Via Joe Romm, a fascinating snippet: a scientific conference on geoengineering is to be held in California, with the goals of:
- Identify potential risks associated with climate intervention experiments
- Propose a system to assess experiment design for potential categorical risks and suggest precautions to assure their safe conduct
- Propose voluntary standards for climate intervention research for the international scientific community
For what it’s worth, (and unlike Romm), I think geoengineering may be a marginally less awful option than the others we are leaving ourselves, and have argued for carefully controlled scientific trials of geoengineering technologies. So, in that sense I believe a conference like this is a great idea.
But what makes it particularly interesting is that the sole strategic partner of this conference is none other than the “State of Victoria, Australia”:
Victoria has provided financial support for the conference. Like the Climate Response Fund, neither the government nor their representatives have been involved in the scientific organization of the conference, its agenda, or selection of speakers. Victoria will work with the Climate Response Fund after the conference to urge that interested nations and organizations consider the recommendations of the conference in their deliberations about climate intervention/geoengineering.
While it’s great that the Victorian government is thinking ahead, the fact remains that geoengineering is likely to be more expensive and/or have much more severe side effects than mitigation. So, by all means, sponsor the conference. But how about biting the bullet and actively assisting in getting Victoria off the world’s most greenhouse intensive fuel, brown coal, rather than looking to export the bloody stuff.
Note: As far as I can tell, there’s no mention of this sponsorship on any Victorian government website. I called Environment Minister Gavin Jennings’s office this morning to confirm the sponsorship and ask if there’d been any press releases on it. As of posting, they haven’t got back to me. If they do, I’ll update with any further information.
The Climate Response Fund appears to be closely linked to Climos, a business oriented geoengineering company founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dan Whaley.
http://www.climos.com/science.php
Oxymoronic anagram Low Carbon…Brown Coal.
Ah, bingo. I think I know how it’s gotten Victorian government funding – one of the other donors to the conference is none other than Alan Trounson, the Monash stem-cell researcher.
Other donors include Robert Klein- a financier and the backer of Californian ballot initiative Proposition 71 (which provided Californian government funding for stem-cell research).
The Royal Society has also put its name to the conference. As for Climos, here’s the Fund’s statement, saying that they aren’t funded by it, or any other geoengineering companies.
I beleive geoengineerring options should be fully investigated because, after we have done everything we reasonably can to mitigate CO2 accumulation, it may well turn out that we’ve acted too late to avoid a series of roiling disasters.
There are two basic types of geoengineering. Fairly passive “no regrets” measures such as having more white rooves, restoring vegetation, and perhaps attempts to restore the nutrient balance in the oceans existing near the shorelines of major states in the 1960s might be worth considering and the more agreesive terraforming style options.
A mid-way measure would be to add a very small amount of sulphur to jet fuel used by large passenger aircraft flying over the northern/southern hemispheres in summer. This ought to take the edge off and shouldn’t be all that significant for the atmosphere as a whole (since it would be up fairly high and is short lived). It might just slow the rate at which we are warming enough for our measures to kick in. Once the oceans warm, cooling them is going to happen slowly and of course their capacity as Co2 sinks declines. A measure like this would require no major new international agreement.
The most aggeressive measures — mirrors in space comes to mind — ought to be last resort stuff and should be contemplated only after we’d run out of good options and were down to picking the least bad ones.
The Fund may not have financial links to Climos, but they share a few scientific advisors.
Fair enough, CMMC.
That said, at first glance Climos appear a lot less cowboyish than some of the ocean fertilization proponents I’ve seen. Read their FAQ.
That said, there’s apparently some new research that suggests that ocean iron fertilization will encourage toxic algae. So we’ll see.
However, these possibility of these effects make the case for doing the science now stronger, rather than weaker, in my view. Better we find out now that these things don’t work, rather than when we’ve got no other choices.
Trouble is, we’re already conducting a massive geo-engineering experiment involving pumping vast amounts of GHG’s into the atmosphere – with predicted (and observed)adverse effects upon global climate and subsequently the whole biosphere.
While high altitude aerosols (from jet exhausts) have had a demonstrated mitigating effect upon the rate of global heating, attempts to control (or reverse) the effects of such aerosols seem distant, and their ongoing effects unpredictable (which usually means undesirable, in a biological context), indicating a need for much more investigation before such action(s) can be realistically canvassed.
OTOH, there are numerous, technologically simple methods for reducing GHG emissions (including CO2), which have not yet been put into place, and which are generally much more effective in “treating the disease” of AGW, while geo-engineering “solutions” generally fall more into “treating the symptoms”, and as such can provide little long term hope for amelioration of AGW.
I look upon such proposals as being in the same realms of fantasy as “clean coal” and geosequestration of CO2, and a further attempt at BAU rather than any meaningful and practical way to address the calamities posed by AGW.
Geoengineering might be necessary even with a signficant amount of mitigation, and each year that passes without substantial international mitigation increases the likelihood that this will be the case.
That said, the Vic government’s involvement in the conference certainly does smack of a desperate casting about to avoid having to grapple with the need to wean the state off brown coal. The resistance to contemplating it is really quite extraordinary – even the relatively mundane option of increasing gas generation appears to be taboo.
“It’s a bad idea for geoengineering to be the equivalent of the Pompeii sex room” [Link]
So yes, pursue R&D in all fields. Geoengineering, Integral Fast Reactors, nuclear fusion, renewables. And prove or disprove Carbon Capture and Storage once and for all.
Perhaps. My guess is that it has a lot more to do with Alan Trounson having a mate in the minister’s office than any policy decision, explicit or tacit.
I wouldn’t disagree substantially with you Pterosaur. I would caution though that sulphur is fairly shortlived — and within three months of withdrawing it, the content would have entirely dissipated.
I still think the primary focus should be on mitigation, but I am concerned that if we get it a day late and a penny short (worse than that actually) we are going to have serious and irreversible damage. Doing things that probably won’t cause serious and irreversible damage begins to be sensible at the point we become very confident about that “probably” or at any rate a lot more confident about that than the non-geoengineering course. As I write these lines, we are entitled to think that our governments are going to leave everything to the last minute, start fast tracking, and allow a series of disasters to unfold. Buying ourselves a little time between 2020 and 2030 and maybe holding the Arctic permafrost and summer Arctic ice for a further 15 years while we stabilise at say, 450ppmv could be rational if in practice that is the best we can hope for. Indeed, at some point (maybe 2050) fossil fuels including coal will start to become prohibitively expensive and so if we can stave off disaster until then, other factors come to the aid of policy.
This would be the pessimistic view.
You don’t have to “disprove” CC&S. If it is not economically viable at less than $100 per tonne of Co2 and the coal boffins think this price would cripple them, it is refuted. Their challenge is to make it work at a price they and everyone else can live with.
That’s putting aside the fact that under CC&S we would be asking when “peak storage acquifer” would happen and that by 2062, we are probably not going to have any coal to burn, but we would have 30 years of supercritical CO2 stored (assuming it goes ahead) to look after for all time.
Robert @10
I have no doubt your view is probably closer to the mark, Robert, since you’re in Victoria and familiar with the relevant political players. My comment was really aimed at the impression it creates.
I’m by no means familiar with atmospheric chemistry, but statements such as :-
“sulphur is fairly shortlived — and within three months of withdrawing it, the content would have entirely dissipated.”
worry me.
I don’t challenge the statement, just the nature of the “dissipation”.
For instance, would such an input “dissipate” as SO2, SO3 or other sulphur compounds ? What would be the effects of increasing concentrations of such compounds upon the atmosphere/biosphere ?
The results of sulphur pollution are pretty clear at all smelting sites I have visited, and notably demonstrated at Queenstown (Western Tas.), and it doesn’t provide for the survival of much at all.
Although I suspect that “smelter pollution” involves much higher local concentrations of sulphur compounds than would result from geo-engineering proposals/applications, it’s clear that, if such “stop gap” measures were to be adopted, and repeatedly applied (as would be needed every 3 months or so), then concentrations would rise, eventually with inevitable adverse results.
Further, if GHG mitigation is not adequately addressed (in favour of using eg sulphur aerosols), then a time will come when such geo-engineering will have to cease (because of biosphere effects), and the impacts of the subsequent “unmasking” of the greenhouse effect will be much greater/faster than the worst current predictions wrt AGW.
Your questions are legitimate ones Pterosaur, though there is a difference as you say in concentration. Also at that altitude one can expect it is going to behave quite differently than at ground level. I’d like to see the matter thoroughly investigated while we focus on mitgation, so that come 2020, we knew what options were feasible.
Mt Pinatubo provided a kind of proof of principle and at this stage, there seem to have been few really serious consequences of that.
Crutzen and Caldeira are those most associated with this speculation
I’d favour some small-scale trials to map dispersion patterns and local effects. There are some implications for the ozone layer which we’d want to bear in mind, though there is speculation that other more innocuous chemicals might be developed that could be released at the mesosphere that would do the same job (probably at greater cost) but at reduced risk.
I’d like to see some good evidence either way on this.
Pterosaur, Fran
SO2 usually precipitates as H2SO4, its called Sulphuric Acid and its the same stuff we put in car batteries. Try sipping that. Remember the acid rains that destroyed lots of forest? That came from the small amounts of SO2 in various fuels including coal and it is why they have to install equipment to suppress SO2 emissions and to use low sulphur fuels.
Inject SO2 into the atmosphere? that is a totally insane proposition and is about on a level with most of the proposals.
About the only one that makes any sense, that is reversible and can be incrementally employed is to raise the albedo of structures and even “painting” strips of desert white (Maybe with artificial trees)side effects include changing the weather patterns and damage to certain species of wild life. There will be no collateral damage free solution.
SO2? – forget it.
Huggy
Pretty much sums it up for me Huggy
, hence my reservations.
pterosaur
I think you also get lots of sulphurous acid (H2SO3) but hey who’s counting?
I doubt very much if there is an easy Geo Engineering based fix.
I rather like the idea of large parasols spiking into the desert from airplanes and slowly unfolding like giant white flowers.
Mirrors in space ? Bombs on the moon? Ocean Iron fertilisation? Little Green nukes on the back of trucks?
Fantasy.
Huggy
AIUI the acid rain issue doesn’t arise as the concentrtations would be tiny and would disperse rapidly, but I’m merely proposing that the matter be investigated. It could well be that there are better ways to secure the same ends.
So do I, Huggy, but I also increasingly doubt that mitigation will do the job on its own, particularly at the pace we’re (not) doing it. So we need to examine these options, unpleasant though they may be.
Does anyone else sense the absurdity of further pollution, to deal with the problems of existing pollution?
Isn’t that the clearest indication that human beings are totally irrational in the face of difficult decisions requiring a change of behaviour?
It has the ring of bulimia to it. You can eat as much as you like (how good is that?!!!), just as long as you throw up afterwards…
I thought a key issue was that CO2 was acidifying the oceans. Chucking more stuff in the air wont fix that.
Wilful @22, why stop at chucking stuff into the atmosphere?
Why not chuck a pile of alkali into the oceans as well?
And I too agree that an easy geoengineering fix will probably not be available. If one seems to appear, it may have a sting in the tail — precisely why we should hasten slowly and investigate fully first and early.
Like I said, Elise, all things being equal I’d very much prefer we avoided geoengineering (other than acceleration of the removal of CO2 from the biosphere).
But the evidence so far suggests we won’t reduce our emissions quickly or substantially enough to avoid catastrophe. In those circumstances, I’d prefer geoengineering with nasty side effects to climate catstrophe.
Think of it this way. Does the fact that the majority of lung cancers are caused by smoking and asbestos mean that we should not research chemotherapy (a partially effective treatment with nasty side effects) to treat it?
If we in fact fail to take sufficient steps to mitigate GHG emissions in sufficient time to save our civilisation from the catastrophes resulting from AGW, I fear that any geo-engineering remedy that could conceivably be applied will merely hasten our destruction, and that of the ecological services upon which we all depend.
Like the “final nail in the coffin”, or “the straw that breaks the camel’s back”, it seems stupid to me to hope that the addition of extra chemicals to an already stressed system has little hope of success, and a real probability of making things worse.
I see the whole “argument” about geo-engineering as being another excuse for BAU, which, if allowed to continue, will ultimately doom our civilisation.
pterosaur, I tend to agree with you. However, that is irrelevant, when the shit finally will hit the fan, some bright spark probably won’t be able help him/herself to press that button. So let them at least talk about it, so we know what to expect. Like reading the TV program to understand the movie.
The most likely geoengineering solution will involve an increase in albedo.
71% of the earths surface is covered in water therefor it is logical to assume that floating structures like oblate plastic spheres could be employed. These could be located in the gyres. Oh this is where all that plastic junk can be found now!
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
More at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
Geo-engineering? We are already into it big time, in a most peculiar way.
Huggy
Fran @ 4 – do you know how effective white roofs would be in terms of helping to reduce global warming? I know its very effective in keeping houses cooler, but does it help significantly more broadly? It would be essentially costless for building regulations to be changed so new houses are required to have a light coloured roof.
Chris,
Regardless of any effect upon GW if you want an example of total fucking stupidity go find a house with black or grey or a low albedo roof that is located any where near the tropics.(Those red tile roofs that you find every-where in SE Asia are also an example of a poor material choice)
If roof area is say 16 m2 then a low albedo roof will add about 40 kWh/day to the heat input to the house.
Paint it white with high albedo paint and this will fall to about 4 kWh.
What do you see on those trendy grey roof homes? A massive air conditioner that’s what.
Only a total moron would fill his roof space with about 40 times 1 kW heaters and run them for 6 hours/day, but that is exactly what the owners of grey/black/red roofed homes are doing.
Huggy
Huggybunny – no argument from me about the stupidity of having a dark coloured roof. But they’re definitely the current trend as its seen as looking better. The house I’m currently building has an almost white roof and walls but I did have to negotiate a bit with my wife to convince her it was a good idea who was concerned about aesthetics. Apparently sarking (or even foil insulation!) even under a black roof will get you much of the gain of a white roof, but you’ll still have the heat island effect and presumably no global warming gains (whatever that may be).
Chris,
Albedo is about reflectivity of a surface in relation to radiation striking it. The more radiation that is reflected, the less absorbed. This is one of the reasons why declining sea-ice extent is a problem. More of the incomiong radiation is absorbed. This is where the direct global warming ganis are made.
If your house is cooler, then you may run your AC less and since the power for the AC is largely fossil derived, you may add less to atmospheric CO2 inventories. Of course, how much you add is a reflection of the Co2-intensity of the network at the time you draw down the power to run it, and the extent to which you are merely using redundant fossil capacity that has to be supplied to protect the integrity of the supply system in the case of unscheduled outages or unanticipated surges in demand.
Huggybunny @30, presumably the same 10:1 ratio applies to cars with black or white duco?
Do mafia staff cars use more airconditioning, and thus chew more fuel?
Probably, Elise @ 33.
I’m glad my ute’s white, btw, because (going for the cheapest money can buy) it doesn’t have air conditioning.
Elise ,it is equally stupid to drive a black car.
Air conditioning and visiblity.
It’s remarkable how basically all new houses in Victoria are dark tile roofs.
My next house is going to have a tin roof painted with this stuff: http://www.heatreflectivepaint.com.au/ (or soemthing like it)
Fran, the flip side of using electricity that would otherwise go to waste is when you’re using electricity generated in recently built peaking plants that may on run for a couple of weeks a year, mostly on hot summer afternoons to drive everyone’s aircon.
Sorry wilful … I found that hard to parse despite several attempts. Perhaps you could enlarge upon it?
Yeah sorry, not my clearest. Your second para @32, reflecting the fact that if power is drawn from otherwise idling power stations it is effectively ‘carbon neutral’. The flip side of that statement is that in our wisdom we have recently built peaking power stations (at massive cost in embedded energy etc etc) in order to avoid brownouts at peak power use times – which are mostly associated with airconditioning.
So not only can you have ‘carbon neutral’ energy from spare capacity at coal-fired stations, you can have ‘carbon-extra-pollution’ from power generated by peaking facilities that are overall little used.
1000 ft2 of a white roof, replacing a dark roof,
offset the emission of 10 tonnes of CO2
From:http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/events/2008_conference/presentations/2008-09-09/Hashem_Akbari.pdf
Global Cooling: Increasing World-wide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2.
Extract:
“• Total emitted CO2 offset for cool roofs and cool pavements
= 44 GT CO2
• 44 GT CO2 is over one year of the world 2025
emission of 37 GT CO2
• At a growth rate of 1.5% in the world’s CO2 -
equivalent emission rate, 44 GT CO2 would
offset the effect of the growth in CO2-equivalent
emissions for 11 years”
Will we do this?
NFW. Too fucking stupid. Meantime power companies sell air conditioners for no deposit and payments on the power bill. Then they wonder why the peak loads keep going up.
Huggy
Wilful
Confusing. It’s the marginal output we want to know about. If they are kept at white start readiness it’s only the difference between this CO2 and the CO2 they actually emit as a result of demand that is the footprint of that demand.
One can argue that reconfiguring to allow these plants to be shut down completely and locked up would be a saving, but this has nothing to do with each particualr usage making up demand, but merely the anticipated pattern of usage.
The CO2 we emit so that there won’t be a brownout is like the money we spend getting insurance. Once we have spent it, whether we actually need it or not makes little or no difference to the cost.
To get the full advantage we have to accept the risk of brownouts/blackouts or build low-carbon facilities that replace redundant high carbon capacity without increasing our risk.
Wilful @39, I was just musing this morning on the business of how we could replace coal-fired power stations. Especially brown coal power in Victoria.
It seems that the main driver behind the strenuous support for coal and nuclear, as opposed to renewables, is really the argument for “baseload power” or off-peak power for when the sun isn’t shining, for example. The cost or technical feasibility of generating power from solar is not really a factor, but its intermittent generation is a problem for a 24 hour economy.
In the absence of cheap energy storage options, we would be forced to find an alternative baseload solution. Fuel cells running on natural gas are one such solution; for example BlueGen. As long as we have a supply of natural gas, then BlueGen can provide off-peak and baseload energy, if we have enough of them.
According to the Victorian government, they produce 90% of their electricity from brown coal, and their electricity use is in the order of 55,000 GWh per year. Victoria has about 2 million households. BlueGen units generate 2 kW and produce about 17,000 kWh/year of electricity. How far would that get them, if they all cooperated to change their carbon footprint?
Say the Victorian government got really forward-thinking and offered a generous feed-in tariff for people installing a BlueGen unit with associated hot water system? I make it that 2 million households @ 17,000 kWh/year would give the Victorians about 34,000 GWh per year.
That is, household BlueGen could supply more than 60% of Victoria’s electricity needs, without the Victorian government having to stump up the upfront CAPEX for any new power stations. All they would have to do is offer a decent incentive in terms of feed-in tariff.
What about the carbon footprint reduction? The average efficiency of Victoria’s current brown coal generators is about 25% at the home, i.e. 75% losses. A BlueGen unit with associated hotwater system is estimated to an efficiency of 85%, i.e. 15% losses.
According to Neco (http://www.neco.com.au/bluegen), when one BlueGen is connected to a gas hot water unit in Victoria, CO2 emissions are reduced up to 75% or 18.6 tonnes/year per BlueGen unit. If 2 million Victorian households installed them, then it would be 37 million tonnes REDUCTION in carbon footprint.
All small scale installations. Fixing the energy problem could be much easier than we think.
Just as long as we don’t flog all our gas to China…
fran, it was a very minor point. Just that there’s an obverse to ‘free capacity’, which is ‘aircon only capacity’, which is being built these days.
elise, I’m not so convinced we can handwave away the cost of solar as an issue. But re Bluegen, sure, they’re hideously expensive right now ($30 000 each right?), but they promise they will drop to 1/3 and be sort of within reach for wealthy people. But there would have to be massive subsidies to get households to switch to these boxes at $10 000 a household. Most people simply don’t rush out and buy that sort of thing (though they’ll easily spend more than that on a car upgrade, the retards). The money spent on Bluegen could be spent on any range of things, even nuclear power.
Also, not that a) large areas of Victoria still aren’t connected to the reticulated gas network, and b) we run out of gas before too long, possibly before these BlueGen units have been fully amortised.
not wishing to piss on your parade here – if the cost of BlueGen comes down enough in teh enxt few years, I would definitely consider installation. But I care about emissions, am pro-tech and relatively speaking wealthy.
Elise,
Even at $10,000 the bluegen is $5 million per MW. Combined cycle gas generation (CGGG) is at about $1Million per MW and can be close to 70% efficient.
A large scale implementation of domestic gas fired generation would require an additional huge investment in new pipes etc.
Better for the existing coal fired stations to convert to gas or to scatter about 20 smallish (say 600kW) CGGG plants around the state.
Before you bang on about the gains from the hot water from the bluegen remember that storage hot water systems are basically stupid and waste about 60% of the input energy.
Huggy
Wilful @43: “Bluegen, sure, they’re hideously expensive right now ($30 000 each right?), but they promise they will drop to 1/3…”
The price for the BlueGen units is currently around $20,000 – $30,000. The expectation is that the prices will go down to $8,000 to $10,000 once production scales up.
“…we run out of gas before too long, possibly before these BlueGen units have been fully amortised.”
Payout estimate 7 years, even on a modest electricity tariff. Gas supplies estimate 20-30 years. They will be fully amortised.
However, I think your deeper question is whether we can use fuel cells for power generation when natural gas supplies from oil and gas fields run out?
These higher temperature fuel cells can apparently run on a range of fuels, including methanol, ethanol, methane (natural gas is mostly methane) and hydrogen.
How about the following, for a long-term solution?
We currently have long-distance gas pipelines running all over the country; from NW Shelf the Perth and further south; from Moomba to NSW and SA; from Bass Strait across Vic; from Darwin to Mount Isa, etc. We could equally look at piping hydrogen from remote generation sites to the cities.
Solar PV can be connected to electrolysis, to generate hydrogen from water. Why couldn’t these generation facilities be located in our sunny deserts in the outback, and pipeline the hydrogen to the coast?
Alternatively, if you have strong feelings about piping hydrogen, how about a blue sky concept? Is it possible to combine the hydrogen with carbon dioxide on-site, to form methane (i.e. natural gas) and then pipeline in the usual manner? My knowledge of chemistry is extremely rusty, so this is just a wild idea. I’d be happy to know if there is a catalyst that would perform this trick?
Generating methane is a more convoluted approach than simply using the hydrogen directly, admittedly, so I would favour the former scenario.
Huggybunny @44: “Even at $10,000 the bluegen is $5 million per MW. Combined cycle gas generation (CGGG) is at about $1Million per MW and can be close to 70% efficient.”
I take your word for it. CCGT are probably a cheaper way to go in the medium term, especially if we can retrofit some of the coal-fired dinosaurs. However I was thinking of a couple of other issues, and just brainstorming a couple of concepts:
(a) Who is going to pay for the CCGT? State governments have shown little interest in maintaining, let alone building new electricity generation. The private sector would rather milk the existing coal-fired facilities for all they are worth.
Household ownership would enable the government to pay the generation capacity off in installments, perhaps with an upfront subsidy to get it going. It may still be a viable proposition, even with a generous feed-in tariff? Has anyone done the numbers to compare the alternatives?
(b) As wilful implies, what happens when the gas runs out? Of course, if we don’t set aside a decent Reservation for domestic use, and allow the multinationals to flog most of it to China, then this day will arrive sooner.
My argument for implementation of fuel cell technology has to do with preparing for the day when gas supplies become hard to find. If the wild idea of generating methane in the outback were feasible, then CCGT would probably be the long-term answer as well. If not, and we are forced to look at burning or reacting hydrogen, then maturing the fuel cell technology with natural gas would be a good bridging step.
Elise, from what I’ve read, manufacturing hydrogen for use as a fuel (by whatever method) is more expensive than just about any other option you can think of.
And on top of that, you’re adding pumping water into the desert to convert into hydrogen using PV-driven electrolysis, then combining the hydrogen with CO2 in some additional energy consuming process, then piping it long distances.
All this, just to justify an investment in fuel cell technology?
The idea that Bluegen-style fuel cell technology is somehow a hedge against when the gas runs out seems absurd – it quite clearly makes people more dependent on gas, not less.
Elise@45
You can get methane from hydrogen and CO2 at high temperatures with a nickel catalyst. Google the Sabatier process.
But to cut a long story short it would be a pretty pointless thing to do. Energy in/energy out questions rule it out. To start with, half your expensively (and energy intensively) produced hydrogen disappears as water, which is the other product of the process.
Thanks Wozza @48. It was just a wild thought, brought on by the geoengineering concept of looking for ways to reduce net CO2 additions to the atmosphere. Instead of pumping it underground, perhaps we could re-use it?
Tim @47: “And on top of that, you’re adding pumping water into the desert”
Don’t we have a Great Artesian Basin?
“…energy consuming process”
As opposed to the energy consuming process of just letting the sun bleach bones dry out there, you mean? Surely it doesn’t matter if a process consumes a lot of energy, if that energy (sunshine) is supplied and unused anyway?
“…then piping it long distances”
As I said, we ALREADY pipe gas long distances. It is not a novel concept – it is already in normal use.
Where are the studies which prove definatively that it is too expensive, etc, etc? And too expensive compared to what else, in a carbon-constrained world? What should we use as a yardstick?
Elise, I wasn’t objecting to the idea of generating solar energy in the desert. I was pointing out that using it to make hydrogen (an energy intensive process), then engaging in yet another industrial process to convert that hydrogen into methane (which, as Wozza has pointed out, is an energy intensive process), is an extraordinarily inefficient way of getting energy from the desert to the cities.
Elise, I think you can work out that using solar energy to produce electricity, then using that electricity to convert water into hydrogen, then using more electricity (or some other energy source) to convert the hydrogen into methane, then using a fuel cell to convert the methane back into electricity, is going to be more expensive than just using the solar generated electricity directly, without needing to look at a study.
Wow Elise, that’s really thinking ahead. Kind of reminds about the debate over the Yarragadee aquifer a few years ago – “it’s got so much water in it it’ll take us over two thousand years to completely suck it dry – let’s go for it!”
It matters if it’s an inefficient and expensive way to use that energy.
Tim @50, before you go frothing at the mouth about one of my wild brainstorming efforts, which I already suggested might not work, I would draw your attention to my last sentence in that post:
“Generating methane is a more convoluted approach than simply using the hydrogen directly, admittedly, so I would favour the former scenario.”
By “former scenario” I meant the hydrogen approach. I’m sorry if that was not apparent from the text.
In querying a possible methane generation process, I was simply considering the prospect that most people are comfortable with reticulating natural gas throughout our cities and homes, but many feel less comfortable with hydrogen. The Hindenberg has a lot to answer for…
“It matters if it’s an inefficient and expensive way to use that energy.”
Sooo, your alternative more efficient use of that energy was…???
Tim said:
I’d endorse almost all you have said about the use of hydrogen and add also that it embrittles metals, is dannably slippery to transport by pipes, and also the low temp fuel cells need noble metals (like platinum) to work producing electricity, which metals have their own environmental footprint.
The only way I can begin to see hydrogen being feasible is if electricity were supplied to household via some low carbon source (perhaps PV) and water on site were electrolysed with the resultant hydrogen stored. That could then be pumped into a vehicle (using more electricity) directly burning hydrogen by combining it with air rather than using a fuel cell. That would imply having such vehicles and houses with the facility to electrolyse hydrogen and store it and pump it, which would have its own OH&S implications. On the upside, you don’t need batteries to store your low carbon electricity. Another alternative might be to simply use the hydrogen to run a generator to produce local power at night so that people could accumulate H2 while they were at work and use if overnight, reducing their need for large storage of H2 and reducing intermittency problems.
Waste water might be a good source for this since it elctrolyses a little more easily. In fact I’ve heard it speculated that urea might be a better source than water since ammonia has one more hydrogen atom. Mind you, I know some people will be pissed off at me raising this point
Maybe a sewage treatment plant might be the best site for one of these?
Tim @50, forgot to ask you a question, regarding “…going to be more expensive than just using the solar generated electricity directly, without needing to look at a study”
How do you propose to deal with intermittent generation, if we are to use solar energy as off-peak power?
AFAIK Either we store it via:
- electrochemical process (in batteries or somesuch), or
- hydoelectric process (pumped storage), or
- intermediate reactive chemical process (e.g. hydrogen), or
- whatever else I have forgotten that you know about…
I had instinctively disgarded batteries and hydroelectric for the outback, which left some kind of intermediate reactive chemical process, i.e. hydrogen. Perth has already had a successful trial of hydrogen fuel cell buses. Fuel cells are a technology whose time is just around the corner. I was playing with ideas for how to best use them.
Only too happy to hear of other options, in the interests of identifying a long-term solution for the day when gas runs out.
…sneding the solar electricity directly to the grid, rather than converting it into hydrogen, distributing it and then converting it back into electricity with attendant losses.
Having re-read it, my comment @50 was a bit on the “frothy” side. Sorry about that.
Fran @52, totally agree that this is a promising future concept!
“The only way I can begin to see hydrogen being feasible is if electricity were supplied to household via some low carbon source (perhaps PV) and water on site were electrolysed with the resultant hydrogen stored. That could then be pumped into a vehicle (using more electricity) directly burning hydrogen by combining it with air rather than using a fuel cell. That would imply having such vehicles and houses with the facility to electrolyse hydrogen and store it and pump it, which would have its own OH&S implications. On the upside, you don’t need batteries to store your low carbon electricity. Another alternative might be to simply use the hydrogen to run a generator to produce local power at night so that people could accumulate H2 while they were at work and use if overnight, reducing their need for large storage of H2 and reducing intermittency problems.”
That could solve the future problem of household energy quite neatly.
What will we do about energy for larger-scale industrial operations, like e.g. mining in the Pilbara?
It would be a stretch to imagine those large haul trucks running on battery power, like monster scaled-up iMiev’s. Presumably we could run the mining fleet on fuel-cell technology, as for the successful fuel cell bus trial in Perth? Someone would presumably need to generate the hydrogen up there – near or in the Pilbara.
What about 24/7 energy to run the processing plant? They can use gas turbines until the gas runs out. Then what? A large fuel-cell substation?
No snark here. I’m genuinely interested in what is possible.
Elise, I was also thinking about that. As you say, hydrogen storage is one possible method of energy storage. Whether or not it’s more or less cheap or efficient than other options (including batteries) would appear to be an open question at this stage, given that most of the technologies are experimental and costs appear to vary wildly according to location, particular technology used etc. Regards your list, there are also the physical storage methods, e.g. thermal storage using molten salt, and compressed air storage. Of course, there’s also the ‘distributed generation’ hoo ha, using
The hydrogen bus trial was a “success’ in the sense that yes, the buses worked. However, they were very expensive to run, and that was using cheap hydrogen that was waste from the BP Kwinana refinery. That trial, among other things, makes me dubious that renewably generated hydrogen + bluegen would actually be cheaper for households than renewable energy + batteries.
Sorry, somehow posted before I finished typing. I meant to say “distributed generation hoo ha, using EV batteries and the like”. It seems there’s a lot of possibilities and it’s too early to tell which ones will work out and which won’t.
Re the Pilbara mines – the haulpaks will have to run on overhead trolley systems. AFAIK that’s been done in a few mines in South Africa (during the Apartheid era when they couldn’t get inmported oil) and I think some parts of Canada where there’s dirt cheap hydro. The fact that industrial operations need constant power suggests that, if the solar thermal/molten salt storage combo doesn’t prove economic enough, they’ll have to go nuclear.
There’s also the “energy island” concept, which involves building a sort of offshore pumped hydro setup in moderately shallow water. God knows what the economics of it are – although there seem to be enough people in WA who are itching to build articial islands to suggest that it is less unreasonable than it may first appear.
Huggybunny @ 40 – thanks – that is the sort of analysis I was hoping someone would post. Sounds like the federal government would have got a much much better return for their money painting roofs white than they did from installing insulation.
Bluegen sounds like an attractive proposition from a reliability point of view too. 2kW is enough to run a lot of things in a house when there are power failures, something that domestic solar is generally not going to be able to do. I think they claim a cost of around 20c/kWh which is pretty comparable to even current electricity tarrifs.
Tim @56 & 57: Yes, of course, thermal storage, so we have:
- electrochemical process (in batteries or somesuch), or
- hydoelectric process (pumped storage), or
- intermediate reactive chemical process (e.g. hydrogen), or
- thermal storage process (e.g. solar thermal)
Chris @58, regarding uses for BlueGen, how about this from the Geneva Motor Show:
“Lotus has unveiled a plug-in hybrid version of the Evora at the Geneva motor show.
What is it?
The Evora 414E plug-in hybrid has a total output of 408bhp from a pair of electric motors that can propel the car from 0-60mph in less than four seconds.
Combined range of 300 miles
The 17kWh batteries provide a range of 35 miles and can be recharged fully overnight. For longer journeys, however, there is also a small 1.2-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine to charge the battery and extend the range to more than 300 miles – 64 miles farther than a Tesla can do.
Lotus says: ‘This is a far more energy-efficient, weight-efficient and cost-effective solution than fitting the vehicle with a larger and more expensive battery, which for the majority of journeys is a redundant weight that increases energy requirements.’
A 2 kW BlueGen could generate the 17 kWh to fully charge the batteries overnight!
The entertaining bit, is that Lotus is kindly offering to supply their stealth cars with a suitable soundtrack for petrol heads, not least to warn pedestrians and drivers of buzz-boxes that you are coming.
You can choose between V6, V12, and a fighter jet. Hey, how good is that?!!!
Tim @56: “…makes me dubious that renewably generated hydrogen + bluegen would actually be cheaper for households than renewable energy + batteries.”
What about when the Chinese have locked up the supply of lithium for the batteries, and are charging like the Light Brigade for it?
Especially if global supplies are tight because they have decided to supply their own, by then humungous, vehicle market with battery cars first?
Do we fight them for the lithium, or scrounge around for alternative sources, or say “bugger-you, we’ll solve it a different way” with fuel cells?
Meanwhile back in the real world, the media is chock full of stories about how the GBNT (aka the CPRS) is going to make electricity 50% more expensive, our governments are licking their lips at the prospect of a renewed coal export bonanza, and Australians are terrified that insulation will electrocute you, spontaneously ignite, or give you cancer. Perhaps all three!
Clearly we’re not going to do the mitigation thing, so we may as well get on with geoengineering.
Elise @60 – we could use lead acid. or nickel metal hydride. Or nickel iron. Etc. Hell, fuel cells are certainly a possibility. Maybe hydrogen is actually a goer. Who knows?
Elise @ 59 – I don’t think you can turn the bluegen units completely off without long startup times so there probably will be some spare power to use somewhere at night – why not in charging your car
carbonsink @ 61 – where geoengineering is both cheaper and lower risk than mitigation (eg painting roofs white is dirt cheap and not going to cause any harm I don’t think – mandating new house roofs being white might even reduce costs a bit because of increased volumes of just one product) I think we should be doing it in preference anyway.
Guys, Fuel cells are an energy source, not suitable for stand alone systems without serious batteries. Go over the power limit and they totally collapse.
Hydrogen economy ? have any of you any idea how explosive that shit is?
You put your fuel cell in the basement, the system leaks and the hydrogen collects in the upstairs kids bedroom, they turn on the light and the tiny spark sets off an explosion that totally destroys the entire house. Good stuff.
Hydrogen is explosive in almost any air to H2 ratio. You cannot smell it you cannot see it and it kills.
Huggy
If Tony Rudd or Kevin Abbot ilk are going to decide how fast to mitigate we will need geo-engineering. Even if they do start doing something it would be nice to have geo-engineering in reserve if we suddenly realize we are at a tipping point.
On the subject of CO2 capture from coal plants, I would rather live inside a nuclear reactor building or on top of a high level waste dump than anywhere closer than about 20kms from a CO2 well. 50kms if I’m downhill.
Jacques,
While I certainly agree living within about 20k of a CO2 well would be living very dangerously indeed, I’m not so sure I’fd prefer living in a nuclear reactor building — at least, not with my family — or on a waste dump.
Living a couple of hundred metres from the dump and/or the reactor would be fine though.
Huggy says: “Combined cycle gas generation (CGGG) is at about $1Million per MW”
Richard McIndoe, MD of TRuEnergy, (who last March opened a combined cycle gas generation power plant at Tallawarra, the ‘Gong) says: “(the) 450 megawatt gas fired power station .. cost us around $700, 750 million”, so HB’s estimate is only 50% underestimate, & in fact in line with what McIndoe himself was claiming July/August last year.
( Where the extra 300 miilion or so costs popped up from in the ensuing few months, after the build and opening, and now presumably having to be gouged from customers, I’d like to know… the new plant’s books wouldn’t be being loaded up with debts from other parts of the company fleet would it, a sort of dodgy transfer pricing?)
I wonder what those boogie-man price increases that are being splashed about ( 64% over 3 years, country NSW) are really due to: what are these mysterious ‘Network Charges” that IPART syas are the main driver for the increase? It wouldn’t be that the government has been milking electricty charges revenues for other budgetry purposes, and not paying off the network debts, which are now maturing?
Which brings me to Elise’s 64 billion dollar question @46 “(a) Who is going to pay for the CCGT? State governments have shown little interest in maintaining, let alone building new electricity generation. The private sector would rather milk the existing coal-fired facilities for all they are worth”: I say let the existing players who have been derelict in their duities go hang with their decrepit fleet and crippling debts, let’s have new players come in with the cleaner greener leaner operations, financed by some share of the 1200 billion plus dollars in Australian Superannuation funds.
I’m thinking the old ACTU-Solo ( unions engaged in energy retailing, then petrol) model could be looked at again: learn from what went wrong there. Lets see what sort of returns on capital ( providing the members super dividends) can be achieved by setting up a (union/industry super funds keystone financed) greener power company selling 3 fold CO2/Nx cleaner, ( & 10 fold less water using), gas fired power.
“My guess is that it has a lot more to do with Alan Trounson having a mate in the minister’s office than any policy decision, explicit or tacit.”
Cherchez Victor Perton.