Re: Global Energy etc.

[Rick Tarara <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Schroeder" <DSCHROEDER@CC.WEBER.EDU>
> Your class project sounds terrific, though.  Brave of you, to try
> to look ahead that far.  Do you take it to the next level of detail,
> speculating on how each form of energy will be used?  What does
> the transportation sector use, with no petroleum or natural gas?
> Where do you get most of your 20% reduction in consumption?
> What kinds of solar energy?  Do you worry about energy storage?
I'll look into changing some of the calculations in my energy simulation
software to reflect the factor of three fossil fuel savings as a switch is
made to solar/wind.

Hydro is implicit in the project but with the increase in overall energy use
(population increase) and the fact that there are few remaining sites for
large scale hydro projects, the percentage of the total energy needs
supplied by hydro are likely to be reduced to the < 2% level.  We could
include small scale hydro projects, I guess.  Efficiencies come primarily in
transportation (cars) and home/commercial use--things like lighting and heat
pumps.  Other factors are somewhat beyond our predictive powers--industry
for example.  Conservation is where my class tends to strike-out.  They find
that in recycling the energy gains are primarily in aluminum but there we
can't improve a lot on the current situation.  They do find that car-pooling
can save more energy and is MUCH cheaper than mass-transit.  Passive solar
construction is another area they explore.  They seem to have trouble
finding other energy saving schemes that they are willing to 'live with.'
The project is simplified in terms of solar.  They look at various schemes,
but calculate on the basis of photovoltaic panels (primarily because we can
deal with the photoelectric effect)--using the best available (today)
technology but lower projected costs.  Again for simplicity, we look at
hydrogen as our transportation fuel and in fact look at hydrogen as a
possible replacement for natural gas (using wind/solar farms to produce the
hydrogen).  We don't look too closely at the actual technologies for _using_
hydrogen.   Last year a group looked at the cost of replacing the current
natural gas infrastructure with pipelines that could carry hydrogen.  We do
include in the calculations the fact that solar is NOT energy on demand and
that heavy reliance on wind needs to be geographically dispersed with some
back-up/storage capabilities.  Remember, this is a course in our General
Education program, so we can't delve in at the level that science majors
might.  Of course I talk about the fact that we really can't predict what
the technology might come up with over the next 100 years any better than
someone in 1900 could have predicted what 2000 would be like.  The project
is built around the idea that this is a kind of 'worst case' scenario--what
do we do if we DON'T find some new energy technologies.  Other aspects of
the course deal with what is likely to be rapidly growing world demand for
energy resources and the environmental impact of  current and future energy
use.

Rick

**********************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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