The Race for Clean Energy Has Several Entrants
The energy scene here on planet Earth can be summarized as follows: we’re trying to solve a problem so profound that the continuity of our civilization hangs in the balance. We either replace fossil fuels over the next few decades, or we condemn our descendants to incredible levels of suffering. Our scientists refer to this as “slow suicide,” to distinguish it from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which they have dubbed “fast suicide.”
Yes, the consequences of failure are extreme, but so are the opportunities for success. In particular, we’re a (relative) hair’s breadth away from technology that can make the whole problem disappear in very short order.
We are living in a time when the levelized cost of energy from solar and wind is plummeting, and thus the ever-accelerating growth of renewable energy is most certainly a reason for hope. But the most stunning and dramatic vectors here are the development of “advanced nuclear,” i.e., technology that is radically different (safer and more cost-effective) than that of the 1950s. Here we mean two things:
• Fusion, i.e., bringing together small atoms at high energy levels whose component particles recombine into products with slightly less mass than the reactants, yielding large amounts of energy. The runaway leader in this space is a company local to me here in California called “Tri Alpha,” so named because its products are three helium atoms. The process uses a steady-state plasma toroid (the turquoise part at the center of the illustration above) which provides the heat energy necessary to bring together a boron 11 atom (5 protons and 6 neutrons) with a hydrogen atom (1 proton) to make three helium 4 atoms (i.e., each with 2 protons and 2 neutrons). The process is therefore”aneutronic” (doesn’t produce neutrons) and thus is safer than many competitive approaches.
More work lies between the company and commercialization, but the real gating factor, i.e., the capability of maintaining a stable plasma field, is now solidly in place.
• Fission, the breaking apart of large atoms, using materials that pose no threats in terms of operational safety, waste disposal and the proliferation of weapons. If the possibility of safe nuclear is to be realized, it will most likely happen through molten salt reactors (MSRs), which hold the promise of being safe (low pressure), efficient (high temperature), non-threatening (very low weapons potential), and harmless to posterity (very little nuclear waste).
The most common type of MSR uses thorium as a fuel, which produces a fraction of the long-term waste made in traditional uranium/plutonium reactors. That’s because thorium works at the low end of the nuclear fuel cycle by converting to Uranium-233, which has a 92% rate of fission. The final 8% converts to Uranium-235, which has an 85% rate of fission. That’s a combined fission rate of 98.8%.
Thorium is more common than tin, and is found all over the world; there is no “Middle East of Thorium.” The material is easily separated from other ores with low-tech, low-waste processes; it’s good to go, right out of the ground. And it’s so mildly radioactive that you could sleep on a slab of solid thorium your entire life, and the worst thing that could happen would be if you fell out of bed.
Personally, I have closer connections to the folks working on fusion than I have to those developing fission, thus I’ll be probably be able to keep readers more up to date on the developments in the former arena.
In any case, this is extremely exciting stuff. We’re knocking on the door of a solution that will permanently solve our energy problems in very short order.
The question isn’t “will we solve this problem?” The answer is obviously yes. The question is “how much damage will we have done in the meanwhile?” That’s one nobody can answer, if only because it depends on how many people care deeply about this issue and work hard to communicate the urgency of the situation. That is, people like you and me.
I see it as an exceedingly serious mistake to rely on renewable sources of power to reduce CO2 emissions to an acceptable level. As I have previously stated, even if renewable sources of power were totally free, without an adequate energy storage technology, which does not currently exist, renewables would be incapable of solving the problem. They would depend on backup sources of power which use fossil fuels and emit CO2. That problem would become inescapably apparent as the percentage of renewables increased by which time it would most likely be much too late to expand nuclear power to do the job.
I suggest checking out the following website:
bravenewclimate.com.
It has considerable information on both renewables and nuclear power.
Craig,
I agree. As newer technology advances, older less economic technologies slowly whither and die, or transform to produce other products.
The later half of the 21st century will see alternate energy replace burning of fossil fuels, which will become increasingly valuable as petrol-chemical products, especially fertilizer.
Some new energy sources will become major providers, while others recede back to niche usefulness or become forgotten obsolete curiosities. I believe it’s important to remain open-minded and not confuse technology with ideology.
If Wind and solar can develop sufficient storage to economically compete in a demand market with other forms of energy, that’s great. However, if other technologies prove more efficient and economic, then they should be allowed to prevail and although it might be sad for those who dedicated so much time and passion to building wind/solar industries, sentiment can’t be allowed to retard progress.
In Australia there’s a very interesting example of technology that illustrates this principle.
In Australia during the early years of the 20th century a man named Frank Bottrill built a truly remarkable machine. At that time it was very difficult to transport Wool bales and Wheat from outlying properties (ranches)in NSW to the Murry river where they could be loaded onto paddle steamers for transport to coastal ports.
Frank Bottrill’s answer was to build the worlds largest tractor. This machine was a truly gigantic behemoth. Weighing nearly 50 tons the machine stood 34 feet high,18 feet wide and towed 2 enormous trailers. It’s unique wheel design allowed it to lay it’s own track as it progressed. Built in Melbourne, and with a 16 man crew, the aptly named ‘Big Lizzie’ proudly commenced an 2 year epic 450 hundred mile journey at less than 4 mph to reach it’s destination.
Unfortunately, only when Big Lizzie reached the Murry river 18 months after leaving Melbourne it was realized that no bridge existed that could carry the weight of such a behemoth. This meant Big Lizzie was stuck in Victoria.
Sadly, even if Big Lizzie had reached her destination she would have found herself obsolete ! During the time of Big Lizzie’s construction and epic journey, the railway had been vastly extended making Big Lizzie (and River boats) obsolete !
Even Big Lizzie’s unique wheel design was made obsolete by the Benjamin Holt’s contemporaneous development of caterpillar tread.
Big Lizzie now sits proudly as a tourist attraction in the centre of the small Victorian town of Red Cliffs.
When my two sons were still young, I took them to see Big Lizzie and noted the differing reactions. While my younger son was intrigued the folly of the enterprise and amused by seriousness of the group photo taken of the men who built, and crewed the machine, my older son felt sorry for the failed enterprise, the individuals involved and was relieved to learn of the Victorian Government’s decision to find work for the machine in land clearance projects.
It struck me that my two boys illustrated the two prevailing attitudes in society on the future of technology.
Here are some facts to digest:
We can’t solve the world’s pollution and climate-change change with “renewables” for very simple reasons.
Massive Wind and solar (renewables) produce electricity much less than half the time so they require “back up” most of the time.
That “back up” has been and will be from fossil fuels (mostly natural gas and coal) unless we do something different.
To say it more accurately, massive fossil fuels get a tiny bit of back up from massive intermittent renewables much less than half the time. How on earth can anyone dispute that?
The only massive electricity source that can possibly replace fossil fuels so far is nuclear.
So if must uses nuclear, let’s do it right. Let’s keep as many of our existing nuclear reactors running safely to give us time to get the new Generation IV kind on-line. We had a Generation IV MSRE (Molten Salt Reactor Experiment) that ran for 4-years at Oak Ridge National labs in Tennessee and it was a success. Molten salt reactors are much safer because they have none of the parts related to the nuclear reactor disasters. Also they can run on thorium and the world has about 400 times much of that in comparison to the uranium 235 that we use now.
The ThoriumEnergyAlliance.com has lots of Physicists, Engineers, Chemists and enthusiasts who have been working hard make this known. Also there are a bunch of startup companies in the USA, Canada, Japan, China, India, Belgium and other places intending to get Generation Molten Salt Reactors on-line.
You and your staff need to check out ThoriumEnergyAlliance.com and arrange to meet with the most knowledgeable people in this organization. You need to promote a USA led Manhattan like project to get Molten Salt Reactors on-line all over the world as we phase out coal and natural gas for electric power generation.
Again, we should keep existing nuclear reactors on-line as long as we can safely and work to get Generation IV Molten Salt Reactors on-line world wide.
Here is my fantasy:
All the industries involved in generating electricity will invest in Generation IV nuclear power as a step by step way of moving away from generating massive electricity any other way. The people paid the most in all these industries would quit paying themselves a huge salary so that there would be money to train their workers in nuclear technology. This way, they would not be robbing pensions and health care funds in the process. In other words, they would put the people first.
The Thorium Energy Alliance includes lots of Physicists, Chemists, Engineers and volunteers who have been studying this for years and have produced lots of YouTube videos and reports. I hope that you will contact them.
Contact John Krutch at: the Thorium Energy Alliance
107 W Front St, Harvard, IL 60033, 312-303-5019
ThoriumEnergyAlliance@gmail.com
The web site is ThoriumEnergyAlliance.com.
Hi, Rudy. As always, you make some excellent points here, but your central thesis, that is, that incremental solar and wind plants require significant amounts of addition backup from fossil fuel plants is a myth. Please see http://www.awea.org/Issues/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=5454.
Thank you for your interesting post.
The everywhere aspect of solar resources puts the energy at the point of need, so less in total is needed, because the transportation waste is not needed. On-site battery storage is available. Also grid storage has existed as pumped storage and water in dams for many years, with battery storage currently an added method.
So I believe all property subdivisions should have mandated largest dimensions East to West so solar electric and thermal are available on the roof of buildings to self-power buildings which are a large % of all energy use.
I see the existing renewable grid storage sources and geothermal as all or most of what is needed to make electric the major energy of the world; therefore, distributed energy capture and some new cooled DC transmission lines are the current need as the ground source former SUN or geological energy sources are eliminated to save the planet.
Spending capital created with the SUN’s stored energy is unreasonable when the daily energy input to the planet’s surface is more than adequate to meet all the needs of the planet’s residents.
Allocating the capital to renewable and electric use will be challenging, because our economics are profit based and much is historical ( “we have always done it this way”) with resistance to change occurring.
These new forms of energy you mention are capital intensive requiring decades of planning once the technology is “perfected”
Imagine if many small producers could generate electricity and heat locally. small scale biomass gasification has come a long way so that you can purchase a biomass gasifier with generator forunder $30,000
Power Pallet PP20, GM engine – $26,995, plus shipping, and options (e.g. installation, training) etc.
Power Pallet PP20 Grid-Tie, GM engine – $34,495, plus shipping, and options (e.g. installation, training) etc.
You can add a Continuous Feed Airlock System for $3,500 and a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Module for another $5000
If I succeed in coming out with a small scale methane digester every farmer could generate his own energy and improve the soil to boot.
Biomass that is allowed to return to nature releases CO2 in doing so, so if you consume it cleanly to make energy it is considered carbon neutral.
The news about the stable plasma field, which I noted a little while back, is indeed quote hopeful. Let me here again convey both my fear and my hope on the topic of sustainability.
My worst fear… That the current elite employ shrewdly servile advisers whose strongest motivation may be to protect the profitable status quo (until change is perceived as more profitable). They will continue to protect the status quo – however toxic, inefficient, and lethally damaging – until what they regard as the approach of the last survivable moment.
Further, that because of that very status quo bias, their judgment will be skewed so as to delay that decision far beyond the actual rational thresholds. Indeed, the gloomiest apprehension is that this fatal delay may already have occurred.
My best hope… A significant percentage of the people now living in every society will soon organize around truth and non-violence. These many of us will cooperate to engage in massive and widespread direct action to counter and overwhelm the political and financial elites preventing wise progress.
This cooperation will persevere to evolve and implement a new and deeply abiding paradigm of operational respect for the concept of sustainability, and a revitalized political structure, as well as a new power generation and distribution infrastructure.
My fondest hope is that the resulting change will endure, for the benefit of all humankind, and for the healing of the broad web of life that will always be necessary for our existence.
I’m with you. I would also note that, as the cost of renewable energy continues to plummet, it’s becoming harder for the fossil fuel boys to maintain the status quo to which you referred.
Indeed, the economics and the science both make solid proven sense.
Still, while the pace of the transition is rising, it remains sluggish in light of our pressing universal need to return to a bio-adaptable global atmospheric CO2 and methane count.
It seems that the universality of that pressing need has yet to dawn on a great many of the crucial players capable of managing (or restraining) the transition.
But even now fossil fuels are used as back-up for solar thermal electric power. In fact, the California Ivanpah concentrated solar thermal electric plant uses large amounts of natural gas DAILY even though it does have thermal storage.
Here in Albuquerque, NM, which is one of the best places for solar power, we are now experiencing our second day of sunlessness. And, the day before yesterday, it was cloudy more than half the time. If we were depending on solar power, we would be in trouble even if there were 48 hours of storage. Having two consecutive days of sunlessness is definitely not a record; it can be sunless for even a week or more. Although that is quite unusual it does happen.
Having funds invested into two power systems, i.e., solar and, for back-up, fossil fuel, greatly increases investment and operating costs. By contrast, nuclear power now has an availability factor > 90% regardless of weather.
Solar thermal for heating is probably workable, at least in many areas, but for providing electricity solar is practical only in areas where connecting to the grid is not practical in which case people will have to use Diesel generators for backup. Making solar power practical would require huge amounts of storage. In fact, in some areas, there would have to be sufficient storage to last for a few weeks.
Another poster here sees one advantage of renewables as being the ability to generate power locally without depending on a large grid. But renewables, to achieve any degree of reliability, would be just as dependent on a large grid as nuclear or fossil fueled power are.
The web site, bravenewclimate.com, has a huge number of posts by people with different viewpoints. Although most see nuclear power as essential, there are a few who favor renewables instead of nuclear. However, there is universal agreement about the need to reduce CO2 emissions to a very low value to prevent a climate disaster.
I understand active load balancing on the grid is already done at local and national scales here in the US. With the addition of HVDC lines, energy generated anywhere in the country by sustainable means (solar, wind, hydro, advanced nuclear) can be tansmitted at great distances with great efficiency.
CSP plants, both PV and thermal, are already connected to large grids worldwide, as is wind, so those concepts are proven. We will of course need multiple large generation facilities of a variety of sources – of which prehistoric energy can, and should, be a rapidly fading and phased out component.
Distributed generation has its advantages in certain applications, particularly LED lighting on closed low-voltage systems, but economy of scale means centralized generation. We get plenty of sun from southern California to Georgia, and it would be rare indeed that the entire Sunbelt region was clouded for an extended period.
Funding, R&D, and policy should prioritize implementation of proven tech, and should begin upgrading the grid now for needed adaptations (HVDC, etc.). Additional implementation of efficiency measures for end-use tech should also lead prominantly.
We’ve already topped 400 in CO2, so time is very short indeed.
Hello, Craig. I have a burning question for you that flaired up again with today’s NYTimes article which is off-handedly praising a new bio-diesel plant in Hawaii. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/business/energy-environment/biofuels-plant-in-hawaii-is-first-to-be-certified-as-sustainable.html?emc=edit_th_20160514&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=1274360&_r=0
Please clarify for me and others… Doesn’t the burning of biodiesel create “greenhouse gases?” Why is it approved as sustainable if it adds to the insulating layer of eath’s gases? Or am I wrong?
Is burning biodiesel pure? Or… the simple test: Can one kill oneself by breathing the exhaust from a biodiesel-burning car? Can you please point me to a previous article in which you may have addressed this issue, or take it on as a new subject, please?
Hi Victoria.
Properly produced Bio-deisel is not toxic in the context you describe. Bio-diesel doesn’t produce Carbon-monoxide as an exhaust product so it would be difficult to kill yourself by inhaling the exhaust. (although still not recommended).
Bio-deisel is a safe relatively carbon natural fuel. However, the production of the feed-stock is the real problem. Bio-diesel feed-stock is difficult to upscale both economically and logistically without creating environmental issues.
On a small scale,Bio-diesel works well. Older diesel technology was always very compatible with Bio-diesel. In some instances where a region or industry has a problem with overproduction or disposal of suitable organic waste material, bio-diesel production can be an valuable means of recycling.
The problem has always been producing a feed-stock which can sustain large scale production. No such feed-stock exists, and attempt with such feed-stocks as palm oil have resulted in environmental devastation.
Here is a web link for some archived webinars on how they count carbon from biomass. http://www.newbio.psu.edu/cppwebinar.asp
I have heard some talks on this subject and it makes sense. It certainly beats digging up or pumping sequestered carbon and burning it.
To Frank Eggers points, NH3 (anhydrous ammonia) has the potential to solve the storage and transportability problem of cheap/free nuclear power. See http://www.nh3fuelassociation.org It’s not perfected yet, but is on a trajectory to be available when the commercial viability of these two “safe” nuclear technologies need it.
Tom,
I’ve been familiar with NH3 for quite some time.
It may even be that NH3 could become competitive with battery electric vehicles. IC engines will run on NH3 although an IC engine designed specifically for NH3 would run far better than an engine designed for gasoline. That’s because NH3 is harder to ignite, burns more slowly, and detonation is not a problem. The solution is a long stroke engine, with a high compression ratio, heavily turbocharged, and with an ignition system which delivers a longer duration spark to special spark plugs having a very large gap. It shouldn’t be a problem.
Of course manufacturing NH3 requires considerable energy but if the energy comes from economical and non-CO2 emitting sources it could be practical.
I agree that NH3 is a great solution for storing energy with no CO2 released. Check out http://www.greennh3.com/
I would not run your biodiesel car with the door closed CO2 will kill you too!
Bruce,
” I would not run your biodiesel car with the door closed CO2 will kill you too! ”
Eventually, but in reality the car car would stall and most garages have sufficient ventilation even with the door closed to prevent actual death. Carbon dioxide has relatively low toxicity.
Carbon dioxide is as safe a chemical as any you’ll ever encounter, although it’s possible to to suffer anoxia or asphyxiation from breathing carbon dioxide, because of the decrease in oxygen.
It’s carbon monoxide that’s the deadly agent in garage suicides. Biodiesel produces very little carbon monoxide.
When I took the course to be a building analyst (home energy auditor)I was amazed how quickly our thought process changes with higher levels of CO2.
Ever been in a meeting where people started yawning about a half hour into the meeting even though the subject was captivation? A closed meeting room full of people quickly has higher CO2 levels which causes sleepiness and slowed thought processes. Way before CO2 kills you it puts you to sleep.
In newer green buildings CO2 sensors cause an increase in ventilation when a rise is detected and meetings remain more productive.
In Building Codes there is a step up from the garage into the house to prevent CO2 and CO from entering the house.
I would not bet my life on CO2 not killing you before the car stalls.