Milestones and Trends in Renewable Energy

Sterling D. Allan writes "Some reflections and projections: The year 2005 saw large wind power installments come into a price range where they are now competitive with traditional grid prices. 2006 could see several solar designs do the same. Cold fusion was boosted with two, concurrent and independent sonofusion breakthroughs, though the stigma in the name is still deeply seated. 2006 could see floating wind turbines arrive on the commercial scene -- floating in the water like oil rigs, or floating high in the air, courtesy of helium. 2006 will see at least three companies offering after-market kits for adding Brown's gas (H and O from electrolysis, common ducted) to the air intake of vehicles for enhanced mileage and performance. Many other fuel economizing systems are slated to mature in the marketplace. Climate change evidence will continue to mount. It will yet be years before we harness lightning, but stable tornado systems prototypes that tap waste heat from power plants could arrive this coming year. Will 2006 be the year that clean energy becomes more the vogue than cool computer gadgets?"

Yes.

[Zarhan]

Finland and France are constructing new nuclear power plants - first new ones in Western Europe for many years, and China and Russia are also going to nuclear (with 40 pebble-bed reactors coming to China in the coming decades).

So yes, we're finally starting to see some clean energy.

no mention of bio-diesel

[User 956]

They didn't mention bio-diesel [biodiesel.org] that I could see. Though I have to admit, that's not really a technology I'm rooting for. I'm not sure if I could stomach a $50,000 mercedes that smells like french fries.

Re:Oil became expensive, not wind became cheaper

[syphax]

Incorrect.

Oil is not a dominant driver of the price of electricity. In 2004, the US got 3% of its electricity from oil, less than, say, conventional hydro, and not a whole lot more than non-hydro renewables (see here [doe.gov]). Natural gas, on the other hand, was responsible for 18% (coal was 50%).

The cost of wind power has been steadily declining. Depending on the data you look at, it can be very competitive with traditional sources of electricity. In fact, because the marginal cost of producing electricity from wind is (nearly) zero, adding wind power capacity can *lower* electrical rates, because a wind farm operator can usually be the low bidder on the spot markets, lowering the final price (I'm speaking slightly out of my ass here, but the general idea is correct). Conventional generators are always bound by fuel prices for their marginal costs.

why?

[zogger]

Why would it be a "disaster"? Really, expound on this a bit. All the proposed methods and techniques and crops are "wrong"? It is not useful to use the sun and photosynthesis (our only practical fusion power at this point) to make biodiesel and other bio-derived fuels? What's wrong with using some of the huge quantities of biowaste produced every year to make fuel? What's wrong with putting more farmers to work and expanding crops? Using permaculture and low till ag techniques combined with some solar and perennial and self seeding annual crops, seems to me it could be quite a viable alternative, plus tend to spread out the jobs and money involved in the whole energy business, rather than have it remain in the hands of the current cartels. It's somehow wrong for joe third world farmer who's nation has little to no natural oil in the ground to also help grow the fuel his nation needs, rather than exporting precious hard currency to go purchase expensive petroleum on the world market? It's wrong for a first world farmer to expand his operations and produce fuel as well as food crops? Why?

Sorry, overall I would have to completely disagree, bio derived fuels are here now and they work ( I've made and used ethanol fuel before, incredibly easy), they aren't energy sinks, you get a gain with the newer processes, they use a closed carbon cycle that is neutral, unlike petroleum from the ground or liquid fuels derived from coal, they require very little if any infrastructure changes for either the vehicles or the fuel delivery process to the end user, (unlike the "hydrogen" schemes currently being pushed where most everything has to change radically and expensively) and there are a raft of techniques and crops out there that could be used, something for every climate and level of technology around the planet basically. You can take most any vehicle already out there and run it on either ethanol or biodiesel with very little changes, and the fuel stations are already set-up to handle and dispense liquid fuels into "normal" fuel tanks. It's an outstanding energy transition option while we are waiting for the universal backyard Mr. Fusion reactor and the pie in the sky "hydrogen economy" which is still a long ways off.

Anyway, the point is moot, it's *being done now on a large scale* all over the world and we aren't seeing much if any "disasters" associated with it.

Re:Climate Change

[LarsWestergren]

You are describing weather, and weather changes, correct. But when you measure weather over time, you get a climate average, and that average is shifting:

CBS [cbsnews.com]: "The year 2005, the World Wildlife Fund said, is shaping up as the worst for extreme weather, with the hottest temperatures, most Arctic melting, worst Atlantic hurricane season and warmest Caribbean waters.

It's also been the driest year in decades in the Amazon, where a drought may surpass anything in the past century, said the report by international environmental group. "

BBC: "The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk for a fourth consecutive year, according to new data released by US scientists. [bbc.co.uk]

They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century.

The Arctic climate varies naturally, but the researchers conclude that human-induced global warming is at least partially responsible. "

Re:Oil became expensive, not wind became cheaper

[castoridae]

It gets hairier - wind is general a cent or two higher per kWH than conventional, but that includes tax credits (and I'm discussing *only* the US here - I have no idea what the picture looks like in other countries). But then conventional power is subsidized too, it's just better-hidden in the tax structure.

I looked into raising money and building a wind farm in the Western US over the last year, and I discovered a few things:

1. No utility is interested in buying "green power" unless they are mandated to by their state government.
2. Transmission is the real bottleneck; the costs of the required assessments are so high, that it's not practical to build a small (read ~1 MW) wind farm - you really need to think more like 100MW (=>$100M) to make this cost effective.
3. Home-sized wind turbines generate at considerably more cost than grid power - even with the credits. Practical only for off-grid properties, otherwise it's simply a philosophy thing, but not an economically-driven decision.

I am eagerly watching & waiting for the "market" to ease up and make smaller-time investments & projects possible.

Re:why?

[pfdietz]

Why would it be a "disaster"? Really, expound on this a bit. All the proposed methods and techniques and crops are "wrong"?

Because it would cause very large areas to be replaced with unnatural monocultures instead of natural ecosystems. The underlying cause is the great inefficiency of photosynthetic energy conversion.

Biodiesel is fine as a boutique-scale touchy-feely fashion statement for those who don't think too much about what they are actually proposing. As a real solution to the problem of producing significant amounts of liquid fuel, it's a ghastly crime against nature.

What's wrong with using some of the huge quantities of biowaste produced every year to make fuel?

Well, aside from the fact that if organic waste is not recycled into the soil it can cause the soil to degrade, the biggest problem is that even if all of it were converted to fuel, it would not produce more than a small faction of fuel demand. US refineries produced about 125 billion gallons of gasoline in 2003; using all US corn stover (for example) for cellulosic alcohol production would produce maybe 12 billion gallons. And that's just gasoline, which accounts for just a third of the output of an oil refinery.

Re:America

[WindBourne]

Is this no longer the case?

Sadly, yes. They are going to build several monster coal plants at the Wyoming/Colorado border and IIRC, another by the Colorado/Utah border. In both cases, the emissions standards will be even more relaxed than they would have been just 5 years ago. This has been a big concern in Colorado as it is showing that it will probably bump the mercury in the lakes/stream up to being illegal (which is already considered way too high). In colorado, the vast majority of our drinking water is runoff, so this will be a large issue down the road.

Re:Yes.

[natmakarvitch]

"Chernobyl killed about 3000 people" is an awful lie. The figure coined by a 'conclusion' published by the IAEA (a pro-nuke agency) is 4000, and is completely ridiculous because it:

• does not precisely define the population concerned (by those 4000 deaths). The official conclusion is "premature deaths of around 4000 people from the 600 000 affected by the higher radiation doses", but "higher radiation doses" and the 600000 group composition, are not defined. The group may only have nearly not-exposed people!
• this is not a scientific work, even if it is presented as such because nobody signed this conclusion. The WHO guys (Dr Repacholi), in charge of the pertinent study, even said that this "conclusion" was made by PR people... Read about it in Nuclear News [ans.org] (which is NOT a frenzy anti-nuke paper but a verious serious pro-nuke publication)
• this conclusion was 'drawn' from a report which only exists in draft stage and was not scientifically published. No peer review... no scientific value
• this conclusion is not expressed in the drafts reports
• the conclusion is presented as global, albeit the reports only covers 3 countries
• the 'health' report only studies cancers and leukemias, but many other problems arise (mutagen, teratogenesis...)
• the 'health' report states major limits for his model and data:
  • radio-induced cancers appear at last 10 years after exposition, and on average after 20 years... but the data used were collected between 1992-1998 (less than 12 years after the accident)
  • bad data quality (as already stated in 1995 in a real ONU report)
  • the model used is far from perfect
• low radiations were neglected albeit many experts think that they are dangerous, especially over long period and/or when ingested
• a model used came from observations done in another context (Hiroshima and Nagasaki: brief major and external exposition, instead of the "long, minor and often internal" after Chernobyl)

Here is a critic of those "conclusions" (French) [makarevitch.org].

Re:Question for all greens

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear is not that easy to set up and then switch off again, that is... the nuclear waste will always be there and after switching off the reactor it will stay hot for years.

As opposed to coal, where they simply dump many train car loads of radioactive waste in the open every day.

The burned coal waste is more radioactive than much of the transuranic waste that many people have been taught to fear so greatly. If coal waste were treated under the same rules as the nuclear waste, then it would all have to be entombed in caskets.

But it is much more popular to teach people to fear "nuck-u-ler" power than coal. Why waste time researching facts, when you can hype up your own science fiction horror story to a ignorant publick.

Re:Overly optimistic

[mgscheue]

Yes, he mixes some reasonably realistic schemes with stuff that's a pure crock. He seems to have no skepticism whatsoever. Good article on the "hydrino" nonsense here: http://www.phact.org/e/z/hydrino.htm [phact.org]

Re:Oil became expensive, not wind became cheaper

[blakestah]

I went and read one of the refs, the other was inaccessible.

The arguments were that the one wind turbine could produce the energy required to make them in 6.8 months, and then produced energy for a long time thereafter. Makes sense.

Unfortunately, the real analysis necessary is to factor the total cost of the wind turbine. Then, factor the amount of gas that money would otherwise buy. Then decide on what timetable a gas generator would beat the wind turbine if you had some money and needed some energy...

Just a few years ago it was incalculable, because wind turbines required replacement parts on a regular basis that made it simply cheaper to buy gas and put it in a generator than it would be to put up a wind farm. Still today I do not see the arguments framed in the same way...can you actually MAKE MONEY with a wind farm (decide with or without subsidies)...

Because when you can, it is going to be BIG TIME. Until then, it will be like biodiesel, waiting for a barrel of oil to cost three times what it costs now before it is cost effective. And the articles today still avoid this main point...

But you don't even need to read the article to see that...when wind becomes cheaper than gas you will see wind farms EVERYWHERE popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

So I take issue with the notion that wind is competitive with grid prices for energy. All the current investment is based on the supposition that petroleum based energy will rise enough to make it cost effective. PT Barnum said there's a sucker born every minute.

Why it's called "natural gas"

[Anonymous Coward]

The first piped gas in cities was coal gas, made by the chemical reaction of white-hot carbon with oxygen and steam. It contained mostly carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which is why it was so useful for suicide. It was made in "gas works". Varieties of coal gas include water gas and "carbureted water gas" (with energy content increased by adding oil to the steam and oxygen).

Compared to any type of coal gas, "natural gas" is just that.

Re:Question for all greens

[BBird]

Not even CO2 if you use CO2 sequestration techniques

see http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/ [co2capture...orage.info]

Re:Wait a sec.

[Zoyd]

WindBourne: China loses 30000 mine workers a year? You are implying that they died from mining accidents or job-related sickness.

China loses 6,000 coal miners per year at the jobsites (in the mineshafts).

http://www.google.com/search?q=china+mining+deaths [google.com]

Outside the Box?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. There are plenty of legitimate "outside the box" thinkers that could be mentioned without resorting to pure crackpots, like Eric "The Big Bang Never Happened" Lerner and Randell "Quantum Mechanics is Nonsense" Mills (the scam artist who has been claiming the existence of "hydrinos" for years now, in contradiction to all known laws of physics and with no reproducible experimental evidence, and bilking millions out of investors hand over fist). It makes me take the author less seriously to see these "revolutionary advances" reported with a straight face.

Oil dependency

[Trogre]

Unfortunately technical issues aren't the only hurdle to overcome in getting the world off petroleum. Many of the more influential world leaders believe the demon Allah has given them control of the world's energy.