Energy Policy’s Difficult Choices

I recently wrote a post critical of radical environmentalists who take rigid positions and refuse to make the tough choices that confront us all in the real world.  In particular, I stand in disagreement with people’s unwillingness to exile the tortoises from 4613 acres (about five square miles) in the California desert that would have been used for a gigawatt of solar photovoltaics, an almost exact replacement for a full coal-fired power plant.

Frequent commenter Larry Lemmert (who’s normally pretty much in my face) writes:

Craig, you are a reasonable man. I say that not because I agree with you about the desert tortoises vs. the PV panels but because you understand that trade-offs must be made to secure green energy for replacement of retiring fossil fuel sources. So many so-called environmentalists want a free energy lunch. It doesn’t exist.

Ah, a red-letter day; Larry and I agree on something. And he’s even used my favorite “no free lunch” metaphor…

Seriously, this idea of trade-offs and no free lunch is all-important; in fact, it lies at the base of my series of videos and infographics on renewable energy for young people and other newcomers to the subject. But regardless of one’s level of sophistication with the subject, it’s not an easy issue.  In brief, we need to choose between:

• Continuing  with business as usual, and subjecting the natural environment to the ever-increasing ravages of climate change, ocean acidification, etc.  The U.S. is the only major country on the planet that considers the status quo a viable option; we are  actually working against a progressive climate policy.   

• Do nuclear in a big way and run significant health and safety risks. Many of the world’s people have recently cast their votes against nuclear. Here’s a summary of this discussion.

• Aggressively cut back on our per-capita use of energy and move back in the direction of an agrarian economy. (How likely is that?)

• Fund the advancement of renewables, energy efficiency and conservation, by pulling money away from other things we think we need.

Regular readers know that I believe this last option is our only credible one, but I do freely admit that it comes with a cost.  In particular, I’m a big fan of education, especially of females in developing countries.  But how important are most of these things that we think we need? Tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil companies? Trillions of dollars for waging wars whose primary missions are securing access to oil? I’m not a believer.  

No, there is no free lunch; everything comes at a cost.  Which is why our choices really do mean something. May we make the right ones.

 

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15 comments on “Energy Policy’s Difficult Choices
  1. Greg chick says:

    Options exist, move or augment the situation for the Turtles and do the Solar Project. The second is using Solar with out a central powered source such as this project. I prefer roof top Solar. We are way silly saying oh no Solar is ugly on my roof and save the Tortoise too. Nothing can get done with grid lock propaganda like “Solar is dead” in the media and other such ignorant distractions from positive change. Status quo will support any distraction and we need to be less fools.

  2. I did a little research to familiarize myself with this project. First it was supposed to be concentrated solar and stirling engines. Now it is a mix of solar PV and the stirling arrangement now shifting to mostly PV covering an area that varies between about 4K-8K acres.
    My question is, are they actually going to round up all these tortoises and forceably remove them to another locations and fence the area in so they can’t get back or are they just going to install this equipment and otherwise leave them alone?
    To build the PV array, they drill an augar mount into the ground and mount a folding rack to it and slide 8 panels into the rack. While these racks are very close to each other they are not actually touching and generally there are 2 rows of mounts and a drivable area for maintainance vehicles. Slightly less than 2/3 of the area are deprived of sunlight. I could ask my neighbor exactly how they arrange them.
    To build the Concentrated solar Stirling array in the pictures I have seen, many square mirrors are mounted in a dish like shape to direct sunlight at a collector in much the same fashion as a satellite dish looks. Being round and not touching each other and having space between all the square mirrors and needing to get a maintainance vehicle around these things also means that not all of the area is deprived of sunlight here either.
    I am thinking they should see if perhaps the tortoises might not mind this all that much or maybe move to around the outskirts of the array. They were going to build the project in sections anyway so why not put up a section and see how the tortoises respond to that?
    The one last thougt I had was that there are also semi translucent PV panels on the market and while they might not be quite as efficient they might lessen the effect of the array on the environment by allowing some light to pass through.
    I am just trying to quantify in my head the actual negative effect on the tortoises. Is it denial of food source, alteration of general environment, lack of sunlight on the actual tortoises or something else. I couldn’t seem to find any real complaint about a specific effect. Maybe they wouldn’t mind a little shade. Maybe the arrays just need to be spaced out a little further. Maybe we should find out and compromise to accomodate them if required.

    • Frank Eggers says:

      The spaces between the mirrors are needed to permit access to the mirrors for cleaning and maintenance. It is unclear how the tortoises would be affected.

      It’s interesting that they plan to use numerous Stirling engine-generators. It would seem that the multiplicity of them would significantly increase maintenance costs. I realize that the units could be hermetic, almost like household refrigeration systems, but still maintenance or replacement would eventually be required. One would think that a power tower system using only one steam turbine and one generator would reduce maintenance requirements. An additional problem with a Stirling engine system is that thermal storage would be impractical whereas with systems using the Rankine cycle fused salt thermal storage is possible.

      Solar thermal electric does require cooling and, unless the cooling is done using water, the efficiency is greatly reduced. Whether they have adequately considered the problems of getting water in the desert to wash the mirrors and for cooling I don’t know. At least solar thermal electric requires less land area than PV installations.

      I am including a link to an article about different energy systems. It includes tables which indicate land requirements for different energy systems, including nuclear fission:

      http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/05/11/power-makers-challenge-p1/

    • Brian McGowans comment is very sensible and shows a reasonable approach to studying the problem. Aristotle said “all things in moderation”

  3. By the way, I agree with both Craig and Greg in general.

  4. Craig Shields says:

    From a reader’s email: “I see some common sense creeping into all this as we are beginning to grasp the reality of ‘no free lunch’. A cheap one – but not a free one.”

    Yes, in the scheme of things, energy efficiency and renewables are the bargain of the century.

  5. William Waite says:

    To quote the great modern-day philosopher, Rodney King – “Can’t we all just get along?”

    As Brian noted above, the desert tortoises might enjoy basking in a little more diffused light if not in actual shade. Apart from whatever disruption of their day-to-day existence occurring in the construction of the PV facility, I can’t imagine the tortoise community suffering as a result of a few PV panels over their collective heads. …unless of course you think the tortoises are actually expendable pawns placed there in the desert by the “most ruthless people on Earth” at the Heartland Institute (in conjunction with the ever-nefarious Koch Brothers) to thwart our renewable energy efforts and keep us in perpetual bondage to Big Oil…

    All kidding aside Craig, you make the very valid point that a balanced approach is required in every aspect of energy policy. As stewards of the tomorrow our children and grandchildren will inherit from us, we must also find reasonable solutions for the here-and-now. Like the President, I’m “evolving” (not quite to full butterfly status yet); before Fukishima I was more inclined to include nuclear power into the mix of acceptable sources – now I wonder if the risks outweigh the benefits. Aging facilities located on fault lines and/or in the path of an errant tsunami may pose risks that cannot easily be mitigated and the total cost of that energy may be far more dear than previously considered.

    Thanks, Craig for providing meaty food for thought…

  6. Fellow readers of Craig,
    The turtles eat vegetation but have you looked at a large power generating site? one of the standard procedures is to level off the surface, spray the present weeds to kill them and scatter granulated weed killer to stop all plant growth for easy maintenance (No Mowing) the land under the collectors will be a plantless expanse of medium gravel (No blowing sand or dust to reduce panel efficiency.) no turtle can live in that liveless expanse. There might be a few ants and snakes near the perimeter and spiders to catch flying insects again around the perimeter, but nothing else will stay there. To put solar on the roof increases the labor time and cost because of the more hazardous working conditions on the roof. so here is the solution, put the panels up on posts six feet up above the soil. fence the area in, run sheep or goats to eat the weeds and the turtles will stay there also with a few snakes, spiders, and other insects and small wild creatures.

  7. Tim Kingston says:

    Craig
    I think that there may a fifth bullet point to your argument above, and that is to find technological solutions to fossil fuels’ release of CO2. Obviously this is an interim solution, but it could buy us some time as we move to a renewable economy. This is why I am so interested in Windfuels, because its widespread adoption could really help reduce CO2 emissions. This would probably need some legislative push, such as a carbon tax. My personal suggestion is to start with a $10/ton tax which goes up by a dollar every year. This is a modest start, but would be a shot across the bow of the fossil fuel industry.

    As for your post regarding environmentalists taking extreme positions, I would have to agree. Even in green California there appears to be a growing backlash to large solar farms–the NIMBY syndrome. The silly antics of Greenpeace and the stridency of argument in much of the green movement doesn’t help. New transmission lines are another favorite target of environmentalists, making renewable energy development difficult. It might interest you to know that the Navajo Nation has been trying to build a transmission line mostly across their own lands for almost twenty years, but this has been opposed by environmental groups every step of the way. In fact the Tribal Councils of both the Navajo and Hopi tribes in 2009 banned environmental groups from their lands http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/09/coal_conflict_hopi_navajo_trib.html
    I echo the sentiments of the bloggers above: moderation in all things and can’t we all just get along.

    • Frank Eggers says:

      As I have said elsewhere, I see part of the solution as being to shift part of the tax burden from the income tax to a tax on fossil fuels. It could be phased in gradually to avoid undo disruptions. That would provide the needed incentives to move away from fossil fuel usage. It might be politically possible if it could be shown that there would be no net tax increase. The principal impediment would be the fossil fuel industry which would lobby hard against the change and promulgate volumes of disinformation to the public.

      I also favor doing more R & D on nuclear power. There are actually dozens of ways to design nuclear reactors and I am convinced that we have chosen a nuclear technology that is considerably less than optimal. A better, safer, more efficient, and more economical nuclear technology would be more widely acceptable, even to many who currently oppose nuclear power. It makes no sense to move towards total dependence on renewables in the absence of concrete proof that it is practical. I have seen no proof that the problems caused by the intermittent nature of renewables can be worked around.

  8. Vicente J Subiela says:

    RE projects, as any action, involve their specific environmental impact. The question is how to evaluate the positive impact of the PV field and compare it with the negative impact on the local biodiversity. The problem is that nature knows the meaning of solar radiation, water quility, life, but (..furtunately) has no idea about what a dolar (or a euro) is. Could the ecological economics be an option for this approach? (I would strongly recommend the revision of the work of Nicholas Georgescu Roegen)

  9. Garth says:

    There is a history concerning the desert tortoise that is ignored when dealing with their environment. In the St George, Utah region there were very few tortoise but major land use mandates and tradeoffs have taken place to accommodate these animals such as closing large tracts to OHV use; OHV’s were blamed for the unexplained dieoff of tortoise, however it was finally discovered that a form of upper respiratory ailment was the culprit in part due to the colder winters at the St. George elevation. You see, if you filled your gas tank in Mesquite, Nevada in the 1950’s you could get a free Desert Tortoise, many ended up in and around St George. The damage to recreation was done before this discovery about tortoise health was found.
    The bottom line is many environmental issues are bogus and need further study before conclusions are reached that effect the overall good of our nation and its problems. Too many “poster child” species are used to thwart good beneficial development. Too many are used that increase the cost of licensing and development. Look at the costs attached to Sage Grouse, Pygmy rabbit, prairie dogs, desert tortoise and the list goes on. The cost of mitigation kills far more projects then is reasonable when there may not really be a reason for mitigation.

  10. barry nicholls says:

    Roof top solar is such the better answer. The big reason this is not on the forefront is because there is no profit stream that can be controlled by a energy company .This is plain and simple corporatocracy stifling the best solution in the name of profits.Only under pressure from a educated public can we advance the best agenda

    • Frank Eggers says:

      Roof top solar makes much more sense to heat homes and provide domestic hot water than it does to generate electricity.

      PV systems generally have an efficiency slightly less than 20% whereas solar used for heating can have an efficiency slightly greater than 50%.