Re: Worrying about the long term (was Global Warming (NUCLEAR))

[Rick Tarara <rbtarara@SPRYNET.COM>]

I've outlined this before, but maybe not on this list.  I've been teaching
an energy course for the past several years and as part of that course I
have the students (in groups) design an energy system for the U.S. for the
year 2100.  We work on a 'worst case scenario' of _no new energy
technologies_ such as fusion being available.  We eliminate oil and natural
gas from the mix and end up using coal, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal,
and biomass, have major efficiency and conservation programs, and utilize
hydrogen as a portable fuel and as a way to 'store' solar and wind energy.
We estimate costs both in money and land to implement such a program based
on about 450-500 million citizens with a slightly increased per capita
energy use (that is then reduced by the efficiency and conservation
programs.)  The results are fairly consistent from year to year:

1)  The fact that we are moving from 90% fossil fuel use to 20% in this
project is very important.  We are NOT just using renewables to take over
the current ELECTRICAL energy supply, but to take over the ENTIRE energy
supply.  This is a fact VERY OFTEN lost by those advocating renewables as
the 'solution' to our energy needs.  We have to replace the gasoline,
heating oil, and natural gas usage as well as other industrial uses of oil,
gas, and coal.

2)  I set a goal of a 25% reduction in energy use for the Efficiency and
Conservation groups (combined).  Year after year these groups FAIL to
achieve this goal once they work the numbers.  Auto fuel efficiency and
massive and enforced car-pooling are the most productive approaches, but
most of the others (fluorescent lighting, recycling, mass transit, heat
pumps) fail to achieve more than a few percent in reductions.  One finds
that almost all aluminum is already recycled, that most other recycling is
not energy efficient, that commercial and industrial uses of energy are
already fairly efficient (certainly wherever doing such improves profits)
and that other areas like appliances, while they can save LOTS of energy,
are still very small percentage changes on the whole.

3)  The costs are staggering--approaching 20 trillion dollars.  If programs
were initiated NOW so that we were looking at 200 billion a year, they could
be done, but the longer we wait to start such massive conversions, the more
unreasonable and unmanageable the costs become.

4)  Land usage runs as high as 200,000 square miles.  True that some of this
land can have dual usage (wind) but still requires a very restricted second
usage.

5)  To effectively use WIND and SOLAR as major constituents in the energy
mix (20% each in our project) requires some kind of storage system to
account for the day/night cycle, the uncertainty of wind, and the
geographical restrictions on each.  The project chooses to use Hydrogen and
to pipe it throughout the country like natural gas is now.  Of course the
problem is that you can't put hydrogen in the natural gas pipelines--it all
leaks out--so this requires a multi-trillion dollar infra-structure upgrade.

6)  Without hydrogen or something similar, then you run into the serious
problem of energy density problems.  Wind and solar are especially low
density and therefore are not good choices for high population, full land
use areas such as the northeast area of the U.S.  These areas all but demand
coal and nuclear installations (although with enough hydrogen available one
could have electrical generation plants running on that--if the wind and
solar sites can produce enough.  Unfortunately, if you go that way, then you
have to fold in the efficiency of producing the hydrogen and the
thermodynamic efficiency of making electricity with thermal sources (.32)
and therefore need 3x the amount of solar and wind capacity over what would
be needed to provide the electrical power directly from the wind/solar
technologies.)

7)  With the exception of hydrogen use, you are looking almost exclusively
at an ELECTRICAL energy economy--which is much different from today where
electrical usage is only about 30% of the total use.  This again requires a
lot of changes in the infrastructure.  If for whatever reason HYDROGEN or
chemical forms of biomass are not used, then we are essentially looking at
100% electrical.

8)  In the end, the project shows that IT IS POSSIBLE to do something like
this for the U.S. although at huge monetary and land use costs.  HOWEVER, it
is all but impossible to project the same kind of conversion to renewables
for ASIA and AFRICA (2/3 or humanity), especially if either or both regions
have dramatically increasing energy demands.  Today, a typical African used
5% as much energy as an American, and the average Asian uses about 12% as
much.  Both of these figures can be directly correlated to the standards of
living and life expectancy in these areas of the world.

There are NO easy solutions to the long-term problems of human energy use.

Rick Tarara

**************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Shapiro, Mark" <mshapiro@EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: Worrying about the long term (was Global Warming (NUCLEAR))


> Ray is correct.  Much (but not all) of the California energy problem was
the
> result of a badly flawed deregulation scheme foisted on a naive
legislature
> (oh the joys of term limits) by lobbyists for the out-of-state energy
> suppliers (Enron sent in an army of lawyers to help write the bill).  You
> can read about it in my article "Power to the People!":
>
>         http://members.home.net/mshapiro2/comments-1-19-01.htm
>
> The only good outcome from this is that folks will have to pay more
> attention to energy conservation and alternative sources such as solar and
> wind.
>
> Mark Shapiro
> http://www.IrascibleProfessor.com