Are current renewable energy strategies worth it?

[Trakar]

Yep. I spotted the atomic number. D'uh. makes the ratio even worse though.

Don't sweat it, a minor and easily made slip, moreover, as you indicate, it supports your argument with even more persuasive numbers!

 

[aleCcowaN]

until one reviews the emerging as well as the existing renewable strategies you cannot effectively answer the question.
So yeah Alec a string of novelties represents a slice of what potential strategies may emerge....and stimulates discussion of the barriers to uptake.

They are only "worth it" if they can make a dent on the non-renewables in a reasonable time frame and cost.

Hydrogen for instance has long been discussed as a desirable end point but remains elusive for some of the reasons noted in the thread - yet despite those barriers some companies will be selling commercial vehicles next year.
Novel - yeah sure.
Useful information when surveying potentials for renewables....yup.

Your logic fails.

Strategies in a global scale mean policies. That includes research and development, some 1.2 billion dollars ppp (or short trillions if you like) a year. How much of that relates to renewables? Probably both a lot and not enough.

So popular-mechanics novelties are only that, not the topic. And certainly hydrogen was discussed just because it is made with electricity and that electricity may or may not come from a renewable resource. That has little to do with the topic, while CNG may have a lot more to do. Why, being it a fossil fuel as it is? Because CNG has developed quickly in countries with government-owned oil companies, what has some advantages among so many disadvantages, as a hundred of CNG filling stations can be built and create the market with disregard of the "philistine" subject of profitability. The desperate efforts of the Israeli chap are an example of how the private sector struggles to innovate when governments take the side of indifference in a disguise of laissez-faire, pretty much as they do with taxes on tobacco (they get a lot and they give back less than 1% of it in programs to help smokers to quit).

So, governments are gonna take a lot of your money and spend it unwisely. The question is, are current renewable energy strategies worth it?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Actually, while I do not mind such discussions here and do engage in them myself, technically this is a science/technology board. This topic is more properly a public policy(politics)/social implementation issue.

Current strategies have a strong technological content and new strategies rely on new technological achievements -which anyway shouldn't push the real topic out of the thread-, so the forum is about right and the inconvenient posters are happily avoided.

And about the right forum, I wouldn't mind in sight of some lame recent new threads, and what many people, like Doctor Bob Gordon Shops Hot Dogs From Boston, think of this forum.

 

[jimbob]

Don't sweat it, a minor and easily made slip, moreover, as you indicate, it supports your argument with even more persuasive numbers!

Indeed.

Current strategies have a strong technological content and new strategies rely on new technological achievements -which anyway shouldn't push the real topic out of the thread-, so the forum is about right and the inconvenient posters are happily avoided.

And about the right forum, I wouldn't mind in sight of some lame recent new threads, and what many people, like Doctor Bob Gordon Shops Hot Dogs From Boston, think of this forum.

The key is going to be economics, and what infrastructure does happen is going to be heavily influenced by technology, and some proposed technological solutions are not going to be practical because of the basic science.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I... and some proposed technological solutions are not going to be practical because of the basic science.

Just to confirm -maybe I didn't get it-, you're saying that basic science -a new technology tested in a laboratory and on a car- is not what makes the trick and becomes an innovation and a whole new strategy in the real world. Did I get it well?

 

[Trakar]

Current strategies have a strong technological content and new strategies rely on new technological achievements -which anyway shouldn't push the real topic out of the thread-, so the forum is about right and the inconvenient posters are happily avoided...

I would not disagree, especially with regards to the OP "Are ...(renewable strategies)... worth it?"

Part of answering such a question, depends upon defining "current renewable energy strategies," are we talking about traditional renewables in their current incarnation? Are we talking primarily about wind and solar? Are we looking at what are now largely white paper potentials? There is certainly room for some "whiz-bang" discoveries and novel innovation posts. The most fruitful discussion, however, is probably a focus on the process of turning renewables from the outlier status to the mainstream energy providers while minimizing corruption and incompetence along the way. Again, largely a public policy discussion, but until the definitions are established through the discussions of the specifics, and the pros and cons of the various systems (the science/technology) the public policy discussions cannot move forward very much.
((It doesn't do much good to argue about the miracles of Blainfounder technology or the ease of implementing it if we are unlikely or unable to functionally develop and produce Blainfounder generated electricity on a large scale in the near future.))

 

[macdoc]

You can only discuss "worth it" Alec if you have another option to gauge against.

If there is an emerging technology that appears to have the fundamental benefits required with fewer negatives...then it may be "worth it" to wait.

ie Fusion .....is it worth it to wait against say building more conventional nukes now??

At the individual level we make these decisions all the time in deciding on a vehicle.
Is an EV worth it?? Or perhaps a hybrid or limp the current ICE vehicle along.
Without some information on what might be further along like say a hydrogen based vehicle ...you cannot evaluate.

I certainly did not know H vehicles were going for public trial at $499 month and fuel....I wonder if it's "worth it to wait"

You were willing to jump in with both feet....

Are you that cocooned that you think it has to have a government "policy" to drive change?? A hell of a lot of time policy is in fact driven by early adopters with little gov support. The tinkers and those that put up solar panels cuz it's the right thing to do.

The guys out back of the restaurants scrounging grease for bio-diesel to avoid paying Exxon.

Maybe seeing what's out there gives us a better set of parameters to judge "worth".

Certainly DOE is providing grants for innovation to explore wide ranging sets of technological approaches.
That's gonna be change driven by innovation.
The only "policy" ....is helping innovation along.

We have to judge current renewables strategy policy against potential disruptive innovation.
Solar roads unlikely to be one of them, hydrogen economy ....maybe....fuel cell versus battery??? Maybe a combination of both. Micro nuclear....a lovely approach likely to suffer from NIMBY nonsense.

You have to have a sense of what's out there in development and in the field to attempt to judge what is worthy to pursue ...both on the individual level and which government policies are worth supporting in regards to renewables.
Vote for the biomass guy??
The guy that thinks solar subsidizes should be eliminated??
The gal that wants to copy Copenhagen's car tax?

Real world choices require reasonable breadth of knowledge of options - current and coming.

 

[Aber]

A major issue with emerging technologies is the difficulty of defining cost - initial installations will have costs much higher than can be achieved in the longer term. A lot of this is down to the impact of 'learning curves ' - the decrease in costs as installed capacity increases.

For example, for heavy engineering like offshore wind, costs are expected to decrease by 10-15% for each doubling of installed capacity, which is very significant in the longer term. However for this to happen, someone has to build the first few, which requires higher government support. This can look like throwing money away, but is a vital part of getting a new industry started quickly.

 

[Trakar]

Maybe seeing what's out there gives us a better set of parameters to judge "worth".

Without more intensive guidance from the OP, we are left to define such terms ourselves and I would certainly agree that a part of the exploration needed to create a largely consensual definition means that we need at least a bit of looking to see what constitutes "current renewable energy strategies." the OP link goes to Lomberg's considerations about renewable energy, but the thread starter questions these in a manner that pretty much throws the door open to investigate alternatives to what Lomberg is discussing, at least to my reading of the OP.

 

[jimbob]

Just to confirm -maybe I didn't get it-, you're saying that basic science -a new technology tested in a laboratory and on a car- is not what makes the trick and becomes an innovation and a whole new strategy in the real world. Did I get it well?

Not quite (although there is indeed a difference between a proof of concept and a commercially realisable technology) - maybe I should have said fundamental engineering considerations.

The specific example I was thinking of was in charging plug-in electric vehicles.

Say you want to charge a 90kWh battery (roughly Tesla S capacity) in an hour - this is 90kW (or equivalent to about 30 fast-boiling kettles) and ties up a charging point for an hour.

If you want to charge this up quicker, then you have to up the power.

As well as the current and voltage required, you have to think about thermal management, as there will be an awful lot of heat generated during charging.


In a similar vein, the IET magazine had an interesting article about the prospects for fusion using a tokamak

(Spoiled for breaking thread of argument)

Here's an article in the IET magazine about the challenges for fusion (The IET used to be the IEE, and roughly the UK equivalent of the IEEE)

We could actually build a reactor now, but it would not be economic because whilst the neutrons give up their energy and produce the heat we need to generate steam, they also damage the materials we have available now. The physics of fusion is now well mostly understood and resolved, but what is not resolved is the engineering consequences of generating these neutrons.

“You could build a reactor now with today's materials, but it wouldn't be economic because you would have to build a new reactor or remove and replace to core of the machine within two years. This includes everything inside the plasma chamber; ten billions dollar’s worth of plant.

“The machines we have available at the minute are designed to only run for short bursts. The JET can only sustain plasma for 30 or 40 seconds because the coils get hot. In principal you could keep the plasma running for hours, but your coils and power supplies would basically cook. It is not a physics limitation but a balance of plant limitation.”

That is a pretty significant challenge to overcome...

[/QUOTE]

Although in some ways that highlighted issue *might* simply be a problem that can be solved by materials science as opposed to a showstopper. However it is safe to say that even when sustainable fusion energy gain is greater than unity , commercial reactors will be a *long* way off.

 

[jimbob]

A major issue with emerging technologies is the difficulty of defining cost - initial installations will have costs much higher than can be achieved in the longer term. A lot of this is down to the impact of 'learning curves ' - the decrease in costs as installed capacity increases.

For example, for heavy engineering like offshore wind, costs are expected to decrease by 10-15% for each doubling of installed capacity, which is very significant in the longer term. However for this to happen, someone has to build the first few, which requires higher government support. This can look like throwing money away, but is a vital part of getting a new industry started quickly.

This too. I am not so sure about the economics of manufacture of wind turbines, but for photovoltaics, every time the market booms, the demand rises, so more manufacturing capacity is set up, much of which then gets sold off cheap when the market contracts and manufacturers go to the wall. The surviving players get the cheap increase in capacity allowing the price to drop and thus increasing the number of niches for which photovoltaics are economical. This sets off another boom part of the cycle and on top of that, there are the increases in efficiency due to the learning curve mentioned.

I'll continue about solar as it shares common features with my industry. As it is already at grid parity for some niche applications, any reduction in cost makes it economical for a larger range of applications and thus a bigger slice of the "power generation cake". This will increase investment and further reduce costs meaning that it is a virtuous circle (again just from economies of scale and ignoring technological improvement).

 

[jimbob]

Just to confirm -maybe I didn't get it-, you're saying that basic science -a new technology tested in a laboratory and on a car- is not what makes the trick and becomes an innovation and a whole new strategy in the real world. Did I get it well?

Actually a better example than my earlier response might be if someone says "why don't we have solar powered cars?"

A ford focus is roughly 4m x 2m so if you covered it completely in solar cells, you'd get 8sq m, which with a peak solar irradiance of about 1kW/sq m and with a very generous 50% efficiency gives you about 4kW (about 5hp). This compares with 6.7kW for the original Citroen 2CV and 13hp for the original Fiat500 (if my reading of wiki is correct)
​

If you did try for a solar powered car, then it would be very underpowered compared to current vehicles or need an additional power supply, or have a completely different footprint to current cars. Or any combination of these.

 

[macdoc]

A major issue with emerging technologies is the difficulty of defining cost - initial installations will have costs much higher than can be achieved in the longer term. A lot of this is down to the impact of 'learning curves ' - the decrease in costs as installed capacity increases.

Yup - thats part of what makes subsidizing new tech difficult.
I'd rather see the gov back new tech roll outs with low cost long term financing rather han feed in tariff guesses over long term which can cost the tax payers dearly.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Y
Maybe seeing what's out there gives us a better set of parameters to judge "worth".

With this word you can be as romantic as you want, or consider it to be a nerdy thing*. I prefer to consider it as "capable to do the trick in a foreseeable future".

About an absentee government -or worse, one that pretends to do its job- we have the example of CNG in the United States. Do your own calculation about what difference if CO2 emissions make ten million vehicles doing 40,000 miles a year.

Let's be sure that any technology discussed here is an innovation and not just a promise to be one. And let's leave the Shumans of today to the Sagans and Tysons of tomorrow.

* Maybe I'm starting a thread here about people building satellites on their kitchen tables and launching them into space, what is actually happening and more real than half of the links you posted in this thread.

 

[Trakar]

With this word you can be as romantic as you want, or consider it to be a nerdy thing*. I prefer to consider it as "capable to do the trick in a foreseeable future".

The "foreseeable future" is a stumbling block most people seem to have, which is why I generally try to avoid the term, especially when you mix in economics and politics. Five years is a pretty "foreseeable/predictable" time frame, ten years is stretching things hard. Twenty years is nearly pipe-dream territory. I think this is part of the reason so many people have such a difficult time with addressing Global Warming, it really is a frog in a pot of water with a very low flame under it scenario.

About an absentee government -or worse, one that pretends to do its job- we have the example of CNG in the United States. Do your own calculation about what difference if CO2 emissions make ten million vehicles doing 40,000 miles a year.

I'm lucky if I do 5,000 highway miles a year (any more). where is 40,000 the average? I believe in the U.S. the average is closer to ~15,000 and I thought we were the "live in your car kings!" (don't get me wrong, I know people who put 100k+/year on their cars but they are offset by more and more who are driving less and less.)

 

[macdoc]

Maybe I'm starting a thread here about people building satellites on their kitchen tables and launching them into space, what is actually happening and more real than half of the links you posted in this thread.

Only in your august judgement Alec....which in this case is worthless, pardon the pun...why don't you go tell the major corporations that are engaged in EVERY SINGLE LINK I POSTED that they are spending money on kitchen table satellites.

I've followed some of these technologies ( especially hydrogen ) for decades as I have in the technological world I inhabit and make my living from.
I have to sort out emerging worthwhile tech in a much faster paced area of change than we are talking about here.....they and I make their money being mostly correct about this

DIss all you want, wll not change my posting up technologies that I think have some worth..

CNG is NOT well loved in North America for the real dangers it represents....there is a reason the terminals are miles out to sea.

If that's your idea of a missed opportunity pardon my laughter. A reasonable summary

Not everyone thinks putting more natural-gas vehicles on the road is a good thing.

While NGVs are ideal for fleets where refueling is done in a central location, there are "serious challenges in spreading NGVs to the general public," because of the enormous expense to create a nationwide refueling infrastructure, says David Friedman, deputy director of the Clean Vehicles Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization in Cambridge, Mass.

"This (refueling) infrastructure could become obsolete as soon as cleaner technologies emerge," he says, adding that in foreign countries where natural-gas cars are popular, the fueling infrastructure has been built using huge government subsidies.

Plus, the economics of buying an NGV don't add up. They are thousands of dollars more expensive than a gasoline-powered or hybrid car, plus you'll be shelling even more out to install a home refueling system, Friedman says.

"You'd be better off with a hybrid," he says.

Friedman adds that while NGVs' greenhouse emissions are better than gasoline, these cars are still carbon-emitters.

"We'd be better off on using our natural-gas resources to displace coal to generate electricity and run (zero-emission) electric cars," he says.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/natural-gas-vehicles.aspx

exactly

an impractical suggestion.....not worth it when it comes to replacing personal vehicles.
Got anything less fanciful?

 

[jimbob]

O

Maybe I'm starting a thread here about people building satellites on their kitchen tables and launching them into space, what is actually happening and more real than half of the links you posted in this thread.

Only in your august judgement Alec....which in this case is worthless, pardon the pun...why don't you go tell the major corporations that are engaged in EVERY SINGLE LINK I POSTED that they are spending money on kitchen table satellites.

I've followed some of these technologies ( especially hydrogen ) for decades as I have in the technological world I inhabit and make my living from.
I have to sort out emerging worthwhile tech in a much faster paced area of change than we are talking about here.....they and I make their money being mostly correct about this

DIss all you want, wll not change my posting up technologies that I think have some worth..

CNG is NOT well loved in North America for the real dangers it represents....there is a reason the terminals are miles out to sea.

If that's your idea of a missed opportunity pardon my laughter. A reasonable summary

Not everyone thinks putting more natural-gas vehicles on the road is a good thing.

While NGVs are ideal for fleets where refueling is done in a central location, there are "serious challenges in spreading NGVs to the general public," because of the enormous expense to create a nationwide refueling infrastructure, says David Friedman, deputy director of the Clean Vehicles Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization in Cambridge, Mass.

"This (refueling) infrastructure could become obsolete as soon as cleaner technologies emerge," he says, adding that in foreign countries where natural-gas cars are popular, the fueling infrastructure has been built using huge government subsidies.

Plus, the economics of buying an NGV don't add up. They are thousands of dollars more expensive than a gasoline-powered or hybrid car, plus you'll be shelling even more out to install a home refueling system, Friedman says.

"You'd be better off with a hybrid," he says.

Friedman adds that while NGVs' greenhouse emissions are better than gasoline, these cars are still carbon-emitters.

"We'd be better off on using our natural-gas resources to displace coal to generate electricity and run (zero-emission) electric cars," he says.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/natural-gas-vehicles.aspx

exactly

an impractical suggestion.....not worth it when it comes to replacing personal vehicles.
Got anything less fanciful?

CNG does have its place as a short to medium term solution IMO. Yes it involves a large canister, but if anyone uses a ute or similar vehicle, then that is not such a problem. Being dual-fuel, that isn't such a problem, and I am not sure that the dangers are much worse than those posed by petrol.

ETA: A significant minority of petrol stations in the UK have managed to supply CNG refueling, so it is possible to get the infrastructure.

 

[GlennB]

...why don't you go tell the major corporations that are engaged in EVERY SINGLE LINK I POSTED that they are spending money on kitchen table satellites.

Because this is what they do. They'll put small change into highly speculative ventures in the hope (not even that, often - the dream) that it will pay out big time.

It's why major players put a mill or two into nonsense like Planetary Resources (the 'asteroid mining' dudes), and then Planetary Resources expects us to be impressed that they're supported by major players.

I gather the CIA sunk money into the distant possibility of telepathy and 'remote viewing'. Well, that's nuts, but I don't blame them for tossing a few cents (in their terms) at the chance there might be something in it.

 

[Trakar]

CNG does have its place as a short to medium term solution IMO. Yes it involves a large canister, but if anyone uses a ute or similar vehicle, then that is not such a problem. Being dual-fuel, that isn't such a problem, and I am not sure that the dangers are much worse than those posed by petrol.

ETA: A significant minority of petrol stations in the UK have managed to supply CNG refueling, so it is possible to get the infrastructure.

This is done throughout the U.S. as well. While there are only a small number of such vehicles in comparison to the entire private/commercial fleets of vehicles it functions well in the niche it holds. There are many CNG refill stations in the U.S. They aren't all at normal gasoline stations, but between U-Haul, hardware/feed stores and the various other outlets it is not generally too difficult to travel across country and most places in between relying entirely on CNG fuel. I'm sure if demand increased, supply would find a way to expand to fulfill such a product/service.

CNG isn't near the problem that H2 currently is, and I'm sure the H2's issues could eventually be resolved, at least for the levels of a successful niche market similar to CNG currently. I wouldn't look at either of these as being the type of "tabletop satellite" systems that Alec is referring to. I would estimate that CNG systems, especially as a dual fuel option could be mainstreamed rather quickly in any nation that already has large scale natural gas infrastructure in place.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I'm lucky if I do 5,000 highway miles a year (any more). where is 40,000 the average? I believe in the U.S. the average is closer to ~15,000 and I thought we were the "live in your car kings!" (don't get me wrong, I know people who put 100k+/year on their cars but they are offset by more and more who are driving less and less.)

Mamma mia! CNG is not adopted by the average user by random reasons. CNG is adopted by users having vehicles that travel a lot mostly in an area with plenty of points to refuel, like taxis, delivery trucks, etc. Nobody "lucky" *** enough to do 5,000 miles a year -highway or equivalent while revving in neutral waiting for the missus to leave the beauty parlour- have or should have any incentive to switch to natural gas.

Besides, the 40,000 miles a year IS the reason of the 10 million vehicles and not 60 million.

In countries where CNG is successful and it was incepted at least 2 decades ago the penetration reaches 20% of the vehicles that make 50% of the total mileage. A lot of disparage countries are on that way. The only common factor is that they wouldn't let the car industry to monopolize CNG. In fact, in many car importers CNG was an opportunity for the local light industry.



*** the same exact pretty dull way in Spanish to say it, the kind of phrases that are literally "cute as ****"