Why the need for Alternative Energies?

Based on known oil reserves and the worldwide consumption rate, most estimates suggest this reserve has only 30-50 more years of production left in it its important that this is believed! In general, this is certainly not believed and our collective action as humans is to simply search for more crude oil to burn - even in the face of accelerating climate change we seem unable to really change.

• In the US, about 85% of our total Energy Budget is Fossil Fuel Based

• Fossil Fuel combustion represents a global environmental problem

• Most alternative energy sources have little polluting side effects

Clearly, environmental pollution is unavoidable so informed decisions must be made.

Forms of Pollution:

• Atmosphere - Global: Greenhouse gases
• Atmosphere - Global: Acid Rain
• Atmosphere - Local: Smog
• Groundwater - Local: Nuclear Waste ()
• Surface Water - Local: Oil spills
• Thermal Pollution - Local and Global: Waste Heat this is what ultimately drives ocean heating and climate change
  
  
• Local Land Use: Not in My Back Yard: build that thang over thar

Global Impact of Sources of Energy Generation:

• Fossil Fuels totally disrupts the Carbon Cycle and is non-equilibrium. Eventually, enough Carbon Dioxide will be in the atmosphere to effect things seriously. We may, in fact be there already

• Solar Energy Intensive use of Land Area due to low efficiency. Significant thermal pollution. For instance, a 1000 MW solar facility would dump 10,000 Megawatts of heat into the local atmosphere. Its unclear what the effects of this would be but this is like an Urban Heat Island

• Hydro The world or the US's potential has not been fully tapped. No pollution for this but serious alteration of free flowing waterways.

• Windpower structural/virtual pollution but not much else

Air Pollution:

Normally the carbon content of fuels (which is high) oxidizes during the combustion process to form CO2 (carbon dioxide)

Incomplete combustion leads to the formation of CO:

2C + O2 2CO

Sources of CO pollution: (million tons per year)

Motor Vehicles ------------->  54
Aircraft ------------------->   2
Coal -----------------------> 0.7
Fuel Oil -------------------> 0.1
Industrial Wood Processing--> 8.8
Forest Fires ---------------> 6.5

Automobiles dominate because the combustion of gasoline under conditions of high pressure is quite incomplete For the future our choices are:

• Invest in discovery of new oil reserves (e.g. Off-shore, shale oil, Artic Wildlife Refuge, your backyard)

• Invest in Clean Coal Technology as 20% of the worlds supply of Coal is in the US
  
  
  
• Invest in Renewable Energies

• Rigorously practice energy conservation and improved driving habits. Remember the 10% rule: if every American used 10% less energy per year than they normally would use, this would be equivalent to the entire amount of energy that China uses in that year.

Every form of energy generation has environmental fall-out.

However, this basic fact continues to elude people who think some forms of energy generation are benign (only nuclear fusion is benign).

Most forms of alternative energy generation require much less of an organizational infrastructure. This means that a shift to alternative energies means a loss of jobs. This is undesirable to most politicians. Biomass is the one alternative energy generation scheme that can create lots of jobs.

What happens if we try to be objective and evaluate our choices via some standard considerations, such as:

Evaluation Criteria for Alternative Energies:

• Capital Costs
• Operating Costs
• Efficiency
• Is it renewable?
• Energy Storage Requirements
• Pollution
• Environmental Modification
• Levelized cost to the consumer
• Feasibility on Large Scale
• Individual Homeowner Independence
• Unit Capacity
• Loss of Jobs

Comparative Table

Evaluation	Solar Thermal	PV	Hydro	Wind	OTEC	Tidal	GEO	Biomass
Capital Costs	Large	Large	Enormous	Moderate	Enormous+	Enormous	Small	Small
Operating Costs	Moderate	Moderate	Neglegible	Small	Unknown	Neglegible	Small	Moderate
Efficiency	15%	5--10%	80%	42%	7% +	25%	100%	25%
Renewable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Erratic	Yes	Yes	NO	Maybe
Storage	Not Needed	Unclear	Built-IN	Essential	Not Needed	Unclear	Not Needed	Not Needed
Pollution	None Really	Waste Heat	None	Visual	None	None	Steam Plumes	Particulates; CO
Levelized Costs (2017)	Very High	High	Moderate	Low cents	Unknown	Unknown	Low	Unknown
Environmental Impact	Moderate	Large	Enormous	Small	Unknown	Outrageous	Small	Moderate
Large Scale	Too Expensive	Possible but Expensive	Proven already	Very Possible	The Solution	Discrete Locations	Discrete Locations	Net Energy Gain?
Small Scale	NO	Solar Roofs	micro hydro (legal issues)	Definitely	NO	NO	NO	Absolutely
Unit Capacity	1000 MW	Depends on Acreage	2000-6000 MW	Highly Variable	As large as you need	250 MW	1000 MW	50-100 MW
Employment Opportunties	Few	Few	Few	Few	Lots to build it	Some	Few	Many

What about Energy Storage?

Options:

• Battery Farms:
  • Acres of batteries; charged by transmission lines during periods of low demand
  • Returned to transmission lines during periods of high demand
  • Designed for load levelling
  • One Acre could store about 400 MW-hours of energy and deliver 40MW of power (for 10 hours)

  We need better batteries period (also for electric vehicles): US is investing in this

• Pumped Hydro:
  • Not many locations lend themselves to this
  • Process is 64% efficient which is pretty good

• Flywheels:
  • Need to optimize energy-to-mass ratio which is material dependent
  • Fused Silica has 25 times the energy storage per kg than lead-acid batteries
  • Flywhees are promising

• Hydrogen
  • Very high energy density storage per kg
  • No naturally occuring sources
  • Separate H from H₂0 is energy intensive
  • Not economically viable unless shipped large distances from point of production

• Compressed Air
  • Thermodyanimcs tells you that when you compress air the temperature goes up melts the pressure containment vessel
  • Have to cool the air as its compressed energy intensive
  • Not very practical

Bottom line(s):

Wind energy coupled with advanced battery design has real promise and that promise is now being turned into real implementation

Offshore wind energy is now just starting to develop. The 600 MW London Array facility is very good and very promising.

With the development of the Advanced Gas Turbine energy co-generation at biowaste facilities becomes possible. Moreover, the AGT provides a viable alternative to coal fire steam plants, using natural gas imported via pipeline from Canada.

OTEC provides a truly large scale solution but may be too expensive to ever implement what does this tell us about our priorities?

Solar PV does not look economically viable on the large scale. On the small scale, improvement in solar shingle technology is good for the consumer.

But it is now 2018, and still, the world looks in terms of energy usage much like it did in 1950. The world is running out of time in making a transition away from fossil fuels, but this is regarded as "fake news" and no one really is taking this seriously. A few countries in Europe (Germany, UK) are models for how to make this transition, but most of the rest of the world has little incentive to due this, despite climate change events occurring a regular basis in many of these countries.

You will still be alive in 68 more years. So you can see what the world of 2086 is and assess for yourself if humanity has learned anything.