350
September 28th, 2009 by Robert Merkel | Published in Activism, Climate change, Energy, Environment | 196 Comments
In the leadup to Copenhagen, it seems that many of the leading environmental NGOs have adopted 350 as their campaign focus, with a day of action on October 24 to publicize the campaign. The “350″ in this context represents a long-term greenhouse gas target of 350 parts per million CO2 equivalent, which they argue is the maximum safe level.
As far as climate change campaigns go, for what it’s worth this one seems to get it about right.
It’s a simple message, and the right one. It’s where we need to be in the long term. It doesn’t complicate the issue with endless and largely irrelevant debates about what roles various technologies can or should play in achieving the target, or quibbles about minutiae about interim targets – if the long-term target is to be achieved, strong short-term cuts are implied. And it provides an easy way to grade whatever horribly compromised hack job comes out of Copenhagen to where we need to be. There is one thing that grates; if you accept a long-term target of 350ppm, such a target implies artificially taking CO2 out of the atmosphere well beyond any conceivable tree-planting scheme could achieve. But from a coalition-building perspective, it’s understandable that they’re gilding that lily for now.
We’re not going to get a deal that gets the world on a track anywhere near this target this time around. But at least by putting it explicitly on the table, it’s widening the debate to something approaching a realistic take on the science as currently understood rather than that “1990-science world” that most world governments seem stuck in.
Thanks for the link Robert.
I’m going to shamelessly rip this off for a MetaFilter post.
so that *is* you wilful.
I agree with your stance Robert, I also think 10/10 has its merits, too. But god knows, I’m so so very pessimistic about this.
My understanding is that 350 is a target in terms of ppm CO2 rather than CO2-equivalent — roughly speaking, Hansen’s paper stated that it would be dangerous to not to stabilise at 350 ppm CO2 or less. Some organisations have adopted 350 ppm CO2-equivalent instead, which is a stronger target.
I agree with Robert that it is a simple message and a good one. Other possible messages would be in terms of an acceptable probability of exceeding 2 degrees of warming; or a maximum ‘carbon budget’ for the world by 2050.
350.org are arguing for 350ppm CO2-equivalent.
Either way, we’re not going to get there without some kind of accelerated removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Bugger the long term, Robert. How about we do it by 2030, and save the reef? Full bore on 4th gen nuclear, large scale biochar and whatever it takes.
Here’s a couple of posts by David Spratt at the Climate Code Red blog addressing the 300 versus 350 debate.
Brian,
Sorry, but even if you started building 100′s of nukes right now they would not make a jot of difference by 2030. In fact the emissions from the building of them would actually increase the CO2 levels by 2030.
Nukes only make a (very) tiny bit of sense when the build is taken over say 100 years.
I will attempt to make a list of stuff that should be immediately mandated and I mean mandated.
Huggy
I absolutely agree Brian@5 … We are running a very serious risk of losing the Arcit permafrost if we allow 1 deg C and the feedback from that could bolow all our models figuratively out of the water.
Huggy, you are mistaken. The Chinese have shown you can get a Westinghouse AP1000 up in about 4 years. They are switching significant installed capacity from coal to nuclear. They now have the capacity to pour ingots of up to 320 tons and are now planning 132 by 2020. That will make a huge difference.
LCA of nukes is about 5g of Co2 per KwH (as compared with anthracite coal of about 1000g kwH and lignite at about 1300-1500 g/kwH) andf thus comparable with wind and solar PV. That’s orders of magnitude better. If we here in Australia were to replace Hazelwood alone we could in one go reduce Australia’s stationary emissions by 9% and total GHG by 5%. Note also that some of that GHG is at the back end — at decomissioning — and so in the next 60 years, when it is critical, the results are even better. If by then we have IFR and Thorium up and running then the LCA on the ones we put up now is even better.
Right now, the installed cost of nuclear power is high compared with coal and gas but if there are suddenly dozens of AP1000s being commissioned, then the ability to purchase these tested and ready to assemble at a fraction of the cost of project plants and at a fractional of the build and test time is there. The installed cost will drop sharply from about $3000 per Kw to maybe something more like $1000-$1200 — ie. cheaper than wind and comparable with coal. Of course, if a price goes onto CO2 emissions …
Technically, it would be possible to simply use the sites of existing coal plants and some of the existing infrastructure to site nuclear plants. See this for example.
What needs to happen is a rethink — especially amongst those of us who want something effective to mitigate climate change and to staunch coal pollution done <b<now to get behind a serious program of building nuclear powerr infrastructure, starting, if that is all we can manage, with the world’s dirtiest coal plants and forclosing the building of new coal plants in the developing world.
There’s a lot more than a jot of difference there.
Huggy, I’m all ears :)
Paul N @ 6, the most recent post by Spratt is a beauty. Draws out all the warnings slipped into the IPCC documentation etc.
By following up some links I also found again a document I’d lost track of – The Big Melt by David Spratt with assistance from Philip Sutton, which dates from October, 2007.
Here’s a quote:
That is for a safe climate and dates from October 2007, prior to
Hansen telling the American Geophysical Union in December 2007 that we need to get down to 350ppm, which in turn was in response to Bill McKibbin asking Hansen what the level should be, which led to the 350 organisation. This shows Spratt to be the independent thinker he truly is and ahead of the pack.
In the post Spratt comments that 450ppm, since Stern, is not really a 2C strategy and 2C is too high:
Is it just me, or have I detected a quite significant change in attitude regarding nukes here at LP over the last year?
Funny thing is, most of the skeptics I know ( quite a few ) are quite OK with nuclear power. Seems if more people on the left and in the green movement acquainted themselves with the facts about nukes and supported them, the whole argument re. AGW would be rendered rather moot.
“The Chinese have shown you can get a Westinghouse AP1000 up in about 4 years.”
Huh? I think you have your tense wrong Fran. As far as I am aware, the Chinese have signed contracts for six AP1000 units at two sites, both started construction mid-2008 and aren’t planned to start operation in the 2013-15 timeframe. That’s five to seven years, and they haven’t actually done it. I think one of those is actually the first AP1000 in the world, so it’ll be quite the achievement if it can be run up on schedule.
d
Actually that’s just what they say so they can wedge the movement to mitigate AGW, secure in the knowledge that the idea of nukes horrifies most environmentalists enough for them to propose things that can never do the job of supplying industrial society’s energy and thus can never undermine b-a-u. They can take the high moral ground without risking nukes.
We should call their bluff, IMO
Peter, that’s just not right.
See this, for instance.
The nuke debate is putting the cart before the horse. Until there are serious limits on how much CO2 we can put into the atmosphere there’s no point in even debating whether we need nukes or not.
Peter W @ 3, I think we’ve been over this before, but it’s my belief that Hansen puts forward 350ppm on the assumption that the other GHGs are fixable if, as he recommends, we have separate programs to address each one of them. If we don’t, his assumption is that we’ll have to get CO2 down lower.
I don’t have time to look for a reference now, but if I see one I’ll post about it.
With respect Robert, we’ve no time to await the horse, given the lead times involved. We have to start everything right now.
At some point there will be serious limits (or we’ll be stuffed in which case who cares about the economics of nukes) and we have to be ready to hit the ground running. As it goes, even if there were not a looming crisis over AGW there is one over the longevity of coal and gas and oil. At current rates of consumption growth it is reckoned that coal might last until 2100 but perhaps no longer than 2072. So even if we didn’t care about ecosystem services and were relaxed about human catastrophe the coal and gas and oil is going to go into short supply. If this happens slowly, we get time to adapt but if it happens quickly then the costs go way up.
To quote, typing is not activism – 350.org have designated Oct 24th as Global Day of Climate Action – to see what is happening in a city or town near you that YOU can get involved in, go to http://www.350.org/aus/index.html.
And remember, Bernice knows when you don’t do what you’re told.
Decommissioning is the word. We really have to start treating coal-fired power as the WMD that it is.
I am talking about the CO2 emissions involved in the building of nukes.
Concrete, roads, bridges, mines, fuel for the mining vehicles, steel, special alloys the list goes on forever. All this BEFORE you generate one mW of power. In twenty years you expect to build 20 NUKES ON THE EAST COAST OF OZ!!! get a grip.
By then it is all too late.
Huggy.
Huggy, you got numbers to back that up?
Storm van Leeuwin and Smith assume ridiculous amounts of energy is required to mine uranium. Their assumptions are simply inconsistent with the known facts.
If you are going to have a rapid increase in the number of nuclear power stations (Or what ever) you have to take time to build the extra factories to build the parts for the extra nukes, ore processing plants etc. In the mean time ppm CO2 keeps climbing at a serious rate.
In the short term we have to look for things that really can be done quickly. This means things that can be done without extra equipment (Cut consumption) Or things that can be done using resources that can easily be done by diverting resources from other activities that are less important such as building tunnels under Brisbane.
In terms of power generation the most obvious quick fix would be to simply convert coal fired to gas by running the gas to the existing furnace (50% cut in emissions/kWh.) Converting to combined cycle, solar thermal augmentation etc. could be done later to give further cuts and/or the gas fired station could be replaced by wind nuclear etc as appropriate.
HB@18
The carbon footprint of nuclear is is still small per unit of output and quickly recovered. LCA is as I said, about 5g per KwH, comparable with renewables when you factor in all the costs.
Wind and solar for example, are very site-constrained and so the back end involves masses of HVDC lines, all of which have a carbon footprint and over distance, energy losses. Then there’s the intermittency to cover which must be done with on-demand power. This is OK in places with good access to, say, run of the river hydro, which has virtualy no carbon footprint but dreadful when the main backup is a fossil fuel. Solar is a little better because at least the intermittency is principally diurnal but cloudiness still affects even the desert. Tidal barrages involve masses opf concrete and the footings and maintenance roads for wind turbines also add to their footprint.
In practice a fairly well-sited wind farm (or complex of windfarms) running at a capacity factor of about 35% (pretty good if you can get that) will have to have an installed capacity of about 2.8GW to produce, on average, 1GW. A 1GW nuclear plant costs, at the moment, about $US2,5->3bn. At about $US1600 per Kw wind 2.8 GW of wind power costs $4.48billion and that is without the back end costs above. If you want to back up those 2.8GW with enough pumped storage to cover, say, a 20% slew on 1GW — say 200MW for ten days then the cost and the embedded energy footprint goes way up. And how many wind turbines and footings is that 2.8GW going to be?
Well at about 5MW each — pretty large as wind turbines go — that’s 560 turbines each with a footing and a piece of connecting road and some cable.
Now don’t get me wrong. I quite like wind turbines and tidal and solar plants but do we not have to be hardnosed about it? If we really want to minimise CO2 and our environmental footprint more generally don’t we have to measure all solutions by the same metrics? If tow combinations of solutions produce the same environmental benefits but one costs, say, three or four times as much as the other shouldn’t we choose the solution that gives us the most environmental advantage per unit of expenditure, precisely so we can choose, if we wish, to maximise the environmental advantage?
If there are indeed settings in which wind turbines or solar plants or PV or tidal, for example, improve on nuclear or even go close (and I think there are), then by all means let’s use them — we’d be mad not to, but aside frome these cases, why should we not use nuclear? The real rival to nuclear is not renewables but coal and to a lesser extent, gas.
Sounds good for a first step, John D.
Here’s whats at stake if we dont act now: 4 degree rise by 2050. That us as a species F*CKED, by the way. In little more than one generation from now.
This is a global average figure which mask 10 degrees in parts of Africa, and higher in the Arctic.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/28/2698347.htm
JohnD@20
You make a fair point — certainly in the case of Australia, since in practice, political constrainst here are likely to frustrate nuclear power roll out for quite some time. Fortunately for the biosphere, Australia is a tiny proportion of world output of CO2. That doesn’t mean though that we ought not to argue the case.
That said, if I could get all of the oldest 15 coal plants in Australia (most of them in the South East) converted to Brayton Cycle gas with combined cycle by 2015 I’d be pretty happy with that as a first step. And if we could cut personal motor vehicle transport usage by about 20% by then I’d regard that as a pretty good step forward too. And if about 20% of the active fleet was running on plug-in electric for about half their distance that would be pretty good too. It would be nice if we could radically cut the number of ruminant livestock in this country — that would make a big difference, and recover much of that land for something like the original vegetation.
These are things that we could do which would get us near the kind of target we would need to have by 2020 without nuclear power, but in the longer run, I believe that is where we will need to go.
I didn’t mean to start yet another thread on nukes, but I meant 4th gen nuclear to be phased in by 2030 when we could aim at zero or net negative emissions. John D’s stuff @ 20 as an interim.
For motorised transport, what about plug in electric with a combustion engine backup using diesel from algae or LPG?
John D
Exactly, the first move has to be a conversion of the coal generation to to gas -preferably Coal Seam Methane. The plant to do this is very low embodied CO2 just a bunch of jet engines and some steam plant for the tailing cycle.
Fran
You have to build nukes with lots and lots of concrete – 1 tonne CO2 per tonne concrete – plus rail roads and armoured trains plus waste repositories plus laboratories plus separation plants plus at least one new armoured division with tanks and arial surveillance. Barracks for the troops. Drones and helicopters. Plus a huge industry devoted to the manufacture of fuel rods – very high intensity CO2. Also of course a large parasitic Academic establishment that cannot exist without home swimming pools and massive air cons. Even if we started today we would not have any reactors going within 25 years. It takes at least 10 years to decide and approve the sites
AFTER YOU HAVE DONE ALL THIS YOU STILL HAVE NOT GENERATED ANY ELECTRICITY AT ALL but you have massively increased our CO2 emissions – capish?
Those cute little green nuclear reactors so beloved of some LS denizens do not exist, do not exist, they are at least 30 years away – too late.
Huggy
Repent the end is nigh…..
Dear nuke dupes
Oh and I Forgot to mention the detention centres (more concrete and steel) for the anti-nuke protesters.
The conferences in Surfers for the nuclear boffins, and academic hangers on and the air transport for same. The huge environmental impact studies and the subsequent court cases, more air travel for eminent silks.
All this and not one single kWh of energy for at least 25 years.
Are the nuke dupes insane or what??
A serious nuclear program that would do more than build a token nuke in some-body’s back yard would require the transformation of this county into a police state and actually increase the 2030 CO2 emissions.
Gosh you nuke dupes are clever.
Huggy
Surely a much more powerful computer model than the IPCC’s worked this out some time ago, and the answer was 42?
In all seriousness, IMHO you cannot reduce such a hideously complex issue to a single number without sounding like Douglas Adams. It may be a simple message, Robert, uncluttered with “minutiae” and endless debates, but that is a problem not an advantage. The devil is in the detail, as most of the comments imply, and to suggest that discussion of technology is “irrelevant” and a “complication” is at the very least somewhat overdoing the simplification.
One thing climate change does not need is yet another symbol to cluster round. It’s had far too much symbolism, and not enough focus on detail and reality, for years.
It really is that simple Wozza. If we do not get CO2-e down to 350ppm or below (actually, in the long term, back to something close to pre-industrial levels), the Earth’s climate will be unrecognizable for thousands of years, including flooding most of Bangladesh, turning much of the world’s prime agricultural land into deserts, and so on. You can like or lump it, but that is what the science strongly suggests.
Huggybunny, last time I checked France is not a police state, and please produce figures to back your emissions claim up – and, more to the point, demonstrate that the construction emissions from nuke plants are significantly worse than those from renewables (putting in hundreds of square kilometres of solar arrays is going to chew up a lot of concrete, too).
Robert,
Part of my work is to design very large PV arrays that require no concrete at all.
Hundreds or even thousands of square kilometers of PV arrays require zero concrete. Repeat zero.
Besides which a say 2000MW solar plant of any type will start paying off its CO2 debt the moment you put a few units into service. It consists of discrete and autonomous units
On the other hand a 2000MW nuke must be entirely complete before the commissioning test can even start, not only must it be complete but all the ancillary services must be in place including safety and security systems.
On embodied energy
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/SSSRebuttal
also
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html
I am not claiming that nukes are not low carbon energy sources. I am simply pointing out that there is no way to establish them in Oz by 2030 unless you put virtually all the economic resources of the country into the program. This program would necessarily increase the CO2 emissions – before even one Watt of energy was produced.
As to a police state , this is not France of the 1960′s , post Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Thinking people are not as sanguine about the nuclear utopia as they were then.
Besides this is how they bought support.
“Historical Aspects
In 1946 the French Government nationalized “the production, the transport, the distribution, the
import and the export” of electricity and natural gas and created Electricité de France (EDF) and Gaz
de France (GDF) as state energy monopolies.4 The legislation stipulated that 1% of the companies’
turnover go to the “Central Fund for Social Activities” (CCAS)5, a fund to be managed by a board composed of representatives from the different trade unions according to the previous union election outcome. Since the CGT, close to the French communist party, won the absolute majority of votes
every single time from the start, CGT was in a position to manage a huge budget, about €450 million in 2006, in principle on a large number of social and associated issues (vacation facilities, restaurants, child care centers…). The CCAS employs over 5,600 people. It has been suspected for a long time to
of constituting a convenient and abundant source of subsidies for the French communist party. In a 2006 confidential report the French Court of Auditors accused the Fund of “total lack of transparency on resources and employment (…) and insufficient internal control”.6
However, more importantly, the arrangement constituted a long-term guarantee for “social peace”.
The extraordinary advantages for EDF employees funded by the CCAS were and are complemented by preferential power tariffs. No surprise that EDF has been hit significantly less by strikes than many other French companies (including public ones) and that only on rare occasions have union activities
led to power cuts.In addition to the average preferential electricity tariff for each EDF employee, during the project planning and construction phases, EDF practiced lower tariffs in the vicinity of nuclear power plant sites. The practice has been declared illegal on the grounds that it violates the principle of equal
treatment. However, the court case, initiated by consumer and environmental protection organizations, took over five years, time enough for the construction sites to get into an advanced stage. Incitement to acceptance had done the job prior to the method being declared illegal because it was obviously violating the equality principle.”
Nuclear Power in France
Beyond the Myth
By
Mycle Schneider.
Is that the sort of corruption you want?
Huggy
Surely any kind of new power station (solar, wind, gas…) would emit a lot carbon during its construction, and only pay off its carbon debt after several years? Admittedly construction of a nuclear power station probably creates a larger carbon debt than (say) an equivalent gas-fired power station, but OTOH it will carbon-free baseload electricity for decades.
Australians need to admit to themselves that we profit from climate vandalism through our coal exports. Coal paid for a large part of the stimulus package that saved us from the GFC. Coal paid for a large part of the tax cuts and generous family welfare through the Howard years. Demand for coal drives our currency higher and allows us to import everything and produce nothing.
We are the world’s coal junkies.
I think Barry Brook’s “defection” to the pro-nukes side was a big driver. Also, as Copenhagen looms (and its increasingly apparent that no significant progress will be made) people are getting desperate, clutching at anything that has the potential to make a big impact quickly.
Renewables still have potential to make a big contribution, but we should have had a Marshall Plan style investment in renewables 10 years ago. Instead, we gave the banks a trillion bucks to cover their dodgy loans. That trillion bucks could have saved the world. Literally.
Carbonsink
“Surely any kind of new power station (solar, wind, gas…) would emit a lot carbon during its construction, and only pay off its carbon debt after several years? Admittedly construction of a nuclear power station probably creates a larger carbon debt than (say) an equivalent gas-fired power station, but OTOH it will carbon-free base load electricity for decades.”
The lowest carbon debt of all will be gas you can start with modified aircraft turbines if you really need a fast start
The highest carbon debt will be nuclear.
Gas could replace all the coal fired within within about 5-10 years
Combined cycle gas plants are standard kit with a very low CO2 footprint
They can be installed with very little regulatory impediment
Nuclear plants require years of lawyers argument, the agreement of all governments and all levels of government.While they are arguing the gas plants will be in and running.
This whole nuclear saviour thing is just a middle class fantasy. Time has already run out for nuclear if the CO2 at 350 ppm target is 2030.
“I am not claiming that nukes are not low carbon energy sources. I am simply pointing out that there is no way to establish them in Oz by 2030 unless you put virtually all the economic resources of the country into the program. This program would necessarily increase the CO2 emissions – before even one Watt of energy was produced.”
There is a lot of near term stuff we can do to meet the 350 by 2030 target.
I am working on it.
Huggy
Huggy, I agree the biggest impediment to nuclear is political, but I’m dubious about the feasibility of a rapid global move from coal to gas. It might work in Australia, where we have plenty of gas and a small population, but its not going to work in Europe and North America where gas supplies are already stretched. If there’s also a rapid adoption of natural gas powered vehicles and/or EVs, it will put even more strain on gas supplies.
Its a recipe for rapidly rising natural gas prices … which is probably why Marn is so keen on pushing LNG as a “clean fuel” for the world. If the world stops buying our filthy burnable dirt, we need to something else that comes out of the ground.
Time has run out. Period.
I reckon Huggybunny has a strong point about red tape for getting large projects approved.
How long has it taken Gorgon to get over all the regulatory hurdles? Must be almost a decade by now?
How long has it taken Rio to get regulatory approval for very common-or-garden dirt removal operations for their iron ore expansion? Several years at least, per project?
Do people seriously think nuclear would get up at a similar speed, compared with those ordinary technologies???
I’d sooner place bets on a garden slug beating Phar Lap…
Carbonsink
I am suggesting coal seam methane as the obvious and least difficult path to CO2 reduction below 350 ppm in Australia. I estimate that if used in combined cycle
distributed generation system the reduction in CO2 for power generation would be about 55-70%. That’s another much overlooked point the nukes are best at very large scale 1-2 GW – then you have to lose 10-20% in the transmission system.
Given that we replace the entire coal fired system that is about 30 GW on the East Coast,
This is 30 off 1 GW nukes. say 8 clustered around Brisbane another 8 around Melbourne and the rest around Sydney Newcastle. Love those cooling towers.
The CSM option is about double or even quadruple the number of plants, (say 100) but you could fit all of them into the space occupied by a single nuke and its exclusion zone. You could actually locate them right in the cities.
Huggy.
Carbonsink @32: “…people are getting desperate, clutching at anything that has the potential to make a big impact quickly.”
There is a considerable body of evidence that desperate people clutch at “double-or-nothing” high risk strategies. Gambler’s ruin…
I’ve just been reading “The Time Paradox” by Zimbardo and Boyd, based on research at Stanford Uni. Apparently most people don’t forward plan and implement risk mitigation. They tend to live in the present. As such, warnings about future risk are largely water off a duck’s back.
One might infer from this that society at large might wind up “clutching at straws” when the proverbial hits the fan…
The entire chain of coal-fired power stations up and down the east coast could be retrofitted as solar thermal within 5 years.
‘Nuff said.
Well that’s just great for Australia, which is 1-2% of global emissions. I’m far more concerned about North America, Europe and China, where they don’t have enough gas for heating, let alone replacing all their coal-fired electricity generation.
Carbonsink @39: “I’m far more concerned about North America, Europe and China, where they don’t have enough gas for heating, let alone replacing all their coal-fired electricity generation.”
Actually, the Middle East has a lot of gas – tends to be associated with oil, but hasn’t been as valuable for them to export as yet. They could do LNG exports to Europe, China and US, in the same way that Australia exports NW Shelf gas to Asia.
Here is the excerpt from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009:
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9023779&contentId=7044843
Here are the 2008 figures for electricity generation for the relevant countries:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2009_downloads/electricity_table_electricity_generation_data.pdf
This is not an indefinate solution for all eternity, but it may be a useful and necessary bridge to a lower carbon future.
Yes, I’m well aware of the large gas reserves in Iran, Qatar, KSA etc. I’m sure the Europeans are just itching for the chance to shift their total reliance on Russian gas czars to total reliance Arab oil sheiks … not.
Not only could the world be utterly dependent on the Middle East for oil, but we could be utterly dependent on the Middle East for electricity generation as well. Brilliant!
Apologies for the long comment, but Barry Brook is pretty darn compelling:
Ruthlessly pragmatic indeed. You can see why Barry Brook is shifting opinions.
Further to the post @37, here is a ranking of different countries on their future orientation:
http://theunspunblog.com/2007/10/21/how-future-orientated-is-your-country/
Carbonsink @41: “Not only could the world be utterly dependent on the Middle East for oil, but we could be utterly dependent on the Middle East for electricity generation as well. Brilliant!”
Agreed that it is not a happy thought for everyone else. Damn fine for Aussies, for a change! I was just answering your previous point about availability of gas for other nations.
I reckon the world has worked itself into a corner, by not enough forward planning.
Those Stanford psychologists @37 are suggesting that kids can be taught to think ahead, but that it is hard yakka to convert most people’s natural tendancies. Like the joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a light globe – only one, but the light globe has to really want to change…
Wombo @ 38 obviously hasn’t heard of Brave New Climate.
Renewables for anything more that a tiny percentage of our power needs is an ( expensive ) fantasy. And a waste of time.
Peter, I am familiar with Brave New Climate, and have read through it and great length. To be quite frank, when it comes to reading fantasy stories, I prefer Harry Potter.
Carbonsink @42, Barry Brook has nailed it on Coal plus CCS.
Agree with his assessment on points 1., 3., and 5.
Not so convinced about points 2. and 4. They look more like uncontested assumptions.
Elise @46:
RE: Point 2: My biggest issue with gas is that its in relatively short supply in certain parts of the world, parts of the world that have very large energy needs. And as Brook points out, its also not entirely clean. Its a helluva lot cleaner than coal, but the developed world needs to achieve 90% cuts by 2050 (while growing GDP at 3% p.a.) so gas simply isn’t good enough.
RE: Point 4: IMO, its doubtful renewables can be deployed fast enough to power a grid that’s evolved around baseload. If we had another 20-30 years to transition to a smarter grid, then perhaps renewables could play a larger role, but we don’t have that 20 years.
Carbonsink @47, it seems to me that the talk of cuts by 2050 is just blue sky mining.
Maybe the pollies would like us to think the problem is off into the remote distant future, which most of us heavily discount as not part of WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)?
The current mob of pollies won’t be accountable in 40 years time, so they can BS on about fancifully large cuts which make them sound macho, without committing them to anything meaningful.
If I understand the science correctly, we have to get meaningful change within 10 years, i.e. by 2020.
Elise, it really wasn’t a comment on pollies (lack of) commitment to 2050 targets. The fact is developed countries must reduce their emissions by 90% by 2050 if we’re to keep a lid on climate change, because developing countries will be growing emissions for several decades to come.
Similarly, if developed countries can’t slash emissions by 20-30% by 2020, we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell, because there’s no way Chindia is going to reduce their emissions in the next decade.
because there’s no way Chindia is going to reduce their emissions in the next decade.
Quite right carbonsink – in fact they will increase emissions substantially over the period.
It’s almost as if they put the prosperity of their people ahead of the risk of global warming.
Elise
“If I understand the science correctly, we have to get meaningful change within 10 years, i.e. by 2020.”
Lets get this into perspective, we are asking here a junky to give up his/her drug of choice that she/he developed over a couple of centuries!
Let us face it, this is not a environmental problem nor a technical problem, the problem is human based, as in size of population as well as certain unhealthy predominant physical and psychological habits.
Any technofix babble is pure autoeroticsm, that train has left the station.
President of the British Science Association, Lord May “I fear this could see us living, at best, in the world of the cult movie, Blade Runner, and more likely Mad Max.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/07/global-warming-religion
In relation to 350 and the cooperation conundrum, an ‘enlighted’ interview with Lord May.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2690404.htm
Elise,
Yep we have about 10 years to get meaningful change.
That’s what the nuke dupes totally don’t understand. In effect they are just one more gaggle of pathetic global warming denialists.
They proffer a “solution” that cannot possibly be implemented in any reasonable time frame, that cannot possibly have any effect at all in the short term. They must know this; therefore it is reasonable to assume that they are in denial.
But understand this; unless we fix the problem now we are totally stuffed. We don’t have time to fiddle with the boys toys.
The wet dreams of a glorious nuclear future for the planet are just pure fantasy.
Huggy
Mate, that’s just bullsh*t. Hansen and Barry Brook are no denialists. There more alarmists than denialists.
HB claimed:
This methodology is akin to the old Stalinist one of describibng one’s rivals as objectively counterrevolutionary. You may argue that our proposals may be a distraction or a diversion and thus prove counter-productive to mitigation efforts (though I would dispute this because we can discuss nuclear power’s feasibility without obstructing other measures aimed at mitigation) but it is specious and palpably unfair to read back from this to assert that we are denialists in effect.
We are not, as even a cursory look at BNC and my own track-record of posting will show. I am a supporter of very robust targets and the associated measures.
Youy are wrong to map Australia to the world. I accept that here in Australia, very little will happen on roll out of nuclear during the next ten years. Luckily, rapid downward movement at low cost in Australia’s emissions, while highly desirable, are not the difference between the failure of the world to address climate change and success. If those parts of the world with a more pragmatic view of nuclear power repalce their stationary coal and gas power with nuclear at an accelerated rate, then rapid progress will be made, at least in energy sector emissions. If they can put large parts of their vehicle fleet directly or indirectly onto the grid at the same time, then even more progress will be made.
Here in Australia, in practice, we are going to have to pay more per tonne of CO2 abatement than in other countries and thus will probably abate less rapidly than those resorting to nuclear power, as we have a higher set of hurdles to overcome.
I regard that as a shame, but that’s democracy.
Why dont all these NGO’s call for “450″??
At least they would be right – in about 30 years.
In the light of Lord May’s comments, I’m going to follow the advice offered elsewhere (sorry, can’t find the link) – I already have the farm, so all I need is the shotgun.
Peak Oilers would call that a ‘doomstead’ :)
In the peak oil community, rapidly depleting gas reserves, particularly in Europe and North America is accepted as inevitable, with the consequence being increased coal use on those continents. If you think that’s unlikely for political reasons, just look at where the US is getting its oil from these days. More and more is coming from Canada as Mexico goes into decline, and oil from the Canadian tar sands is just about the most carbon intensive source of oil in the world.
The lesson from all this: When our preferred fossil fuels become scarce, we’ll use dirtier fuels, and to hell with the climate change consequences.
Carbonsink @49 and PeterTB @50: “Quite right carbonsink – in fact they will increase emissions substantially over the period. It’s almost as if they put the prosperity of their people ahead of the risk of global warming.”
You are probably both entirely correct. Chindia are squarely in present-day thinking about what is good for them. So indeed are most people in the world, if action speak louder than words.
Opinions in Chindia will probably change right about the time that snowfall on the Himalayas declines, causing reduced river flows for the massive rivers that feed China and India. Then self-preservation will kick into action.
In a way, I hope there is a blip in the climate pattern to give everyone a fright in time, sufficiently before we reach the tipping point.
The catalyst would probably need to happen pronto, like about next year, if we are to convert fine words and promises into actual action in time to have an effect. The Queen Mary can’t make a major change direction instantaneously.
Huggybunny gets it wrong and right at the same time. While this
“That’s what the nuke dupes totally don’t understand. In effect they are just one more gaggle of pathetic global warming denialists.”
is clearly nonsense, this
“They proffer a “solution” that cannot possibly be implemented in any reasonable time frame, that cannot possibly have any effect at all in the short term.”
is perfectly accurate, meaning that this
“The wet dreams of a glorious nuclear future for the planet are just pure fantasy.”
is perfectly accurate, at least in the short to medium term (which is the period that actually *matters* as far as climate change is concerned).
David, I am not sure of the usefulness of shotguns. Although a friend recently came back from a visit to the US West Coast, where he apparently been to a gated community which was wholly self sufficient and armed to the teeth including tanks and PCs. Personally I prefer to live in a strong community that knows how to look after itself and can adapt in events that bring broad social upheaval. A little while ago I was digging up the local history from around the Great Depression time. It was very telling of the character of the folks up here in FNQ.
I am very pessimistic about staying below the 350 limit, simply because I know too much about the psychological aspects in relation to such broad scale social change. For example, all the talk is about technofixes, finding energy sources with less CO2 emissions. Few ever mention reduction of energy consumption or using it more efficiently as a viable option. That we are struggling to go back to consumption levels of 20 years ago is telling, hence my analogy to a drug habit above. Call me a Luddite or Anarchist, but the ‘Great Unplugging’ can’t happen soon enough, lets start by taxing the crap out of energy. I fondly remember the car free days of the 70s in Europe, let me assure you, the sky did not fall in! People simply bonked more to keep warm and for entertainment, now whats wrong with that. Could we ever possibly discuss realistic lifestyle changes that we personally are prepared to undergo or consider as important to stay below 350 ppm?
Ootz, clever and tempting alternatives to one side (“People simply bonked more to keep warm and for entertainment”), there are significant limits to what reductions of immediate personal consumption can achieve, and simply taxing “the crap” out of energy” will simply shift the cost onto a population already facing rising costs of living. All it will mean, left to its own devices, is more tax revenue for governments, and continued profits for energy companies.
Energy *efficiency*, on the other hand, is a vital part of any suite of measures to reduce emissions. From memory, the emissions reductions figure that could be achieved in NSW through efficiency measures alone is somewhere over 40%.
Leaving the mode of energy production (coal vs oil vs solar vs wind, etc) to one side, the other problem is that of the mass production of commodities for popular consumption, most of which results in waste either through over-production or through the built-in obsolence required to maintain a demand (and, therefore, a profit).
Not too subtly, one of the issues at the heart of the problem is our economic mode of production – ie Capitalism.
And there’s more chance of stopping climate change through transcending capitalism (and yes, I know how slim it is) or technofixes than there is through a “return to nature” (even if we do sell it with extra bonking included). And that is even taking into the account the right and aspiration of most of the world’s population to *improve* its standard of living, and actually get electricity, etc.
Logic demands that if you offer a totally impossible solution to a pending catastrophe then you are either totally stupid or totally unable to really believe that the catastrophe is going to happen.
I dont think the LS denizens are totally stupid, ergo the nukedupes on the site are denialists.
The build one thousand plus (maybe 2000 – depends) global nuclear reactors project in less than 10 years is just pure escapist fantasy. That’s what you would have to do to if you want the global nuclear solution to GW.
Huggy
I agree with basically all your points up to “the nukedupes are GW denialists”.
They may well be fantasising, halucinating, deluded, insane, compromised, irrational, mislead, ridiculously optimistic, stupid or any number of other things. None of these are necessarily barriers to contributing to LP.
But being “nukedupes” doesn’t mean that they are GW denialists.
Otherwise you could apply the same to, say, populationists. Now, I think people who advocate population reduction as the solution to climate change are nuts. But I don’t think they are climate change denialists, because they’re not.
And accusing them of such will neither convince them to change their mind, nor contribute much to the actual struggle to roll back AGW.
HB …
The Chinese are going to build 132 by 2020. That’s a rate of 13 per year in China alone. The real problems have been with getting a modular design — most plants to date have been single project plants — the equivalent of having a custom car made for each client with all its R &D. If you settled on one easy to reproduce design with standard components the build times would come right down. Even with EIS and the various other regulatory hurdles a start to finish time of four years is not unreasonable. If you run ten of them at once in parallel — not hard for countries of the size of India, Brazil, Russia, the US etc — a world goal of 1000 new plants by 2020 is not far fetched.
Of course if you build them on brownfield sites like coal plants or smelters, then the build times could be even quicker as some of the regulatory matters would already have been done.
Fran Barlow @64: “a start to finish time of four years is not unreasonable…”
Come off it, Fran. It takes that long to get through the red tape for an extension of a dirt-moving project for the Pilbara.
You would NOT EVEN GET STARTED on a nuke project in that time frame, with Australia’s government approvals system.
Elise@65
Not in Australia, obviously, but here I’m talking about those parts of the world that have nuclear power already. Here in Australia, it seems improbable that any party will campaign for a level-playing field on energy during the next ten years, which is why I said what I did above @55.
For the record Wombo, I agree with your pitch for energy efficiency. Whatever solutions are adopted, energy efficiency (along with the basic principle of not buying disposable plastic crap and consumer waste) is the lowest of the low hanging fruit.
It’s a damned shame that there doesn’t seem to be a percentage in fixing things that are broken any more. I have a not so old DVD that worked pretty well but has developed some sort of read error but the cost of getting it fixed is probably going to be more than buying a new one.
Just need Rudd to declare war on global warming and throw out all the red tape :-)
Chris@68
A high risk (obvious wedge issue) low return (he has the next election in the bag right now) strategy. He gets to be hated by the ALP/Green left and the people who like nuclear power are mostly going to vote Liberal on other grounds or because although they like it they think it should be nowhere near them.
Don’t forget, this only makes sense if he also encourges users of coal OS to go nuclear …
What is in it for him? Zip and a huge political problem.
Chris @68: “…declare war on global warming”
Yes! Actually that is not such a daft concept!
On a war footing, more of a nation’s resources are devoted to solving the problem and people’s energies are focussed on a common outcome.
Progress happens astonishingly rapidly on a war footing, compared with normal times.
If the tipping point is actually around 400 ppm, current levels are 386 ppm and the growth rate is 2 ppm/year (and rising), then perhaps a “war footing” is exactly what humanity needs?
Elise,
*Which* tipping point? We’ve already passed several. 400ppm CO2e could certainly be another one, but it’s not one I feel comfortable relying upon for any kind of safe climate. I won’t be happy (and I’m pretty sure that once the reality of AGW kicks in, none of you will be either) without a limit of maximum 300 CO2e.
Fran,
re. DVD player – I have the same problem, as of one week ago.
Re. “declaring war” on AGW. I agree entirely, except that if we’re going to go to the effort, actual renewable energy sources might be a clever idea… Just sayin’… What with the word “war” being thrown in there, I’m hoping people might remember the propensity for humanity to blow shit up, and that maybe nuclear isn’t as clever as you think.
Yet.
For the record, I am actually in favour of nuclear *in theory*. That theory is dependent upin a number of variables before it can be put into practice, including the prior rapid avoidance, mitigation and roll-back of AGW, and the transcendence of both capitalist relations of production, and of war.
(Similar, but less harsh, restrictions apply to my support for “clean coal”, not least because I’m skeptical of the ability of EAF steel recycling and substitutes like titanium, or even bamboo, to replace the need for new steel production. But that’s a different kettle of fish from “clean coal” for energy production…)
Until then, I simply don’t trust human beings to play with atomic power (sheesh, I mean look at the mess we’re causing with *other* materials…).
Fran @64: “…world goal of 1000 new plants by 2020 is not far fetched”
Some of your numbers look like fantasy land.
Have you taken into account the time to get enough uranium mines up and running to feed this number of extra plants?
It would take at least a decade to get another Roxby Downs up and running. How many of those size operations are you talking about?
By the way, where are you getting the personnel to build them?
The Aussie resources sector has been having enough trouble finding construction manpower for the projects in hand at the moment (engineering design, construction management and workforce). And your solution was…?
Fran @ 67
Thats a feature not a bug. And you can thank that nasty ‘Capitalism’ for that. It means that the cost of production has dropped far below even the cost of a techie just looking at it (I’ve seen dvd players for $29 and it cost a non refundable $70 odd dollars for a tech to look).
The other capitalism complainer above talking about in built obsolescence is also talking rubbish. Cars are far more reliable now than in the past. Same with TV’s. Sure some really cheap stuff doesn’t last long but you get what you pay for. Many people, myself included often prefer cheaper items and buy a new one after a period of time. Things get marked, scratched and so on. Do people here wear threadbare clothes? No, I thought not.
Fran @ 69 – I think politically its impossible for Rudd to do even if he wanted to – and given his political dependence on coal mining its even less likely. But its about the only thing which would get past the large scale public protests that would pop up when people found nuclear power plants popping up near them. About the only thing which would give it some chance of getting through is as was suggested before a large natural disaster that was clearly and undeniably linked to global warming. Maybe a month of Sydney and Canberra engulfed by dust storms!
Elise @ 72
Thats what the army is for – and conscription – we’re at war after all :-) And the manpower is there anyway as long as you’re willing to pay the price and accept the hit to the economy that will come from everything else which is not done as a result of the manpower diversion.
Chris @74, By Jove you are right, we can use our Diggers!
I guess they are all experienced in design and construction of nuke plants?
By the way, in terms of sustainability of this brave nuke world, can we have some comments on these figures I found about uranium consumption requirements?
“Assuming world economic growth of 3%/annum, with growth in energy requirements 1% less, extrapolating from 2006 to 2020, increases the energy requirement to 980 EJ.
A typical 1200 MW nuclear power plant produces 32 PJ per annum, so to provide for 790 EJ around 24,700 nuclear power stations would have to be built. To provide for 980 EJ would require 30,000 stations, each requiring 200 tonnes/annum of uranium fuel. To fuel this number of stations, around 6 million tonnes/annum of uranium production would be required.
In 2006 world annual mine production totalled only 39,600 tonnes of uranium, of which Canada produced 9,860 tonnes and Australia 7,590 tonnes resp. Only Canada has reserves of high grade ore, while the grade of the ores remaining in Australia progressively lowers. The balance of 26,900 tonnes required to meet the 2006 nuclear generators’ demand for 66,500 tonnes came from inventories, ex-weapons material, MOX and re-worked mine tailings.
This secondary uranium supply is due to run out within a decade, so primary production would have to be increased 150-fold to match the anticipated global energy needs exclusively from nuclear power in 2020.”
Exactly HOW MANY mines are we talking about here?
Sorry Peter, but cars aren’t the sole measure of capitalist production practices, as you yourself appear to recognise.
“Sure some really cheap stuff doesn’t last long but you get what you pay for. Many people, myself included often prefer cheaper items and buy a new one after a period of time.”
Sure, you get what you pay for. And are you given the option of a DVD player, for example, that lasts a good decade, and a warranty to match. to pay for? Or the same for a thousand other items? What do you think I was talking about with “waste”?
Actually, some of my clothes are threadbare well before their time. And I know people who can’t afford to by a new suit every time they feel like it – my point again.
Peter@73 quoted me:
Well actually, in the current context, it is both a feature and a bug. It is cheap in part because the labour making them, and making the parts and materials to make them and to transport them is cheap and there is no cost on CO2 emission and the relative value of the Aussie dollar makes it cheap.
Conceivably, of course, if the components are that cheap, one ought to be able to import these cheaply too or fashion them here, but even so, we pay our repair folk a lot better than third world labourers — and rightly so — but this means that the materials with all of their embedded energy cost and associated footprint are wasted.
I actually wouldn’t mind posting it to some place and having the thing sit there for a few weeks so that it could, along with other DVD players be mass repaired in a time and cost effective way, even if it did cost me about as much as a new one. I don’t use it that much and as it happens I have another one I can use that someone gave me because they bought a new one. But as far as I know, there’s no such place to send it, so I’ll probably end up putting it out at council clean up.
There’s a divfference between threadbare clothes and something getting marked and scratched. My fri and washing machine are marked and scratched. My dryer has a dint in the top where my son sat on it. They still function well enough.
I don’t wear threadbare clothes out in public, but clothes that are still OK for domestic stuff I keep. Perhaps it’s a late baby boomer thing. Even in the 60s, my mother would insist on us bringing our bown paper sandwich bags home in good condition from school for re-use. When shoes were traded up, shoelaces would be recovered and re-used, even if they were the wrong colour.
Just found a very interesting set of numbers for urban transport:
Urban passenger:
by road (car): 0.36 passenger-km / MJ (1 passenger per 8.1L/100km)
by road (bus): 0.71 passenger-km / MJ (1 passenger per 3.7L/100km)
by rail: 0.65 passenger-km / MJ (1 passenger per 4L/100km)
We are regularly being told that it would be MUCH better if we all used public transport (bus or train), rather than driving the car. The data does indeed show that bus and rail give about double the passenger-km per MJ of energy consumed.
Also check out the equivalent consumption figures in brackets (in L/100km). The bus and rail figures are not so different from the latest hybrids and small German diesels.
Does this mean that you would be doing just as well to buy a car with half the fuel consumption?
Would you then be matching the footprint of catching public transport?
Maybe instead of spending a squillion on upgrading Australia’s public transport system, the government could simply push harder to get more green cars into circulation??? ;)
Elise, this is just it, its all about technology; car vs train, nuke vs gas, etc. we are still looking at quick fixes, magic wands, not about walking the talk. The whole 350 thing to me looks artificial. It does not easily translate into immediate and practical individual actions which are realistically required. Whats next, a tumbling people in a bowling alley campaign? I ask Wombo, what is the difference between “transcending capitalism” and “going back to nature”. My argument is, we need to address and question our lifestyle and value system on a fundamental level. Questions like, how far are we prepared to drive for a haircut are more relevant then whether to use the car or train.
Wombo,
the reason why you can’t buy dvd players with a 10 year warranty is because of limited demand. Sure there might be a few people like yourself that would like to pay a lot more and get one but most don’t. The beauty of the capitalist system is that if you think there *is* as demand for items with a long warranty there is absolutely nothing stopping *you* from trying to satisfy that demand. But to assume *your* wish for such things is the norm is well.. how should I put it?
Fran,
While cheap labour cost in final assembly might mean the difference between a $29 dvd and a $79 dvd the vast reduction in costs is due to integration. This is a really high tech business but the final assembly part is low tech and low wage. I used to cringe every time I saw that IBM PC ad about them being made in Wangarata, when in fact they were just assembled here, and I bet the wages paid reflected that. That sort of stuff we don’t need or want because up and coming developing countries will do it much better. Same with clothes and shoes etc.
Because of the high level of integration it is now rarely economical to repair consumer electronics. Thats the downside, but the upside is far greater reliability. As an example of the huge increase in integration in 1983 we bought our first video recorder. The thing was smallish but weighed a ton. After a few years I had to replace a rubber idler wheel and opened it up. The thing was packed so tight with mechanical stuff that it was a marvel of engineering just to get it to all fit in the small space. There were at least 20 circuit boards. The assembly documentation must have been a 1000 pages long. I counted over a dozen motors – that I could see. 15 years later we had to buy a new one and there was a display model of a new machine with a clear plastic cover. 12 moving parts! All the rest was electronics and that had shrunk to a dozen or so chips on one board.
Sorry, but people that talk about capitalist waste have no idea at all what they are talking about.
To build one hundred thousand (probably more) renewable power stations is equally fanciful, in fact more so. The over capacity required to cover the intermittency of renewables would be mind-bogglingly expensive. If time and money were not an issue, I’d prefer we go the renewables route, but we’ve run out of time, and we spent all our money rescuing banks.
As Barry Brook says, we need to be ruthlessly pragmatic now.
Sorry Peter, but you obviously have not visited a refuse tip lately. Capitalist or consumer waste is real, as pollution is real, as resource depletion is real, as unsustainable growth is real. It is a bit like the sorcerers apprentice in Disney’s or, if you prefer, Goethe’s story, the question is, will the master come home in time to stop the disaster?
On the contrary Ootz rubbish dumps will be a fertile source of raw materials one day. And it will be a capitalist who figures it out.
Let me get this right, so we have to consume more and produce more waste in order for capitalism to flourish?
No, I still say tax the crap out of energy. It worked with tobacco.
The fact remains Peter, hoiwever you xlice and dice it, the materials, all of them with a significant energy footprint are nearly 100% waste. We are in effect discarding all that energy, or at any rate using more energy and extracting more raw material to duplicate the funcionality we already have. How that meets EROEI is hard to see.
If all consumer items lasted about three times as long, as now, how much less energy per capita would be neded to satisfy us 180 to 250 kwh per person per day consumers?
Fran,
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from making and selling stuff that lasts 3 times as long – if you can! Your grandmothers washing machine may have lasted 50 years, but face it, it was a crappy washing machine.
Beside most of our stuff lasts ages. Our fridge and freezer are 25 years old. Stereo nearly the same. But then people here say we should buy more efficient fridges! So we buy one and then 10 years later we buy another even more efficient one? How does that work with having everything last (3x) longer.
And what about cars? Are we all supposed to keep our old bangers for ever (like I used to see plenty of ‘greenies’ ) or buy the latest more efficient one? If I buy an efficient car now should I keep it for 3 times longer (45 years!!) or would it be better to have them not last so long so that we can take advantage of improvements in safety and economy? And don’t tell me cars haven’t improved in almost all respects in the last 15 years.
It’s easy to pontificate about how things should be when you don’t have to actually do it – as in make things last 3 times longer. Snap fingers and its done! Too easy.
Ooze @ 85:
Good luck with that ooze. In fact I can confidently predict in 20 or 30 years we we all be using probably 2* the energy we do now. Try that one and all you do is turn oz into another Argentina. All the smart people will go elsewhere while the rest will wonder what hit them.
Back @ 5 when I said we need to go “full bore on 4th gen nuclear” I had in mind a major R&D push aimed at getting operating plants in the second half of the 2020s. By “we” I meant the world. I’m not convinced Australia needs to go nuke at all and I’m not keen on covering the planet with 3G nuclear plants. Nevertheless, we (the world) might have to be ruthlessly pragmatic.
Back in July I showed a graphic from about a year ago which indicated 439 operating nuclear plants in the world. I also reported (probably from Barry Brook) that there were 388 plants “planned or proposed”, so there is considerable capacity coming up.
Someone who seemed to know what he was on about said on the radio the other day that there were only four countries in the world that could get all their power from renewables – Australia, NZ, Iceland and Brazil. With wind, concentrated solar, rooftop PV and geothermal we should be able to give it a nudge, but the geothermal would need to come off if we were going to achieve zero by about 2030.
But meanwhile we should:
1. Stop installing coal capacity.
2. Go full bore on converting coal power stations to gas
3. Ditto on converting motor vehicles to LPG
4. Change our building codes to maximum sustainability
5. Mandate a program of energy saving in all businesses, government and organisations
6. Offer energy audits and incentives (as we had with water in Brisbane) to homes.
That’s not intended to be complete and is straight off the top of my head. Huggy, can we have your suggestions, please. You’ve already done the calling people dumbos thing :)
If we are to peak emissions by 2015 we are going to need all your suggestions.
Peter
Well the PC I’m typing this out on is now five years old, and sustained by components I’ve managed to scavenge from other discarded machines. About 15 months into my ownership, I bought another machine cheap on e-bay with an identical or adequately similar motherboard, video card, power source, fan, RAM, drives etc. and a spare monitor for $175 from someone “trading up”. I’ve used the RAM, power source, battery and fan. At some point the motherboard will be exchanged and the old drive will have to be junked and the new one re-imaged. I will probably get 10 years out of this PC instead of about 3 years — for $175 plus the petrol and time needed to drive to Annandale from Epping.
I’d say that was not only environmentally sound, but good value too.
That’s
I’m not so sure on the converting vehicles to LPG thing, Brian. I’m keener on the putting in the public transport needed for people to stop using their cars as much thing, and for reconfiguring the big cities to make supplying PT easier.
Pete @ 88
Good luck with doubling energy consumption! Smart people will go where there is ample and clean water and food growing nearby (*News flash* Adelaide to go on bottled water!). Smart people will live close to work. Smart people will live in a community that is strong, self reliant and has a can do attitude.
I repeat, that we are struggling to go back to energy consumption levels just 2 decades ago speaks volumes. You can fiddle with all your techno gadgets and economic wizardry ultimately what is required is LIFESTYLE changes. I know it is hard to think of live without plasma screen and driving your kids all over town for sport activities! I wish it would be otherwise too.
Brian your top of the Head suggestions 4 & 5 should have been implemented 5 years ago if we are to make it back to 350.
Fran, I’m not sure of it either, but I see investment in public transport, reconfiguring cities, reconfiguring the whole retail experience with more online ordering/home delivery, improving and extending bicycle paths etc as medium to longer term fixes.
We can also do as John D keeps saying in just mandating tighter standards og CO2 per km standards.
But there is an issue as to what to do about the existing fleet, which tends to hang around for 20 years. An academic on the radio recently said that we have only perhaps 1% of our fleet on LPG now. He predicted that as we came out of the GFC petrol prices would go up and there simply would be a huge bottleneck in getting LPG conversions. We should be planning to upgrade conversion facilities in advance if the increased demand is so predictable. My next visit to my car mechanic is going to involve a conversation about LPG conversion.
Another approach would be to charge registration according to greenhouse rating and let the market sort out the solutions.
I agree, Brian but
1. You have to start somewhere, whatever the urgency
2. Retrofitting vehicles to LPG is more expensive in the long run both in initial outlays and in longterm emissions than would be the public transport option. If retrofitting is seen as a viable strategy then progressively converting the existing fleet to plug-in hybrid and rolling out more biodiesel sourced from waste oils and butanol from landfill and sewage plant gas waste would make greater sense. If you are going to make use of gas supply, then why not use the gas supplied to households to run a gen-set geared to repower a PHEV? You could have a lithium battery bank sitting at home recharging while the user was using the vehicle and they could switch at night. That would make more sense than lugging about an LP gas tank in your boot.
And while your next visit might involve a conversation, about LPG, let me tell you as someone who tried a while back to have such a conversation, I don’t like your chances. I have a TS Astra and there is currently no approved conversion kit for that. Each of them has to be specified. Moreover, you have to lose the spare tyre in the wheel bay and you have to keep your petrol tank, so you get a lot of redundant space. How do they expect people to get by without the spare?
Brian, last night I put forward my suggestions but the site was so shocked it crashed.
I can extend your list:
1. Stop installing coal capacity.
2. Go full bore on converting coal power stations to gas -in particular CSM. BTW the global CSM resources are absolutely huge*.
3. Ditto on converting motor vehicles to LPG
4. Change our building codes to maximum sustainability
5. Mandate a program of energy saving in all businesses, government and organisations
6. Offer energy audits and incentives (as we had with water in Brisbane) to homes.
7. Really get into the steel and aluminium industries and force them to implement the CO2 reduction strategies that they sit on.
8. Immediatly set up a government controlled manufacturing industry that has the task of producing the very low energy refrigerators and appliances that are entirely feasible right now. This should be a WW2 type exercise.
9. Mandate high efficiency Light Emoitting Diodes in all lighting situations
10.Go after the concrete industry to reduce CO2 emissions – big time
11. Fund local energy storage for domestic and SME – this is a biggie
*Country Estimated CBM Resource Base (trillion cubic metres)
Canada 17 to 92
Russia 17 to 80
China 30 to 35
Australia 8 to 14
USA 4 to 11
http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-seam-methane/coal-bed-methane/
Huggy
HB
As a matter of practice, your program would be a big step forward on what we have now and even on what we are likely to get, though I don’t support #3. #9 might be limited to major usage buildings. I’m not sure what #10 would entail in practice. I’d like to see a concrete recycling program used in which useable formwork materiel was resued where apt. It’s hard to imagine it couldn’t be used as road or rail base, or in some cases in building foundations, reducing the footprint of the resulting buildings.
I also like the idea of localising water treatment and recycling and combining that with storm water capture and pumped storage.
I also believe it would be a very good thing to set up a network of local multi-storey carparks at or very near major commuter choke points at 12 and 25 kms from the city centres and service these with electric-hybrid shuttle buses.
Incentives to car pool could also be introduced to reduce traffic still further.
Those four countries would represent less than 5% of global emissions. The main game is in Europe, North America, and developing Asia. Natural gas supplies are limited in most of these regions, and populations are large. Who here believes renewables will be able to replace the energy needs of these regions in the next decade or two?
Petrol price rises will be moderated substantially by the strength of the Aussie dollar, which is soaring because of demand for our burnable dirt and red rocks. Hilarious really that because the world is so desperate for our filthy coal it allows us to buy more oil and drive bigger cars.
You gotta love Australia.
Huggy @ 95
You serious? Thats my WTF for the day. I presume we’ll all be forced to buy these expensive, unreliable contraptions manufactured by the kind of people that work in the Public Service or Post Office?
Carbonsink @97: “Natural gas supplies are limited in most of these regions, and populations are large.”
Three possible scenarios for what they do about it, as supply/demand ratio worsens and prices rise:
(a) “Gee shucks, I’ll just make do with less…”
(b) “Gee shucks, I’ll just dig deeper and cough up the extra dough for BAU”
(c) “Let’s invade those greedy so-&-so’s who are using up more than their fair share and keeping us in the poorhouse.”
Perhaps it might start with scenarios (a) and (b), but as the screws tighten, the billions of Chindians might decide they were entitled to (c)?
Fran @96: “I’d like to see a concrete recycling program used in which useable formwork materiel was resued where apt. It’s hard to imagine it couldn’t be used as road or rail base, or in some cases in building foundations, reducing the footprint of the resulting buildings.”
Just a question – how much power would be consumed by the crushing machines needed to crush up the odd-shaped bits from concrete recycling/demolition projects? What is the carbon footprint of that activity?
If you had to reduce the concrete into small chunks, to get reasonably uniform strength properties in the recycled material, then there would be a lot of crushing power needed.
I’m not sure exactly how much power you’d need to handle and reform the concrete material — plainly much would depend on the intended end use. We do have a lot of redundant capacity at night though so perhaps this is when you’d schedule it.
In some cases, you probably wouldn’t have to alter the blocks that much. When all is said and done, a concrete slab for a house is a pretty standard thing. The foundations of a building are going to be contrived to a cookie-cuttenr standard.
Elise,
A lot of concrete (most?) is already recycled. It is usually much cheaper to recycle than dump and the material is widely used as a sort of gravel replacement. They also extract the reo.
Here in Canberra is costs $7 per ton to recycle concrete but about $75 to dump.
Bricks are also recycled.
Brian @93: “But there is an issue as to what to do about the existing fleet, which tends to hang around for 20 years.”
What is wrong with retrofitting them with an electric motor and batteries? There are businesses that will do the conversion already operating in most capital cities.
“An academic on the radio recently said that we have only perhaps 1% of our fleet on LPG now. He predicted that as we came out of the GFC petrol prices would go up and there simply would be a huge bottleneck in getting LPG conversions.”
The bottleneck is probably the first thing we would notice.
The next is the relative shortage of LPG for long-term supplies, as a large percentage of the fleet is converted.
The real issue, as the oil crunch bites and people switch to alternatives like LPG, is that it becomes priced as a substitute for oil. There probably won’t be much financial saving from LPG, except while you are at the front of the wave.
I’d be putting my money on better fuel efficiency in the short-term, to last a bit longer until the bugs are ironed out of electric cars, and our electricity generation is less coal-based.
When might this occur?
Say most people won’t convert until they can see a 3 year payback on the cost of conversion (or the incremental cost of a new electric car over a combustion car). The incremental cost is probably in the vacinity of $15,000 for a lithium battery system (not allowing for future improvements and price reductions as occurs in other technologies).
So, for a 3 year payback, in simplistic terms (neglecting inflation, etc) we are talking about a $5000/year saving on using fuel. If people are driving say 12,000 km per year, and they have a car doing 10 L/100km, then fuel would have to rise to about $4/litre.
I reckon there will probably be a wholesale transition by about $4/litre, if not before.
Of course, a good many people can recognise an upcoming loss-making situation, and won’t wait until they see a 3 year payback on switching horses.
If they are doing the sums on replacing the car with a new electric model, the forward-looking types will probably also factor in the bugger-all trade-in value if they wait to sell their old tank when everyone is bailing out of tanks.
Peter @102, we weren’t talking about cost. Fran was talking about carbon footprint.
Fran’s argument about using off-peak power also does not seem to line up with carbon footprint. It is implicitly talking about cost as well.
What exactly are you trying to save here?
It does kind of line up with carbon footprint Elise, because you have to have coal plants running overnight even if there is little demand because otherwise they won’t be ready to supply the peak morning load.
If we had nuclear of course, that would apply too, though with a carbon footprint perhaps 1/200th of coal.
If we are seriously sugesting 350 ppm we need to start looking at what a “war footing” approach might involve. Think about what happened during WW2:
1. Population convinced that losing the war would be disastrous.
2. Strong move towards a command economy with a national strategy.
3. Investment in R&D, factories etc.
4. Rationing
5. Reallocation of resources away from production of frivolities.
6. Shared discomfort
It is worth looking at how Brisbane dealt with the water supply crisis. Versions of 1, 2, 4 and 6 were part of the approach. Short term strategies were used in conjunction with investment in tanks, desalination, water treatment and pipework to reduce the longer term risks. Suggestions that the answer was to “put a price on water” were sensibly ignored. Per capita consumption is still well under 50% of what it was before the crisis even though the raisn finally came.
Talking about 350 ppm without talking about what needs to happen in the next 20 years runs the risk of simply sxcaring people off.
Peter @ 95
Are you really unaware that all the stuff you buy – really cheap fronm China – is manufactured under the Huggybunny system “8. Immediatly set up a government controlled manufacturing industry that has the task of producing the very low energy refrigerators and appliances that are entirely feasible right now. This should be a WW2 type exercise.” Call it the China model.
Maybe you should get out more.
Elise, I have ridden in a Fiat that was converted over to electricity using a “Zebra” (Sodium Nickel Chloride) battery. Went like the whistling powers it did slamming around the icy roads of Switzerland. Where did we charge the battery? Why in the restuarant car-park of course. Each parking bay had charging point.
There is no impediment to conversion except stupidity.
Huggy
HB @107, totally agree about impediments!
“Where did we charge the battery? Why in the restuarant car-park of course. Each parking bay had charging point. There is no impediment to conversion except stupidity.”
I spent 6 months living in far north Sweden, and had to convert my car with an engine warmer for the winter (Sheesh, it was cold!!!). The car was plugged into an outdoor power point in the parking bay outside the flat. Wherever I went, it was plugged into the power point in the car parks.
Every parking bay had a power point. Plugging in the car is no more effort than feeding a parking meter. You get used to it surprisingly quickly.
“There is no impediment to conversion except stupidity.”
Or perhaps, there is no impediment except inertia, and failure to recognise that an answer exists and is achievable.
Elise , wot you said about inertia. I agree.
One “impediment” to electric vehicles that is often raised by the technotards is:
“Bbbut there are no power points out on the streets for those who don’t have a garage!!”(blubber blubber).
I reckon it would take about 18 months to run a charging line down every inner suburban gutter and issue smart cards to potential users. Do the same in car parks etc and the problem is solved. Just more of point 8 above.
Huggy
HB @109, already in 2002 in the UK local councils had started installing power points along the walls of multistory car parks, with signs saying they were for parking electric cars.
That would not take care of a 100% electric fleet, but then I guess they were taking a Pareto Principle and doing a minimum cost solution. They had probably figured that a partial solution was an easy fix for the short term, until more people owned electric cars.
Has anyone seen the equivalent being implemented in Australia yet?
And of course, HB, if my idea for large commuter carparks on main connecting roads were taken up, one of the attributes would be plug-in points with smart card metering.
You could have wind turbines on the top of the car parks and, assuming there were a small shopping centre on one of the non-parking levels, waste organic matter and sewage could go via an anaerobic digester and produce methane for a methane-fired gen set. All the cars get recharged from renewables and any surplus is sold back to the grid. The leftover waste from methanogenesis (basically lignin and chitin) is then sold as soil conditioner.
FranB.
Yep yep to all that.
Not only commuter car parks but commuter bikes and electric scooters.
People should be able to take a train to some holiday place and hire small EV’s to scoot around in.
Put a proper rail line down the gold coast for example. No car parks – walk or hire electric.
A little anecdote. In the US they sold a lot of small electric scooters.
Investigation revealed that the yanks would park their SUV in the Walmart car park, hop on the scooter and ride say 200m to the store. Shop, then ride back to the SUV and drive it to the goods pick-up point.
Huggy
And further HB … imagine if the carparks were, say, 40 metres high and on the top you had a water reservoir with a capacity of say, 20000m3 (i.e nearly 20000 Kl) i.e. a containment reservoir with a radius of about 25 metres and a height of ten metres, and down a central spine you had a shaft with a turbine running 60 metres through the building and into the parent rock where an equivalently sized reservoir existed. That would allow you to store about 5341 KwH of power or load balance 222.54 kw for 24 hours — (about 4% redundancy). Assuming your carpark had one 3.6 MW turbine on each corner and functioned at a capacity factor of 0.33 you’d get on average 4800Kw each hour, so unless these went more than 4% below average, or demand surged when CF was only average, the stored reserves would be untapped. Obviously, the storage could supply the total average capacity of the wind turbines for one hour, plenty enough for the methane gen set to kick in and cover.
Assuming there were at capacity, 5000 vehicles charging in the car park at any one time, that would mean that you could supply on average 1KwH every hour until charged to each of them from the turbines alone. Of course, if you had retail or residential usages this would be less but in either case, clearly, you could be close to self-sufficient in energy orsometimes producing a surplus to the grid.
Fran @ 113 – all that water is going to weight a *lot* – maybe 2-3 times as much as those 5000 parked cars. Its a fair amount of engineering required. I think the snowy mountain scheme does the whole pump water up hill in order to use it to generate power later. I can’t remember the numbers but its not particularly efficient from memory (but obviously better than just letting it go). Probably better off just pushing the surplus into the grid.
Fran @113, you seem to be proposing distributed power storage at the local scale of pumped water on carparks.
Is there a scaling efficiency of large-scale (Snowy-type) pumped storage over localised pumped storage?
How fine-scale are you proposing to take this localised power storage – household battery banks as well?
Wouldn’t it be better to focus on distributed power storage in the batteries of electric cars, and push any surplus into the grid as Chris suggests @114?
Actually you’re mistaken Chris. Round trip efficiency for pumped storage is between 75% and 85% — and more towards the upper end in areas with rain over the upper reservoir, for obvious reasons. I think Ben Cruachan in Scotland for example is about 83% from memory.
The weight of course is an issue. A litre of water weighs close enough to 1Kg to use this rule of thumb, so the amount I’m talking about would weigh almost 20,000 tons. Assuming each car weighs on average one ton, that’s four times the weight of the total number of vehicles in the carpark at capacity. So yes, you’d need some pretty impressive engineering to support this weight. Well worth it though, given the payback.
Elise,
There is (as usual) a dark secret about lithium ion batteries, they have a limited cycling ability – 600 cycles is probably good going.
This means that a battery that is used in a car for simply travelling would have a lifetime of say 4-5 years.
Use it for load levelling in the home and you would probably be lucky to get 2 years before replacement.
The batteries in hybrids are usually < 2kWh no use in domestic load levelling where you need about 12 kWh.
Having said that, I have been working on domestic load levelling systms for years, even installed afew at test sites. They radically alter the economics of power generation and distribution.
BTW – before any-one starts- don't even think about "flow" batteries.
Huggy
Fran @113 and 116, you are talking about hydroelectric generators for carparks. Are you sure they are effective at that scale?
My limited understanding of hydroelectric systems, is that you need either a very high water head for a small volume (like that stored on top of a carpark) or a small water head but a very large volume. Norwegian hydro schemes use the high head (Norwegian alps) and small volume arrangement, whereas Swedish hydro schemes use small water head but very large volumes (rivers in Sweden).
A carpark will give you both small water head and small volume.
Sounds like a lot of engineering, and a lot of concrete, for a debatable gain in hydroelectric storage.
I’m interested in the collision between “making people use less energy means going back to the dark ages” and “energy efficiency is a cheap and easy way”. Surely they can’t both be true?
But by the dark ages argument I’m not posting this because our household uses so little energy that we must be back before the age of window glass, let alone internet access. I’ll just throw another plague-ridden corpse on the bonfire and go back to staring at the squiggles on the page, then.
Reclaiming runoff is a great idea. But we’re probably better off using that water as water, as long as we’ve still got massive hydrology problems, rather than trying to turn it into power.
Actually Elise it’s a pretty basic piece of physics which is totally scaleable. In soime ways, the acr park is better than the Snowy Scheme because most of the structure of the car park is built for another (self-funding purpose). Getting that head is mostly paid for by the function of the building as a multi-storey carpark and shopping centre and perhaps residential center.
Not only that, instead of having sloping pipes you have pipes that go vertical. If you have bedrock at the bottom, then you can take advantage of that. And as the carpark is on the coast, precipitation is greater.
The vehicle to grid idea is a reasonable one, but remember too that batteries have a limited number of discharge cycles and of course what we would be doing here is storing our intermittent energy directly, making it dispatchable and transmitting over short distances.
Fran,
Pumped storage is good, but sodium sulphur batteries are better if you want large scale energy storage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-sulfur_battery
The have really big ones in the heart of Tokyo
The battery for small scale (domestic) distributed storage is not here yet but people are working on it
Thanks for the info on electric conversion. Something to think about.
HB
I was aware of the NaS battery system but I really don’t like the idea of putting such a large potentially explosive device into a heavily populated area. Sodium + water is not a good mix!
This may be an alternative however Vanadium Flow batteries
fran, Oh well the issue with the vanadium redox is simply energy density,both volumetric and mass, not good. I told you not to mention flow batteries :) They are not so good, even though I do dearly love Maria Skyllos Kazakis.
There was a major fire in a sodium sulphur battery in Japan. No worse than the sodium fire at that nuclear plant that you never hear about. (Monju 1995) Bet the nuke dupes have gone all amnesiac on that one.
The most interesting battery is the sodium nickel chloride; these too use liquid sodium. They are rated as safe for vehicle use as when you puncture them they simply freeze the puncture with a plug of sodium chloroaluminate. Huge cycling ability high energy density both volumetric and mass and made from readily available materials Nickel Sodium Chloride and a pinch of aluminium. (Check out the sources of Lithium Carbonate – Tibet? Columbia?.
You want sodium ? watch this: http://dotsub.com/view/b9e64096-5ce9-483c-af46-e60f922ba824
Huggy
There was a fire, but it was contained. The handling of it was poor, but as in all things, one learns from previous mistakes — turning off the air con to the room would have been good! No radioactive material releases were in prospect.
The term “nuke dupes” may seem cute but it’s ill-founded. You are entitled to believe that the case for nuclear power has not been made out, but to call those who think it has been “dupes” is too strong because the arguments for resort to nuclear power are at worst, plausible. In countries where there are few good renewable alternatives that scale to the demand needed — e.g Japan, China and where no nukes = more coal whatever we say about it, nuclear is certainly the lesser evil.
As to the ZEBRA battery, it does sound as if it might well fit the bill as the high temp operating environment wouldn’t matter in a building.
Fran you can safely place your hand on a operating Zebra battery (I have done so) – it is contained in a prismatic dewar. So it does not have a high temp operating environment at all.
The high internal temperature is only relevant in that it makes the battery immune to external temperature effects such as the dramatic cycle lifetime reduction in room temperature batteries if they go much above 40C.
On nukes. It is my contention that it is impossible to build enough nukes globally to make any impact on the CO2 in time to avert the coming crisis.
The little green ones that come on the back of a truck are 30 years away, the conventional ones take 10 years just to site and approve and at least another 10 years to build (unless you are advocating a dramatic reduction in safety standards)?? Maybe that is what the present campaign is all about? Save the planet by turning it into a radioactive wasteland – is that it?
Huggy
Fran @121: “Actually Elise it’s a pretty basic piece of physics…Not only that, instead of having sloping pipes you have pipes that go vertical.”
Actually Fran, I’m not so sure of your grip on basic physics.
Head is vertical height, and the potential energy is not affected by whether you have sloping pipes or vertical pipes.
The only difference is a small increase in friction from the increased length.
You are talking about a 40 m high carpark. That is not much vertical head.
Mines use small energy recovery generators, about 1 meter diameter I believe. However, the head they are using is in the order of 500 – 1000 meters. That is, more than an order of magnitude difference in head.
Sloping pipes don’t enter into it.
Elise@121
It was the friction I was talking about. When I was trying to drain grey water from the washing machine to the garden I had 2 metres of head but it was spread over 25 metres, and that basically didn’t work as the washing machine kept backing up. ;-( I had to drain it into a large bucket and move it by trolley into the garden.
And of course, if the pipes slope then per unit of elevation you have to take up more space. The head was going to be 100 metres — 60 metres below plus 40 metrres above.
Fran @129, What size hose? Have you ever done pressure drop calculations?
Pipe diameter has a lot to do with friction. Anyone designing a hydroelectric scheme would not make the mistake of using a pipe size that caused friction losses to dominate over potential energy.
HB said:
This is mistaken. There are a number of reasons for the long lead times. Principally, the courts move very slowly and so when matters are contested procedurally, there can be enormous delays. Secondly, up to now most nuclear plants have been one off events, meaning that every component and every system has had to be tested by almost unique. This is very time consuming. A modular plant — like the AP1000 could have each part tested by standardised engineering measures and then be shipped to the site. Much quicker.
Take a look here for example. Four year build times are reasonable. Even if you allow four years for EIS and related queries on safety to be resolved that is about 8 years. Of course if your aim is to build 25 nuclear plants by 2020 you ensure that these are the same 8-10 years by having a single design where one ruling on technical matters goes for all.
And as I said, if uyou use them to repalce coal firted power stations or place them at smelter sites, then some of the EIS issues are simplified. Frankly, if I lived down the road from Hazelwood or Muja, I’d welcome it being replaced by a Gen III Thorium plant.
Fran, why are the first two of your diddy reactors now shut down?
So far the use of other than the Rankine cycle in nukes is just a pipe dream. This means that they cannot have more than 40% efficiency. 60% of the energy they produce has to be dumped into the environment (same as coal) (CSM plant has only to dump 24%).
You might be able to build your untested diddy’s in China or Burmah or North Korea but you might find other countries would require 10 years of testing before mass producing them.
You should read some of the literature on nuclear reactors. Titles such as “Hitherto unexpected failures in nickel alloys after prolonged neutron flux”.
Most of the French reactors have had to have their containment vessels re-annealed this was entirely unpredicted and almost cause the shut-down of the entire French nuclear program. It was probably the most heroic and unpublicised engineering task ever undertaken.
Read this and then perhaps you will be a little less enthusiastic:
http://www5.ecology.at/files/berichte/E22.547-1.pdf
One of my smarter friends maximises his return from his solar panels by selling as much power into the grid during the day as he can (at a very nice price) while doing power consuming things like running the washing machine at night on offpeak power. It is a win-win becuase the peak grid demand is during the day. (If he wanted to maximise his independance he would do the opposite.)
In terms of households almost all of the power we use is used in the form of heat or cold so it will often make sense to store as heat or cold. In the case of heat it will often be cheapest to harvest the heat of the sun and store the heat directly.
By the way my calcs say that one kWh is the energy released when 3.67 tonnes of water falls 100 m. This suggests that you have to have dams or other low cost storage for pumped storage to be even worth thinking about.
JohnD.
Yep that is about right – 1 kWh does not do much.
Your smart friend and others like him/her are causing much angst in Power Utility circles.
Basically your SF is getting the utility to provide free storage and backup for his/her PV system. As the price of PV comes down (with the removal of the subsidy that is inflating the price) the cost of PV generation will be at parity with network power by 2011.
Then the shite will hit the fan as the solar warriors demand that the utilities supply free backup and storage. They will not, end of story – finito.
Huggy
“Pipe diameter has a lot to do with friction.”
Aye, and type too. The ribbed ones that come with most washing machines and lots of grey water systems are about as frictiony as they could be.
John D @133: “By the way my calcs say that one kWh is the energy released when 3.67 tonnes of water falls 100 m.”
Same by my calcs.
Assuming an average efficiency of 50% (micro hydro turbines), that means the proposed carpark system has a maximum useful energy storage of 2,725 kWh. A micro turbine of 100 kW would thus keep you going for about a day (27 hours).
As you say: “This suggests that you have to have dams or other low cost storage for pumped storage to be even worth thinking about.”
This micro scale may make better economic sense for villages in Asia.
HB @134, have you considered that the power utilities might protest too much?
The peak power demand comes in the middle of the day, which is exactly when solar PV systems are able to feed-in to the grid.
If they did not have some additional feed-in, then they would have to install and use expensive peak load capacity.
The power utilities will have a believable case when the day comes that their peak load is at night, such that daytime feed-in does not contribute to peak capacity.
As the situation currently stands, we have about 45,000 households on grid-connected solar PV (out of about 7 million households) i.e. 0.5%. Yep, less than a percent, guys! I think we are a very LONG way from solar PV causing the power utilities any kind of headache at all.
What is the possibility that they are jaw-boning in an effort to avoid paying feed-in tariffs?
That is, they would like to encourage solar PV so that they don’t have to use expensive peak load systems. However, they would like to get it for free by suggesting they are doing households a favour. Any bets something like this might motivate a bit of jawboning???
Surely if power storage from PV households became a “problem” for the utilities, the payback for feeding the grid would go down, or the price of supply go up.
It’s got to be a winner for them whichever way it pans out, because the only problems they’d face would be theirs to control, wouldn’t they? And they’d be “problems” consisting largely of being flooded with cheap inputs to their business model.
FDB@135
Mine wasn’t ribbed though — just clear plastic with a diameter of about 30mm
Actually, I have had a rethink. The ribbing must be for a reason, and maybe the hollows act like the dimples on a golf ball to help reduce friction.
Or maybe that’s not how golf balls work either.
And on reflection, the ribbing is just to prevent kinks.
So, having displayed my stupidity, I’m just going to go ahead and press ‘submit’ anyway.
Elise. FDB
There is a significant peak at about 7PM -not much sun about then.
The business model for the utilities is to charge for energy based on various tariffs plus a service charge.
If the energy revenue goes down they are in trouble. They will be forced to increase the service charge. If the energy revenue goes to zero then the service charge will have to increase to keep the gross revenue constant. If they do not do this they might as well pull the network down and sell it for scrap. Without a certain level of gross revenue the entire network is unsustainable.
At the present time electricity from domestic rooftops is just noise in the system and a pain in the arse, it has no value at all. In energy terms its contribution is not really measurable against conventional generation.
This will change when the restrictive trade practices and the consumer subsidies that afflict the industry are removed. PV generation might get to 1% or 2% in energy terms. Above 2% and it will cause network instability with present injection techniques.
The electricity industry is grappling with all this distributed generation stuff right now. Every day a new batch of papers comes into my computer and the emails flow thick and fast.
Large solar farms are a different proposition they inject at the 22 kV or 66 kV level and can be designed to actually stabilise the network, regardless of the state of insolation.
The long and the short of it is if rich hippies want to play solar on their rooftop that’s fine but don’t overdo it folks because you aint going to get a free lunch.
Huggy
“can be designed to actually stabilise the network, regardless of the state of insolation.”
Cripes. How the hell does that work?
FDB.
Easy actually,
The electricity supply network needs things called Volt Amperes Reactive (VARS) there is no power required to make them. (well a little bit).
Vars come in two genders – capacitive and inductive – together the genders control the network voltage. They are feckless sluts they do not do any work at all but put the two together in the right proportion and you get a unity that is the most efficient. One device that does this is called a STATCOM.
Really big Static Compensators are used by the utilities to control the network voltage back in the network. These are topologically similar to the converters that are used to inject PV energy into the network but a lot bigger.
Now the story gets interesting:
Back in the 80′s the war losing Germans started to pamper their rich hipppies with subsidised PV.
Demonstrating once again their ability to plan for the thousand year reich the Germans decided to use current controlled converters. These are unable to control their terminal voltage as the control to unity power factor current wave. They canot source or sink VARS in a controlled way.
The ROW, unable to learn any-thing at all followed down this track.
Now the world is flooded in inferior current controlled crap. Do you know what they have to do if the concentration of PV is high in rich hippie gated communities?
They have to take turns to generate into the network or all back off together because the voltage gets too high that’s what. Holy mother of Christ how fucking stupid can you get?
All this because a bunch of effete limp wristed Europeans decided to take the easy way.
There is another way; you can build miniature STATCOMS and use them to both control voltage and inject real power when it is available.
Trouble is the denizens of the sheltered workshop that is the solar industry would not know if a brass band was up them unless somebody gave them the drum.
Huggy
HB @134: My Perth based smart friend somehow buys and sells his houshold power at a price that depends on time of day/demand. He said the price is about 27 cents/kWh during the day and droppping to 7 cents/kWh after 9 pm. So we are not talking about
PV subsidy, merely what goes on in the real market. If you look at typical demand vs time of day we would have to install quite a significant amount of solar before storage is required.
Peter I’m afraid it’s you who needs to look up a few things about consumer-based capitalism before telling others they don’t know what they are talking about.
Some key words for you:
planned obsolescence
perceived obsolescence
externalising costs
The system we use was purposely designed to put rapid, expanding consumption and waste after WW2.
Anyone who thinks that a $29 DVD player – which contains coltan from Congo (check out the happy stuff happening there because of natural resource exploitation), petroleum products from the Middle East or Asia or South America, was designed somewhere else say South Korea and perhaps assembled in China – has been priced to reflect the true cost of producing it is dreaming. And you might want to think about what those true costs are and who’s paying them.
JohnD.
Even an infinite amount of solar will not provide you with power when the sun don’t shine.
Either you buy a truckload of batteries or you ask the power utility to provide you with power during the night and grey days.
Why should they????
Where is the “market” incentive in that, if you are selling them more power during daylight hours than you use overall?
They are giving you a huge subsidy. No market;it is just welfare for the deserving rich.
A straight handout.
Tell your friend to try disconnecting the grid during the day. His inverter will shut down (AS4777 demands this) and he will be without power altogether – no matter how big the PV array. PV on domestic rooftops is entirely dependent upon the presence of the network without it is just so much expensive rooftop junk,
Without the storage provided by the network PV is junk. Without the voltage and frequency reference and the low impedance source provided by the network PV is junk. (PV modules are a quasi current source, they will not run appliances by themselves)
PV can be used stand alone with batteries providing storage and a voltage source for the inverter but that is another story.
Huggy
HB: You have got to separate in your mind now and the future.
Now the price of power is higher during daylight hours because the demand is higher and the low cost base load power is best run at the same output throughout the day.
In a solar future the situation will reverse because the power sources will produce much more power during the day. However, we will need a lot more solar to reach this point. My smart friend buys and sells at exactly the same price so the high mid day price is not some special deal.
Roof top solar has the strategic advantage of providing a very robust power supply because it is so spread out and will keep houses going even if parts of the grid are knocked out. It is also the source of clean elecrticity that has the most potential for dramatic price drops. However, at the moment it is costly to store unless converted to cold or heat.
Solar thermal has the advantage of being able to store heat before conversion to electricty using molten salt storage at atmospheric temperatures – Brian quoted some very low costs for this storage in anothe post. The added cost for 24/7 solar will not be much more than the cost of powwer without molten salt storage.
Solar thermal has the added attraction of being able to reduce the emissions from existing fossil fuel power stations. It has the potential to completely convert a fossil fuel station if storage is used. It also has the attraction of being able to be built up slowly. Kogan Creek in Qld has just announced that it is seriously considering the use of solar thermal augmentation to reduce its emissions.
And looking into this shows just how wasteful this whole idea is. According to Wiki the existing 750 MW plant cost 1.2 billion. This ‘augumentation’ will cost 200 million and add a paltry 23MW boost to the station.
I also hate the way some news report state it’s a 750MW Solar project and that it will ‘ultimately should make electricity production cheaper. Fat chance. Powering 25,000 homes is also questionable.
John D.
“Roof top solar has the strategic advantage of providing a very robust power supply because it is so spread out and will keep houses going even if parts of the grid are knocked out.”
Sorry rooftop solar will not keep houses going.
Two reasons:
1. Unless the load exactly matches the generation the rooftop solar will either shut down or destroy its inverters
2. Knowing this, it is illegal to connect an inverter to the network that does nor conform to AS4777 this standard specifies – among other things – that it is illegal to attempt to run an “island with PV inverters.
Two reasons:
1. An island network supported by PV is basically unstable
2. Safety, any-one deliberately installing an island system that defeats AS4777 would run the risk of manslaughter charges in the event that there is a fatality.
AS477 specifies the conditions of frequency and voltage that are permissable for operation.
Extract from a test report.
Clause 6.3. (Passive Islanding Protection)
Under/over voltage limits: (Complies)
The test inverter tripped at Vmin 204.6 Volts and Vmax 269.1 Volts with under and over
voltage trip set points of 202 V and 268 V respectively. The ac voltages at which
disconnection occurred were equal to the under/over voltage set points ± 5 V as per the
requirements of AS 4777.3. The disconnection times were less than 2 seconds.
Under/over frequency limits: (Complies)
The test inverter tripped at fmin 49.04 Hz and fmax 50.96 Hz with under and over frequency
trip set points of 49.01 Hz and 50.99 Hz respectively. The frequencies at which
disconnection occurred were equal to the under/over frequency set points ± 0.1 Hz as per
the requirements of AS 4777.3. The disconnection times were less than 2 seconds.
Clause 6.5. (Active Islanding Protection)
Grid trip test: (Complies)
The test inverter was tested under a range of local load conditions as required i.e. light
electronic load, load match and load match plus 10%. The inverter tripped within the
required time (less than 2 seconds) under all local load conditions.
Clause 6.6. Reconnection procedure: (Complies)
After the test inverter was tripped on under/over voltage and under/over frequency, it
reconnected after 60 seconds when voltage and frequency were returned to the nominal
value.
Capish?
Huggy.
HB @149: I might be missing something but lots of “islands” manage to run on solar PV. Solar PV also manages to feed the grid despite the voltage ex the solar cells varying as sunlight varies as clods pass etc. I would be surprised if an isolated house couldn’t keep going if the grid shut down. However, agree that the currently available grid control systems would not be able to keep a grid going if a major power line was destroyed. This doesn’t mean that better control systems designed with disasters and the use of PV cannot be developed.
Peter @148: You are right the announcement was for only 23 mw out of the current 750 and involved water heating only. However, there is no reason why the solar thermal cannot be expanded to provide part of the steam supply as well. THe Millar proposal for Stanwell talked about solar thermal providing saturated steam with the superheating being done by burning coal using trough type mirrors. Tower type solar thermal should be able to superheat as well to the 540 deg C steam currently used at Kogan Ck.
John @ 150
It is the ridiculous cost of this project that I am concerned about, not the piddley amount of power generated. This ‘augmentation’ will cost fully 1/6 the cost of the plant itself, yet provide at best 1/30 the power.
In fact I believe the figures will be worse. Several of the press releases state that the Qld government will chip in $200 mil ‘towards’ the cost of the solar. In other words it will cost more. But the press releases are so badly worded (on purpose I bet) as to make it difficult to tell what the final price will be.
Then there is the 23MW of power. There is no indication whether this is ‘nameplate’ power or average for the year. Most renewable schemes give nameplate and wind for instance rarely gives you more than 35% of that ( again, to fool gullible people). I reckon this scheme will be the same because of the stated 25,000 households that this will supposedly supply. 23MW per hour for 25,000 households is 1Kw per hour per houshold yet the average household uses about 15Kw per day not 24. So if this was really average power they would have boasted that it would supply more like 50,000 housholds. So I am assuming it is nameplate power ( but i don’t know ) and thus provide more like 25% of that figure. Of course *this* figure is well below what an average household uses!
In short, an expensive, useless waste of taxpayers money that will enrich a few and help no-one but make a few people look like they are doing something.
John D.
The Inverter in a rooftop PV system locks itself to the phase of the AC from the mains and converts the dc from the PV into a sinusoidal current that is injected into the grid. It has no control over the voltage and does not care about it unless the voltage of the grid goes above or below the mandated figures. If it does the inverter must shut down.
Islanding is specifically prohibited on safety grounds. The power utilities are concerned that maintenance staff will be fried by a rogue PV system.
In any event, one or more PV systems cannot supply normal power without the presence of some form of voltage source as well. If there is no voltage source present the system is unstable. If the load does not exactly match the generation the voltage will either collapse or shoot up.
The voltage source can either be provided from the grid itself or with a voltage source inverter and an energy storage device such as a battery or a really large capacitor.
PV modules will supply a voltage that is determined by the insolation, the Inverter runs at the Maximum Power Point on the Voltage current curve of the PV array. This is right on the “knee” of the curve if you go over the “knee” the voltage collapses. Thus you could in theory run your PV system in an island for so long as the load was less than or equal to the PV generation which will also fluctuate with passing clouds etc. The instant that you exceed the exact power input to the system the inverter must shut down or be destroyed. For example you are cruising along with the toaster and som-one opens the fridge door – bing the power goes off.
All this is explained in the extract from a test report that I published at 149.
Inverter systems with batteries that can connect to the mains do exist but they are few and far between and cost 5 times as much..
Peter,
I think the 23 MW actually refers to the power delivered to the feed-water system, this translates into about 100 MWh /day. This is energy that will not have to come from coal.
Huggy
Robert Merkel in above post
“There is one thing that grates; if you accept a long-term target of 350ppm, such a target implies artificially taking CO2 out of the atmosphere well beyond any conceivable tree-planting scheme could achieve.”
Robert, what reason is there for a long term target when science advises us that we have at best ten years to swing the Titanic around. Why should it grate that there is fog predicted for the landing in New York when there are real icebergs ahead now. Why should we worry about inventing the RADAR for a save landing, when you just have to look out from the porthole to see the looming white elephants? When the inevitable crunch comes, when the dancing stops and the band plays ‘God save the world’ while the Captain has to abandon his race for a record time/profit, it is then when we discover that a) we have not enough life boats and b) they are incredibly difficult to launch from a listing and sinking ship.
What grates with me, is that 350 and the discussion here, is all about landing in New York, shifting deck chairs and officers on the bridge and arguing about the merits of foghorns vs not yet existing radar. No one even vaguely addresses lifeboat launching procedures and preparing kids for a prolonged trip in a leaky boat in the hot global waters, presuming it is going to be ‘women and children first’.
Wouldn’t it be good risk management practice to consider that we may be forced to “go back to nature” and “transcend capitalism” (Wombo @ 62) within a relative short period of time.
OOtz,
The solutions to fast energy reduction have been pretty well canvassed on this thread.
The nuke dupes have been totally defeated and the Titanic will miss the iceberg. Not.
Huggy
For those who are interested, a draft report NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0 has just been published on the 24th of September at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/smartgrid_092409.html
This is a draft document for specifying the Smart Grid. It identifies about 77 existing standards that could be included for a Smart Grid and it identifies gaps in the suite of standards that need to be filled urgently to make the Smart Grid a reality. The Smart Grid will be a complex system of systems that will be interconnected as a network of networks.
The Smart Grid is what will help reduce levels of societal emissions of greenhouse gases because it will provide a framework that could be optimised for energy efficiency, it provides an energy framework where energy storage can be included with the grid and it will overcome the problems of intermittency that renewable sources have.
A big difference, IMHO, will be from the introduction of large scale batteries such as Sodium-Sulfur flow batteries within the grid network and with local energy storage at least in batteries of plug-in electric cars.
The ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets that the USA has proposed would be achievable largely through implementing a Smart Grid.
The document includes references for the above claims.
Peter @151: All for stopping the Qld gov being restrained from making stupid political leaps without thinking anything thru. However, any comparisons need to be related to the cost of clean power, not coal fired. Keep in mind that the total cost of Kogan creek should include the mine as well as the powerstation and that solar thermal doesn’t have to include the cost of coal in operating costs.
My personal view is that Kogan creek should be converted to gas ASAP and then worry about the longerterm.
Peter @ 151, you obviously haven’t considered the cost of catastrophic climate change in your calculation. Compared to that, pissing a couple of billion away on a renewable power station is just beer-and-cigarette money.
DI @ 158 That is plain silly. There isn’t an unlimited amount of money in the world and if you want to avoid AGW you need to spend it wisely. Pissing a ‘couple of billion’ on producing a tiny amount of power is worse than a waste because it gives the impression to gullible people like yourself that something is actually being done.
Peter, the world just found trillions of dollars to bail out that glorious capitalist wonder that is the free market. We were all solemnly assured that it was a crisis and thus absolutely essential to hand over all our collective wealth and that of generations to come to bail out private companies that exist solely to enrich a select few.
And now you want to tell us with a straight face that climate change which may pretty much destroy life as we know it and the vast majority of us with it that it’s not worth acting immediately and spending funds on it.
Meanwhile the capitalist elite we bailed out are already repeating the practices that led to last year’s crash.
pardon me if I don’t find you credible as a witness for why the wonders of a free market should be left to solve climate change.
And while we are taling about coal, I’d just like to remind people that it’s not emrely the GHG-related externalities that need to be factored in.
This article, Black hole of China reminds us of the less discussed costs of coal.
I’ll leave the readers of LP to read the rest themselves, but the article goes on to outline the footprint of coal and the zero sum game being played between the human and environmental costs of coal on the one hand and GDP on the other.
Little wonder that China is beginning to refocus on nuclear power.
myriad @ 160 Get a grip mate. I said this particular project was a waste of money – which it is.
Learn to read. I am quite happy for money to be spent on realistic sources of power – like nukes. 200mill for 23MW is a waste of money and you know it – or should.
China now has the fourth largest wind turbine generating capacity in the world. They are also focusing on renewable energy for local generation and to try to become a major player in the world market for renewables.
Generating electricity is rarely the only reason for a nation to build nuclear power facilities.
Peter my grip is just fine although I’d admit that the spuriousness of your arguments combined with what looks like a ‘capitalism-is-superior’ complex do drive me to sarcasm.
I think you’re aware I was responding specifically to this theme in your posts that you summed so nicely:
“There isn’t an unlimited amount of money in the world and if you want to avoid AGW you need to spend it wisely”
but of course there is unlimited money to build uninsurable nuke plants and to let the market decide our fate overall because it produces $29 dvd players!
You’ve spent the entire thread touting the wonders of capitalism even after we’ve just seen stupendous market failure, and ignore the fact that several times over now people here at LP have shown that nukes don’t cut it for Australia even on the economics alone (anyone else remember Ziggy’s report showing that co2 would have to be priced at $60/tonne to make nukes even viable? – what’s the price through the CPRS – $10/tonne?) and then want to spend time parsing the costs of particular renewable projects. I think my grip on your level of argument is fine.
Food Chain’s Loss is Health Spa Industry’s Gain:
Anticipating severe drops in Arctic marine pH levels, enterprising global corporate citizen, Health-wizer, has purchased large tracts of floe-front properties in Reykjavik which they will convert into upscale Spa’s for skin-blemished executives and their partners. The bold initiative will be a huge boost for the ailing Icelandic economy.
“Lowered marine pH levels provide an ideal opportunity”, a thrilled Health-wizer spokesperson said, “our Resort Jacuzzis will be tapped directly into unlimited reserves of gently corrosive source water. It’s so convenient. All our guests need do to slough away all their unsightly blemishes, is immerse themselves several times daily for a few blissful moments in the privacy of their own suites.”
http://www.commondreams.org/print/47814
I don’t agree with Peter about much but here he has a point …
The problem, Myriad, is that even if, as you say the cost to make nuclear competitve with coal were $60 per tonne, unless renewables cost less than or equal to $60 per tonne to supply at the same power supply quality, then the objection retains its force. One cannot abatae as much CO2 with renewables as with nuclear.
$10 per tonne of CO2 is an absurdly low cost for the true extrnality of burning fossil fuels, and when one adds the other coal costs, the figure becomes even more absurd. Yet even if we made it $200 per tonne for, say, coal, and $100 per tonne for gas unless renewables beat this figure, we keep using coal and gas.
Having said that I think this story gets my award for warm inner glow of the month …
Who isn’t going to find this story uplifting?
Myriad,
Hate to break it to you but the age of cheap consumer goods has only just begun. The vast majority of the worlds population does not share your luddite like hatred for the modern world and want ( and will eventually get ) what we are having.
Your total distain for the system that makes you comfortable, long lived, productive and able to bang on about how rotten it all is, is now seen as the only way forward by all except a few such as yourself who have totally forgotten what it is like to be poor and hungry.
You and your fellow travelers are unlikely to succeed in turning Aus into Argentina by spending vast gobs of ( other peoples ) money on useless ‘feel good’ projects and throwing sand into our economic system, so I suggest you give up trying.
Peter,
a life without nuance must be a nice simple thing. Being aware of the vast body of work in economics around externalising of costs, the design of obsolesnce, the move to a consumption based economy and how that brings us into direct conflict with what the earth can provide over the long-term is not ‘luddite’, it’s informed.
And your sanctimoniousness to a person you know so little about you must channel your own inner bigot to try and land a punch is just laughable.
Enjoy your prejudice. I’m more interested in taking what we’ve learnt to create a genuinely equitable system that supports us into the long-term, not keep borrowing and spending the lives of those living in ghastly poverty now and those in the future.
Try reading Cradle to Cradle or for that matter Natural Capitalism. Then you’ll have some notion where I’m coming from, and learn some interesting things to boot.
Fran,
we’d keep using coal and gas because of lack of political will to face those lobbyists, not because it makes any economic or environmental sense. On nuclear, it’s simply not economically viable in Australia – we don’t have the R&D (how are we going to compete against other countries for which nuclear is seen as the only viable option? – we can’t even attract sufficient skilled miners), the Gen 4 reactors aren’t available and are always perpetually unavailable, the carbon costs upfront are not insignificant, they are uninsurable which means the public has to wear all the risk (financial and other), waste storage is still an issue and the facilities for it are expensive (then we’ve got to think about transport), and decommissioning is also incredibly expensive. Bottom line, to get up a domestic nuclear industry would need the kind of massive public subsidy that would leave coal to pale into comparison – so the question has to be asked why would you head down that path when we could chuck less money with better results at a plethora of renewables; not to mention pick the low hanging fruit of energy efficiency gains. Hell, if we have to pick a single egg for the basket, why not geothermal? Perpetual baseload etc etc.
How about this for a really promising development? BlueGen!
CFC Ltd are manufacturing household fuel cell generators – the size of a dishwasher, generating about twice the electricity needs of the average household, on sale in 9 months for about $8,000.
Runs on gas, much more efficient than coal-fired power, and lower carbon footprint. Doesn’t need sunshine or wind, and works at night. How cool is that!!!
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-business/ceramic-fuel-plans-2010-generator-sales-20090524-bjd5.html
Now households can use solar PV electricity during the day, and fuel cell electricity at night.
The answer to every rich hippy’s prayers! The nuke and coal lobbies can go stick themselves on a Morton’s Fork.
Myriad
I’ve said plenty on the objections you raise against nuclear power elsewhere on this site. As a matter of practice I regard it as politically improbable that Australia will take up nuclear power anytime soon, despite the fact that it is technically and economically the most feasible baseload solution here. I’m a pragmatist and I regard honouring people’s preferences as a public good, so for as long as most people here in Australia object to nuclear power given that it is open to us to make do without it, I’m keen on the next best thing — renewables.
That’s not the issue here though. The issue is a simple one of cost-benefit feasibility. If, as I do, you favour protecting the biosphere, and accept that you have to reconcile this with other legitimate claims people have, amongst them access to reliable energy, and a limited capacity to pay, and a sharp timeline for conversion from energy sources that do not serve the biosphere, are you not obliged by reason to seek those approaches that provide a best fit with these competing needs? Is it not certain that if one wastes scarce resources, then one can accomplish less than if one does not, all else being equal?
If, for argument’s sake, the cost of abating a ton of CO2 emission or foreclosing some quantum of environmental harm using one source of energy cost 10 times what doing it with another source of energy did, then would one not be better, all else being equal, to exhaust the scope of the second solution as part of the mix before turning to other more costly ones?
Doesn’t choosing more expensive solutions limit the amount of harm we can abate? Won’t it likely operate in practice as a social and political barrier to converting from the harmful systems of energy production we have now?
Fran @171: “If, for argument’s sake…all else being equal…”
Talk about an over-constrained, hypothetical question.
So what’s your answer, Elise? On what basis do you go about selecting a mix of options for abating environmental harm?
Fran
in general precisely because nuclear power is dead in the water politically in Australia, I consider it largely a waste of time to talk about it.
But for the sake of argument, moving on to your hypothetical, I too looked at nuclear very seriously a while back, and came to the exact opposite conclusion to you. I’ve read your posts, to the extent that it was worth doing so (ie arguing about something that ain’t gonna happen) and I’ve yet to see you put forward anything that hasn’t been knocked on the head many times over by other posters here, and in my own judgement. Nuclear for Australia fails not just on economics alone, but on the ability to implement it quickly enough because of the lack of a ‘shovel ready’ (just to make us all cringe) R&D and skilled workforce base to actually design and build the things. Ziggy’s own Howard gov’t sponsored spoon feed of the prospects of nuclear was glaringly less than compelling.
Other parts of the world will pursue nuclear mainly due to a lack of other choices combined with geopolitical ambitions vis nuclear weapons and the intransigence of the developed world in sharing R&D etc. to help developing nations leapfrog the need. That doesn’t make it any more a viable option for Australia, despite the obvious logic starting point of ‘well if we dig it up and sell it, why the heck don’t we use it’.
Actually Myriad, I don’t think our positions (at least as far as Australia is concerned) are that far apart. Australia is lucky in having access to such a wide array of renewables (albeit that they still work out a lot more expensive than nuclear power). My problem is that I’d like to see fossil fuels phased out in a hurry and coal for electricity phased out in an even bigger hurry. Without nukes, that becomes a lot harder because the costs go way up.
There are some ways in which it could be done though. As I see it it comes down to
a) urban concentration to reduce stationary and transport energy demand
AND
b) biofuels (both to phase out coal and fossil gas and to power hybrid and other vehicles that could not run effectively on electrical power)
c) effective energy storage systems such as pumped storage
d) geothermal, tidal, wind, wave, hydro and solar thermal roll out
In practice though a) would probably be as hard to achieve politically as nuclear power, probably more so, and without it implementing b), c) and d) would make power a lot more costly to end users, meaning that b) is not going to get off the ground.
That means that we probably get stuck with only token reductions and have to live with coal fired power in practice until it starts to run out — probably late in the 21st century. I won’t be around to see that fortunately, and I have to hope that other countries will have done their bit so that Australia’s preciousness hasn’t mattered. If not then my great grand-kids, if I ever get any, are facing a very bleak time indeed. ATM, that is what I regard as the most likely scenario.
The pollution-as-usual lobby are fighting effectively in the US and elsewhere and by the time they are finally, defeated, the argument will be moot and exactly how much nuclear hazmat is about won’t make any positive difference to humanity’s prospects.
Fran @173, what’s my answer?
As I have written before, I’m not a fan of all-or-nothing, black or white solutions. I prefer to think in terms of fit-for-purpose menus of alternatives (horses for courses), and efficient trajectories towards desired outcomes. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
To draw a long bow and make a comparison to board games, we usually can’t win in one single move (at least not in my limited experience!). We need to plan ahead with an efficient series of moves, incorporating flexibility for unexpected changes relative to our game plan. I suspect the changes we need for mitigating climate change will also be a series of moves, as technology progresses.
My answer, therefore, as discussed here over the past months, is that we need a series of actions on different levels, with emphasis on those that have the biggest impact first. Other actions can be undertaken at the household level, which in aggregate can have a significant impact.
The rationale is similar to that discussed by JohnD for Brisbane’s recent water shortage. There were simultaneous actions on both large and small scale (e.g desal plants, watertanks and water restrictions), resulting in a successful collective response to the challenge.
Foremost on the larger scale for energy strategy would be the replacement of brown coal-fired power, which has the largest emissions per kWh. A combination of gas turbines, both combined-cycle and open-cycle, with renewable power would be a great start. The black coal-fired power stations could be progressively retired as they reach their use-by. “Clean coal” is right up there with cancer-free tobacco and risk-free asbestos in terms of disgraceful delaying tactics by vested interests.
Meanwhile there are a lot of things that can be done simultaneously at the household level, which can reduce the circa 20% emissions from households and further circa 22% emissions from passenger vehicles.
We have already discussed these household options at some length: solar PV, evacuated-tube solar HW, gas heating, improved insulation, shading and better housing design standards, domestic fuel-cell units (post @170 above). We have also discussed passenger vehicle options at some length: efficient diesel cars followed by plug-in hybrid and electric cars.
The government can assist in prodding both mega-scale and household changes along, with an effective set of carrots and sticks.
As such, the current ETS is likely to be a totally ineffectual “political fascinator”, and needs redesigning if it is to provide the necessary set of incentives for change. An ineffective set of incentives will only create undesired outcomes, disillusionment and widespread cynicism.
Probably most people’s desire to do the right thing will make a significant impact, as for Brisbane’s water, provided everyone has a clear idea of what they need to do, with suitable incentives and available alternatives?
Fuel-cells may have a big role to play in the future, even for distributed or centralised base-load power. They can be designed to run on a range of fuels, including natural gas, CSM, methanol and hydrogen (e.g. produced from water electrolysis using intermittent renewable sources). Fuel-cells may get their “foot in the door” initially via small-scale distributed power for households, and grow from there.
We will be living in very interesting times, during the next couple of decades…
Fran,
The Smart Grid is about much more than renewable sources of energy. It is about configuring energy systems in a completely different way. With a storage capacity in the grid and with the ability to coordinate sections of the grid you can have TWO-WAY transfers of energy. There will be some dedicated bulk sources of energy, such as the power stations of today, there will be the possibility for many smaller sources of energy and there will be many sinks. Such a network will also allow distributed sources of energy to be coordinated and aggregated. A single solar cell on a roof may not do much, but thousands of solar cells with suitable energy storage would be able to produce a steady supply of power to the grid (day AND night) IF they are coordinated. The Smart Grid is more about the coordination of energy sources, sinks and distribution networks. It will make distributed energy systems viable. A huge advantage of the Smart Grid approach is that it is a system of systems – it can start with the energy systems that are in place now and incrementally improve parts of it. It will be more complex and complexity has its own problems. It is like comparing broadcast television (power generation as it is now) with the internet (Smart Grid). At first it may be difficult to imagine, but after a decade or so it would be difficult to imagine how we ever lived without the Smart Grid. To use your term form a recent post – it is about the quality of service. The Smart Grid is a qualitative change to our energy systems.
More ‘wasteful capitalism’.
RobV
Don’t get me wrong. I believe a well-configured and very large v2G system might make a substantial contribution to managing slews within the system and reduce the need for redundant capacity. A model such as Better Place could work. But in the end, it’s at best, a cost-effective and efficient energy storage system.
If these can load balance PV/the grid as a whole, then that is all to the good, but the fact remains that at least as things stand, the installed cost of PV per nameplate is still very high. I suspect the effective life of most rooftop PV won’t be that long either and the recurrent costs will be quite a bit greater than the same capacity in a major plant, per unit of output. If that has to be compensated through rebates from public funds one is entitled to ask if these funds are being as wisely used as they might be, given our policy objective — reducing the environmental footprint of producing energy. If you give 1 million households $8000 each in rebate, is that money as well spent as if you spend $8bn on some other suite of options? Is it even as equitable? Doesn’t a disproportionate share of the benefit go to property holders?
These are questions that remain problematic.
A ‘future hot market’ for the unabashed capitalist?
While research shows “In general people are showing little willingness to change their lifestyles”
miriad @ 174, came across Public Perceptions of Nuclear Power, Climate Change and Energy Options in Britain just click on ‘attached file’.
Although a few years old it is still very telling. Is there similar research available for Oz?
Fran @179: “If you give 1 million households $8000 each in rebate, is that money as well spent as if you spend $8bn on some other suite of options? Is it even as equitable?”
It seems that you regard the solar PV rebate as “giving” people $8000, to encourage them to invest a further $5000 or so in supporting the early growth of a new green technology?
Why is that a bad idea?
Is it that you think only “rich hippies” (as one blogger put it) will be willing to part with the additional investment? Is it that you think some miniscule proportion of the Aussie population has $5000 of disposable income, after the beer, wine and footy circuses? Is it that you think most people would spend that kind of money ($5000) on a plasma TV and a holiday in Bali, rather than thinking about solar panels?
Should the government stump up ALL the cash to promote a fledgling solar industry?
Or should they just sit on their hands and do NOTHING, hoping that the industry will spontaneously generate itself? If so, do we stagnate while other OECD nations are actively promoting domestic green initiatives?
Perhaps they are all “rich hippies”, and the government should just give them their $8000 as a tax rebate, as the Howard government would have done, and let them spend it on “green tourism” overseas?
I have trouble understanding people who say that they support future use of renewable energy then proceed to give a list of obstacles for developing it.
This seems to include arguments about why it is a poor return on investment for households, why it is a poor return on investment for the government, and politics of envy for those that choose to join with the government initiative to promote new technology. What the hell is wrong with that, for goodness sake?
There seems to be very little understanding of the fact that new technology is inevitably less efficient and more expensive in the early stages. Cumulative production is correlatable with improved quality and reduced costs. However, some brave souls have to go first, or the cumulative production bandwagon will never leave the station.
If it is strategically important to the nation, then the government would logically put some money in, to encourage investment in the early stages. Ideally they would try and do it as some form of PPP (Public Private Partnership), either with households or businesses, to reduce the amount the government has to stump up. Isn’t that exactly what they are doing?
Not a bad idea but very suboptimal. It mainly helps wealthy householders, substantially by transferring income from poor householders (especially renters). It also amounts to buying power at a rate well above what you would pay for nuclear, and if you don’t like that, then gas or geothermal or tidal or solar thermal.
And frankly if we are spending that kind of money I’d say we could do a better job of CO2 abatement reconfiguring urban housing for higher densities and building in microgeneration and local water capture, treatment and recycling and ramping up biofuels etc … More reduction and more equitable.
Fran @182: “It mainly helps wealthy householders, substantially by transferring income from poor householders…”
Just a small question Fran? How much tax do you think the poor householders pay, compared with the wealthy ones? A similar proportion? I think not. Maybe they might have just been getting some of their own tax returned, after subsidising the poor?
What do you define as “equitable”? Same taxes? Same proportion of income as tax? Or does “equitable” only apply to rebates when it suits?
Incidentally, before people get the idea that only very wealthy households have solar PV, it is worth looking at the statistics.
Here is the graph of solar PV installations per month, and you can see the effect of the $100,000 means test earlier this year:
http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/renewable/pv/pubs/wattsbymonth-sep09.xls
It would appear that households with LESS than $100,000 joint income are accessing the rebate to invest in solar PV.
Sorry Fran, but the data does not really support the politics-of-envy argument that only wealthy households are participating.
Simple question Elise … if you don’t have a mortgage/own your dwelling, can you install PV? What about if you live in a flat and do own it?
Of course not. To qualify you have to own free-standing or semi-detached residence or business.
So those people would be in which deciles of the population, Elise?
For the record, I consider myself well off (annual income $78k, and I would qualify for PV, were I not renting.
@184, Sorry that should read means test for $100,000 introduced in the May Budget 2008 i.e. LAST YEAR.
The trend is even more interesting, viewed over more than a year of means tested rebates.
Fran @185, people who choose not to have babies don’t get a baby bonus, or parental leave, or in previous decades a Commonwealth Scholarship for their kids.
People who choose not to own a house when they “consider themselves well off” aren’t eligible for a solar PV rebate.
So bloody what? Life is full of choices, and each choice has implications.
I still reckon councils should look at developing municipal solar energy: use council buildings, vacant property (and rates) to generate solar and feed it in to the grid at local area level: this offers economy of scale in greenhouse abatement, larger volume, and would benefit all (ratepayer owners and tenants) by reducing household bills across council areas.
Households with private solar would get a double benefit, the rest could benefit by the municipal socialisation of solar.
OK, have just done up a post on Municipal Solar over at BmL. Instead of writing my lecture!
Peter
it’s lovely that the current economy is much more efficient than the systems first set up at the start of the modern industrial revolution, but why you consider that an appropriate benchmark is where your logic completely falls apart.
The question is not “is the current economy more efficient than the oldest industrial technology”, the real question is “what efficiency target do we have to meet to make an adequate enough contribution to avoiding extreme climate change?”
The value that the data you linked to shows is the rate at which the economy has been able to change towards greater efficiency, and that provides a necessary limiter to coming up with unrealistic suppositions about the possible rate of change. Of course if we really want to see how fast the economy can adapt in an emergency that threatens the survival of key industries, we should look at the OPEC crisis as a guide.
You miss the point Elise.
If even hubby and I despite being both reasonably well paid can’t afford to buy the house we’ve rented for nearly 20 years (=debt service on about 700-800k) then we’d have to be a lot richer to get PV here.
In practice to qualify you are going to have to be someone 100-200 basis points away from being a distressed seller of an outer urban property and thus barely able to afford the PV even with the subsidy or someone who has owned their property long enough to be able to service the debt with a modest income.
Self evidently, urban sprawl is a bad thing, since those people working all that overtime to service the loan and sitting near-stationary on the motorway for 20 hours each week aren’t doing themselves or the environment any favours, but they are demanding miles and miles of extra pipe-length for water and cable length for data and power all of which must be serviced and maintained, not to speak of all that extra concrete. They have to drive to the shops and their kids to school since densities are too low to support public transport. And what happens when they decommission the system 20 years hence?
Can you really believe that a PV system on their roof they can barely afford and which is subsidised by the state and by the feed-in tariff, if there is one can be more than a tiny green speck on that massively brown footprint?
How is that even equitable?
I don’t see that model as supportable, Elise.
Franny,
in defense of your lucky 1 million rich old hippies that have graciously accepted the $ 8000.00 of government grant, vis a vis your struggling urban sprawl looser.
Have you considered that the rich old hippie more likely practices water conservation and considers her/his social and ecological footprint, does ethical investment, works from home or close to, buys locally and has his own chickens for eggs and meat.
I ask you which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
I agree with the point by Lefty E @ 187, 188 that local municipal councils are at a good scale to install and run renewable energy installations, especially for solar power in Australia. I think that thermal solar power stations would be more cost effective than PV and could deliver larger amounts of energy for the money invested in building the installations. One good place where solar thermal (ideally with Linear Fresnel Collector arrays) could be built is near rubbish tip sites so that the biogas that is collected at the site could be stored and burnt as fuel in the power station heat engines at night or when it is overcast. You could also have some form of thermal storage at the site or store other kinds of fuel. The heat engines could be chosen so that they could be used with a variety of energy sources, for example like Stirling engines or perhaps Organic Rankine turbines.
I would also prefer to see power generation being seen to be a responsibility of governments at the various levels or collective organisations rather than throwing that responsibility into the lap of private individuals. It would be cheaper to build a network of small to medium scale distributed power stations located within residential areas rather than trying to aggregate a large number of privately owned micro installations or relying on a few mega-sized power stations built a large distance from urban centres. Wind farms can only be built in a limited number of places. One problem with PV panels is that people tend to move house every so often.
Distributed solar power stations built and maintained at the local council level could be an optimal way to generate electricity. It would also be at a good scale to store energy with the grid in sodium-sulfur batteries and the like. It also has the advantage that unlike large commercial ventures for solar energy, they would be at a lesser risk of going broke and having the whole project cancelled. You could still have commercial companies that specialise in designing and building solar power stations for councils.
Ootz
The point is that neither the rich old hippy nor the struggling urban sprawl loser ought to be supported in this way because neither is sustainable and both amount to poor uses of public funds
Thanks RobV – please feel free to repost that excellent comment over here (just in case anyone goes to my blog without coming here first. Not that that’s happened ever before. BUT IT MIGHT!!)
Yes LeftyE … I think RobV’s proposal makes a fair bit of sense. Mind you, putting wind turbines on top of buildings lowers the cost of elevating the hubs and you get about a 15-20% increase in average wind speeds for each 40 metres of elevation (see for example this and this), so if you had built substantial high rise, or had local water treatment and recycling plants built on high ground, with accompanying pumped storage, then there would in practice be a lot of scope for both for wind turbines and the means to store their energy harvest.
Fran @193: “…because neither is sustainable and both amount to poor uses of public funds”
Much too confident and dogmatic, with no data or analysis to support the claim.
It would be instructive to read “The Decisive Moment – How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind” by Jonah Lehrer. It discusses the latest research findings on decisions, and flaws in decision-making.
“The central error diagnosed…was the sin of certainty…hubris, the vice of close-mindedness, of dismissing dissonant possibilities too quickly.”