which might one day allow residential solar to economically store energy, and

2) Passive solar design, which really a form of increasing efficiency and is most important of all.


Utility solar power is a non-starter for the forseeable future, and may never bear fruit. We don't have time to find out.


You say the Germans are "way ahead of us". It's true, Germany is way outpacing us - they're building 20 new coal plants to replace the energy they'll lose from nuclear. The U.S. is building zero.

The German renewable renaissance is not only a feelgood myth, it's a disaster.

[wtmusic]

17. Solar energy is like trying to boil water by holding a match under a kettle.

You can say, "If only we held the match closer to the kettle,", or "if only we used a kettle with a thinner bottom" etc. - but it will never, ever replace a gas burner on a stove. Now open a window in the room so a breeze keeps blowing the match out (solar: sun sets; wind: stops blowing) and you'll get a feel for how extremely unpromising both of these technologies are. And not only Americans but the up-and-coming energy users of the world will sooner send the planet to hell than drink cold coffee, so we're just wasting precious time.

On the other hand, nuclear energy has not even begun to have its day. 4th gen reactors will be orders of magnitude safer and more efficient than current designs - and even current designs are already close to the safest form of power generation per unit of energy. A pellet of 8% enriched uranium the size of a thimble has as much energy as a hopper car full of coal. It doesn't produce a thimbleful of CO2, while smoke from burning coal kills more than 20,000 Americans every year. These are indisputable facts, and we've got to move beyond this irrational, boogeyman fear of what is our best bet at preserving life on Earth or we're just fucked.

[Terry in Austin]

19. Never going to happen

Agree with that, but add '5000 nuclear plants' to the list. Time to re-examine what our 'needs' are.

[wtmusic]

20. According to this author, it would be about 2,000 nuclear plants

(one a week, over 40 years). Having that much enriched nuclear fuel out and about is a scary thought indeed.

Thorium makes for sucky bombs but great electricity, and molten salt for a coolant virtually eliminates the possibility of a meltdown. These scenarios need to be explored, and now.

But IMO conservation, efficiency, and just making do with less (by making energy expensive) is going to have to top the list.

[razorman]

4. Of course they don't. Oil is the only thing they have that the world needs.

Take away that market, and they will become wandering nomads again.

[One_Life_To_Give]

12. Isn't that why oil pricesd collapsed in the 80's?

IIRC Rumor in the late 70's was the biggest Saudi fear, that their oil would be made worthless by alternative energy tech.
Wouldn't be surprised to learn of a backroom deal to keep oil prices low in the 80's in exchange for de-funding alt. energy.

[FBaggins]

13. Yes and no.

"Alternatives" in this case is not at all limited to "alternative energy tech"... it's anything that's an "alternative" to Saudi oil.

In the 80s that didn't just include efficiency gains and renewables... it included massive investment in oil production all around the non-opec world. The Saudis don't care whether they lose our business because we use less oil... or because we find another supplier... or because we come up with a crude oil version of "fracking" that gets rid of the need oil from them. They just care whether we need their oil and what we're willing to pay for it.