After Gutenberg

Via Peak Energy, we learn from The Guardian that high winds over the weekend supplied 53% of Spain’s electricity – equivalent to the power output of 11 nuclear plants.

Photo: Steve Fareham

Burbo Bank Windpark is an example of off-shore wind power. According to Wikipedia, “wind power is growing at the rate of 30 percent annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 121,000 megawatts (MW) in 2008, and is widely used in European countries and the United States.” So far, utilization of off-shore wind power has been more common in Europe.

Wind energy provided more than half of Spain’s total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend as the country set a new national record for wind-generated power.

With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain’s huge network of wind farms jointly poured the equivalent of 11 nuclear power stations’ worth of electricity into the national grid.

At one stage on Sunday morning, the country’s wind farms were able to cover 53% of total electricity demand – a new record in a country that boasts the world’s third largest array of wind turbines, after the United States and Germany.

For more than five hours on Sunday morning output from wind power was providing more than half of the electricity being used. At their peak, wind farms were generating 11.5 gigawatts, or two-thirds of their theoretical maximum capacity of almost 18GW.

The new record, which beat a 44 % level set earlier last week, came as strong winds battered the Iberian peninsula.

The massive output of wind turbines meant the Spanish grid had more electricity than was needed over the weekend. In previous years similar weather has forced wind farms to turn turbines off but now the spare electricity is exported or used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams — effectively storing the electricity for future use.

José Donoso, head of the Spanish Wind Energy Association, recalled that just five years ago critics had claimed the grid could never cope with more than 14% of its supply from wind.

“We think that we can keep growing and go from the present 17GW megawatts to reach 40GW in 2020,” he told El País newspaper.

drummer (Archaic): A salesperson who peddles wares in various towns.

Now there is a reason for such a prelude. A while ago, there was a post on this blog entitled “Scale, Scope and Speed.” Then, just the other day, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works moved S.1733 from committee. Some observed that the chair had avoided a delaying strategy, referred to as “Analysis Paralysis.”

This blog acknowledged those calls for further economic analysis. As the story goes, the Development is in the details, and Gail the Actuary suggests TOD (The Oil Drum) readers consider the details when reviewing “A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030,” an article written for Scientific American by Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi.

The SciAm article proposes substituting WWS (Wind, Water, and Solar power) for all other forms of energy by 2030. If this idea seems familiar, then you may very well have already paid a visit to Repower America.

But, before we consider The Oil Drummer critique, with photos and captions added by yours truly, this blog would like to point out something. While the facilities that harvest clean energy require investment, the energy is free, rather than owned. There, indeed, may be some good reasons why such complete substitution is impractical with 20 years time. Still consider this. Suppose that you have a horde of gold; you are immeasurably wealthy. And, a drummer comes into your town and tells you that he has a machine that turns gold into horse manure. Consider what you might do and your motives for such action. Keep those thoughts in mind while you consider the following well developed critique (and remember, there’s a p0ny in there somewhere):

In terms of air pollution, the global shipping sector has gone largely unregulated. Yet, diesel engines on oceangoing vessels such as container ships, tankers, bulk carriers, and cruise ships are significant contributors to air pollution in many of our nation’s cities and ports. Ultra-low Sulfur Diesel will be required for marine diesel engines in 2014 and for locomotives in 2015. In addition to contributing to destruction of the ozone layer and ocean acidification, SOx emissions are a main component of unhealthy smog in port cities.

• Airplanes. The authors propose that airplanes be powered by hydrogen powered fuel cells (with the hydrogen be made by hydrolysis using WWS energy sources). I understand that hydrogen is three times as bulky as gasoline, explodes easily, and escapes fairly quickly from its holding tanks, making it difficult to store for very long. It seems like airplanes and helicopters would need to look more like blimps, to hold the necessary fuel. Unless the explosion issue is solved, the popularity of hydrogen fuel cells would likely be pretty low.

• Ships. The authors don’t tell us how ships would be powered. Clearly sailing ships would meet the criteria, but would be quite slow. Because of their slow time for passage, we would need a lot more sailing ships than the types of ships we use now, because so many would be in transit at a given time. Barges could float down rivers, and if the current isn’t too strong, could perhaps be towed back in some way (boat with fuel cell?). Ships powered by hydrogen fuel cells might also work, but they would have the same issues as for airplanes. Because of their long trips, leakage would be more of an issue than on airplanes.

• Automobiles and Trucks. According to the authors, these would be powered by batteries or hydrogen powered fuel cells. There are several issues–the technology is only barely there for automobiles and trucks–for example, I don’t know of anyone working on battery-powered technology for long distance trucking. Fuel cell technology is very expensive. David Strahan in The Last Oil Shock says that the current cost is about $1 million dollars per car. He quotes the chief engineer at Honda as saying it would take 10 years to get the cost down to $100,000 a car.

Minerals shortages are also likely to be a problem for converting autos and trucks to batteries or to hydrogen fuel cells. The Scientific American article mentions following materials as being in short supply: rare-earth metals for electric motors, lithium for lithium-ion batteries and platinum for fuel cells. The article mentions recycling as a partial solution. Analyses published at The Oil Drum, such as this one, indicate that we would likely run out of rare materials fairly quickly, even with recycling.

• Farm equipment; bulldozers; cement mixers; and other heavy equipment. Would need to be converted to electric. It is not clear that the technology (or rare materials needed for the technology) exist to do so.

• Heating of buildings; heating for cooking and baking; hot water heating; commercial heating; heating of grains to remove excess moisture. Would need to be converted to electric, or in some cases solar. This would be true, even where heating is now done over wood or charcoal fires, such as in Africa or China.

• Mining and manufacturing. Would need to be converted to all electric. Presumably oil and natural gas extraction would continue, but at possibly lower rates, because of their uses for non-energy uses, such as textiles, asphalt, plastics and lubrication. Drilling for oil and gas would be converted to electric as well.

Sustainable development “is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations.”

What steps would be needed to build all of these things?

It seems like we would first need to figure out what the end point would look like, and then work backwards.

We are told that the authors of the Scientific American article think we would need the following:

• 3.8 million large wind turbines

• 90,000 solar electricity generating plants

• “Numerous geothermal, tidal, and rooftop photovoltaic installations”

Besides these, we would need to build all of the new airplanes, ships, cars, trucks, heavy equipment, and new appliances that would be needed under the new regime. Individual homeowners would need to get their homes rewired for the larger amount of electricity they would use–especially if they are converting to electric home heating.

One thing we need to plan for is a greatly expanded and improved electrical grid. The Scientific American article indicates that the variability in generation would be mostly smoothed out by combining electrical transmission of many different types–wind, hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, and wave–over a wide geographical area. To do this will require considerable long distance transmission, often between different countries–including some that may not be friendly with each other. The grid will also need to be upgraded to be “smart,” so automobiles can draw electric power at the times of day when it is not needed elsewhere.

Once we have figured out what the new system will look like, we will need to figure out what kind of factories are needed to build all of the devices for the new system, and what raw materials the factories will need. Some of the raw materials can perhaps be obtained by recycling, and some factories can perhaps be obtained by converting other factories, but this won’t always be the case. It is likely that new factories will need to be built, and new mines opened, especially for the rare minerals.

By the time we start seeing many finished good produced, it is likely that we will be at least half way through the 20 year period. In part, this is because we are still working out technology details (for example, how to efficiently build a hydrogen fuel cell powered airplane). Also, once we get those details worked out, we need to build mines for raw materials and build the factories to make the new devices. It is only when we get those steps taken care of that we can build what we really want–the airplanes, the new ships, the wind turbines, the solar PV, and all of the rest.

When sizing the factories, we will need to size them not for “normal” production levels, but for converting the economy quickly to use the new power sources. For example, under normal circumstances, if earth-moving equipment is expected to last for 40 years, we would expect to need factories to make 1/40 of the world’s needed earth-moving equipment in a given year. But if we need to ramp up to replacement in 10 years, we will need 4 times as many factories. (What do we do with the excess factories at the end?)

An expanded and smarter electrical grid is necessary for the transmission of electricity from Renewable Energy Resources.

How much would this all cost?

The authors tell us that they expect the cost of the new WWS energy generation equipment would be $100 trillion over 20 years. But that doesn’t include the cost of all the new infrastructure to go with it–the new airplanes and ships and cars and trucks, or the electrical transmission lines. In total, the cost will be far higher than $100 trillion–lets guess $200 trillion–to be paid for over the next 20 years.

The Scientific American article gives the impression that the costs will be low, because it looks only at the cost the new electricity generation, and assumes that cost of generation will go down with volume and with additional research. It also implicitly assumes that debt financing over a long period, such as 40 years, will be used, so we don’t have to pay for the cost of the new system before we start using it. But how realistic is that?

The cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, coal fired power plants, etc. we are currently using won’t have much trade-in value once power is generated by WWS, and the new equipment will likely be fairly expensive. So we will be faced with buying new high priced equipment, with little trade-in value from what we used previously. In many cases, businesses would not normally be replacing equipment this soon. The debt that was taken on to pay for all of our current equipment won’t magically go away either–it will still need to be paid.

So how will we pay for all of the new equipment? The governments of the world are pretty much maxed out for borrowing. Companies are not going to be able to take on a project of this magnitude either, especially since they already have debt to service. It seems to me that the only way a program such as the program of WWS fuels replacing other fuels can be financed is through increased taxes that would cover each year’s expenditures, as they are made.

So let’s think about how much this would cost. $200 trillion over 20 years amounts to $10 trillion a year, spread over world economies. The US share of this would be something around 21%, based on the ratio of US GDP to world GDP. So let’s say that the US would need to fund $2.1 trillion a year. Let’s compare this to current taxes. In 2008, US Federal, State, and Local taxes combined amounted to $4.1 trillion according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. In order to collect $2.1 trillion more, a tax increase equal to slightly more than 50% of all taxes currently paid would be required. If the additional tax were collected as a percentage of “personal income” (which includes wages, social security income, rents, dividends, etc.), it would amount to 17% of personal income. It seems unlikely that a tax of this magnitude, or even half of this magnitude, would be agreed to by tax payers.

If such a tax were passed, after a few years there would be benefits that would start offsetting its cost, and might lead to a lower tax, and after 2030, perhaps lower costs overall, because it is no longer necessary to purchase fossil fuels. The benefits that would start offsetting costs would be sales of electricity and other energy, and sales or leasing of vehicles and other goods produced. Many of the sales of goods would be going to replace automobiles that had worn out, factories beyond their useful life, and ships that no longer had value to the owners.

The United States and China rely heavily on coal for their energy needs. It would seem that both countries plan to continue to depend on burning large amounts of coal for the foreseeable future. The question in these post-Kyoto years is what can and should the rest of the global community do about such disregard for the common welfare.

But there is a remaining issue. There will be a lot of assets which would still have considerable value in 2030, if it weren’t for the new law. For example, a new car with an internal combustion engine that was manufactured in 2028 will still have considerable value, and a gas fired stove a homeowner owns will still have value, even though he needs to replace it with an electric one. A coal fired power plant built in 1980 is likely to still have value, apart from this law, and so will all of the tankers used for international transport of oil, and all of the natural gas pipelines. Should the owners of these assets be compensated for value of their otherwise-useful assets? There is nothing built into the tax to do so.

It would seem to me that these owners should be compensated, even if it takes a higher tax to do so. In part, this compensation could come in the form of “trade in” value, if a new automobile or electric stove or other item is purchased. But suppose the assets that lose value belong to businesses, and aren’t easily traded in for corresponding asset–such as a coal fired power plant, or natural gas pipelines. I would argue that compensation for the remaining value of these is really needed as well.

The assets that will lose value because of the new law are typically owned by a company. The stocks and bonds of these companies will generally have a wide variety of owners–very often pension plans, insurance companies, endowment funds, and individuals saving for their retirements. If the otherwise-useful assets of these companies are taken without compensation, the companies are likely to default on their bonds, and the stocks of these companies will lose value. This will mean that some pension funds will not be able to pay their promised payments, and some life insurance policies will not pay as promised. If there is no compensation to these companies by a tax or some sort, the loss will flow through the system and hit others–with retirees likely hit the hardest. So there will be a loss to the system, one way or another.

An “indispensable one-stop shop for the cutting edge thinking about how we’re going to solve this problem.” Progressive Book Blub Review

How sustainable would this system be?

There are a number of weak areas in this system:

• There are not likely to be enough rare minerals (and even not-so-rare minerals), to make all of the desired high-tech end products. Recycling will help, but it is likely that the system will run into a bottleneck in not very many years.

• The system will use a huge number of electrical transmission lines. These transmission lines are subject to all kinds of disturbances–hurricane or other windstorm destruction, forest fires, land or snow slide, malicious destruction by those not happy for some reason (perhaps those unhappy by wealth disparities). Fixing lines that need repair will be challenging. We currently use helicopters and specialized equipment. These would need to be adequately adapted to a system without fossil fuels.

• If electricity is out in an area, pretty much all activity in an area will stop (except that powered by local PV), and there will be no back-up generators. Residents will not be able to recharge vehicles, so they will quickly become useless. Even vehicles coming into an area may get stranded for lack of recharge capability. Food deliveries and water may be a problem. The current system at least offers some options–back-up generators, and cars and trucks powered by petroleum that one can drive away.

• Operating the system will require a huge amount of international co-operation, because the transmission system will cross country lines. If one country becomes unable to pay its share, or fails to make repairs, it could be a problem.

• All of the high tech manufacturing will require considerable international co-operation and trade. This could be interrupted by debt defaults by major players, or by countries hoarding raw materials, or by difficulty in producing enough ships and airplanes to handle international trade.

• The system clearly can’t continue forever. It could be stopped by a lack of rare minerals, or international disputes, or lack of adequate international trade. The system doesn’t provide any natural transition to a truly sustainable future. For example, food production is likely to still be done using industrial agriculture, with the food that is produced shipped to consumers a long distance away. It will be difficult to transition to a system which is truly sustainable at the point the system stops working.

What would a reasonable time frame for transition be?

It seems to me that a reasonable time frame for a transition such as that discussed in the Scientific American article would be 50 years, rather than 20 years suggested in the Scientific American article. With such a time frame, there will be a little more time to fine tune technology, so as to find cost-efficient solutions that scale well. We also have more time to use the factories that are built, so that we don’t have to overbuild, just to meet a deadline. Costs are likely to much easier to handle, since there will not be as much of an overlap issue. In addition, there will be much less problem of having to dispose of other-wise useful assets.

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