Energy I: So long, petroleum. It's been great knowing you
Given that our President has advanced not one but two politically self-serving and practically unworkable "solutions" for our dependence on petroleum, I thought I would write up some of the issues and what I view as the real solution to our energy situation. This'll be over the course of, say, five posts: this introduction, a discussion of hydrogen fuel cells, a discussion on ethanol, a discussion on other energy sources, and a presentation of my solution.
To start, though, I want to present a couple of concepts that are essential to these discussions. The first is the idea of free energy -- not G, just energy we don't have to pay for -- energy that we get from sources that we don't have to replenish. Most energy comes from breaking or forming chemical bonds, and it is important to remember that the energy required to form a bond (or break it) is no less than the amount of energy we get when we break (or form) the bond -- and, because the initial energy comes in inefficient forms, much of it is lost in the process of forming or breaking the bond. So it's a pretty good expectation, going into any discussion of energy production, to expect that more energy has to enter the system than is actually and usably released through use of an energy source. In short, there's no free lunch -- not a new idea, but certainly one that has been left out of Bush's energy proposals.
That's because of the modern understandings of efficiency, which is the second concept that I wanted to introduce. Namely that, in a complex system such as ours, efficiency is primarily a matter of masking costs. For example, the Nuclear Energy Institute sets the costs of producing nuclear power at $0.0162 per kiloWatt-hour (/kWh). As it notes, however, this is only the fuel and operation/maintenance cost: not included in this figure are the costs of production and decommissioning of the plant, as well as disposal of the waste, which the NEI states drives the cost up to $0.021/kWh. It should be noted that this higher cost is borne out not in the price of a kWh of generated electricity, but in tax subsidy and funding by the U.S. government -- that is, by taxpayers. These costs are essentially masked, making nuclear energy look more cost-efficient than it is. Note that the NEI's figures do not include subsidies for uranium mining and the costs to clean up the effects of uranium mining, which do not figure into the cost of uranium (see this story); nor the cost of security of fuel in transport and mines, plants, and disposal sites in general; nor the liability insurance or clean-up of potential accidents -- all of these are funded directly by taxpayers, so the NEI can essentially ignore them when touting the cost-efficiency of nuclear power. Take a look at this discussion of the untabulated costs (10-12 cents per kWh?) of nuclear power. At the same time, the nuclear fission reaction is the most efficient matter/energy conversion reaction we currently have -- it just costs much, much more to establish, maintain, and clean up after the conditions for that reaction. In short, assertions of efficiency are at best contextual and at worst fraudulent.
Taking Earth as a system, there are only a few sources of energy entering it. The biggest one is the sun, which provides not only sunlight and radiation (165 teraWatts per year), but changing temperatures from one location on Earth to another, generating wind. Another source is the moon, whose gravity causes similar fluctuations in the height of our oceans, the tidal forces. This energy is not produced by our system, but utilized; and it is not changed by our utilization, so produces no waste. All we need pay for is the cost of producing the means of translating that energy into usable forms, and of disposing of wastes from that process (making and recycling photovoltaic cells, for example). If we take our energy infrastructure as a system, there is another source of such energy: the Earth itself, whose gravity creates pressure, translated into heat, and rotation also influences the winds and generates a magnetic field. All these energy sources have their shortcomings, but they are distinct in being essentially free to use and lacking in waste.
Within our system, our primary sources of energy since we started using non-biological energy (beasts of burden, etc.) have been essentially batteries that were charged by the sources outside our system: hydrocarbons from organisms that feed on solar energy as well as chemical nutrients (that is, firewood); hydrocarbons from such organisms that have been transformed by the heat and pressure of the Earth's gravity (coal and petroelum); and materials formed from other processes outside our system, like uranium. These sources impose the costs of extraction of both the source and the energy from the source; and, because these sources are transformed by our extraction of the energy, they impose the cost of disposing of waste -- all of these apart from the costs of producing, maintaining, and recycling the means by which we extract the sources and the energy. If we were to try to manufacture these materialss -- synthesized petroleum, for example -- it would be we, not the Earth and Sun, that would have to pay the cost of "charging" those materials with energy for later use, making them essentially impractical.
That's what's great about petroleum. There is enough energy in petroleum to run the means of its extraction (drilling), the means of its refinement, and the transport of refined and unrefined products to where they need to go -- and still run a chunk of our electrical generation and heating and nearly all of our transportation. A truly self-sustaining system.
Except we know that it's not. We all know the general truth, if not the specifics: petroleum is finite. Technically, I guess, it is a renewable resource, and we could conceivably reach an equilibrium in which our usage of petroleum would be no greater than its production by the Earth during a given period of time. Of course, such a level would be utterly impractical, hence the effective exhaustability of the fuel. I have read figures that put the complete exhaustion of known oil supplies in the 2050s or so, and while it is unlikely that we shall ever see the last drop of oil pumped from the ground, it is pretty clear that, in the lifetimes of almost everyone reading this, we shall see the marginalization of oil from primarily an energy source to primarily a production material (for plastics and the like). I see this happening as follows.
To start, though, I want to present a couple of concepts that are essential to these discussions. The first is the idea of free energy -- not G, just energy we don't have to pay for -- energy that we get from sources that we don't have to replenish. Most energy comes from breaking or forming chemical bonds, and it is important to remember that the energy required to form a bond (or break it) is no less than the amount of energy we get when we break (or form) the bond -- and, because the initial energy comes in inefficient forms, much of it is lost in the process of forming or breaking the bond. So it's a pretty good expectation, going into any discussion of energy production, to expect that more energy has to enter the system than is actually and usably released through use of an energy source. In short, there's no free lunch -- not a new idea, but certainly one that has been left out of Bush's energy proposals.
That's because of the modern understandings of efficiency, which is the second concept that I wanted to introduce. Namely that, in a complex system such as ours, efficiency is primarily a matter of masking costs. For example, the Nuclear Energy Institute sets the costs of producing nuclear power at $0.0162 per kiloWatt-hour (/kWh). As it notes, however, this is only the fuel and operation/maintenance cost: not included in this figure are the costs of production and decommissioning of the plant, as well as disposal of the waste, which the NEI states drives the cost up to $0.021/kWh. It should be noted that this higher cost is borne out not in the price of a kWh of generated electricity, but in tax subsidy and funding by the U.S. government -- that is, by taxpayers. These costs are essentially masked, making nuclear energy look more cost-efficient than it is. Note that the NEI's figures do not include subsidies for uranium mining and the costs to clean up the effects of uranium mining, which do not figure into the cost of uranium (see this story); nor the cost of security of fuel in transport and mines, plants, and disposal sites in general; nor the liability insurance or clean-up of potential accidents -- all of these are funded directly by taxpayers, so the NEI can essentially ignore them when touting the cost-efficiency of nuclear power. Take a look at this discussion of the untabulated costs (10-12 cents per kWh?) of nuclear power. At the same time, the nuclear fission reaction is the most efficient matter/energy conversion reaction we currently have -- it just costs much, much more to establish, maintain, and clean up after the conditions for that reaction. In short, assertions of efficiency are at best contextual and at worst fraudulent.
Taking Earth as a system, there are only a few sources of energy entering it. The biggest one is the sun, which provides not only sunlight and radiation (165 teraWatts per year), but changing temperatures from one location on Earth to another, generating wind. Another source is the moon, whose gravity causes similar fluctuations in the height of our oceans, the tidal forces. This energy is not produced by our system, but utilized; and it is not changed by our utilization, so produces no waste. All we need pay for is the cost of producing the means of translating that energy into usable forms, and of disposing of wastes from that process (making and recycling photovoltaic cells, for example). If we take our energy infrastructure as a system, there is another source of such energy: the Earth itself, whose gravity creates pressure, translated into heat, and rotation also influences the winds and generates a magnetic field. All these energy sources have their shortcomings, but they are distinct in being essentially free to use and lacking in waste.
Within our system, our primary sources of energy since we started using non-biological energy (beasts of burden, etc.) have been essentially batteries that were charged by the sources outside our system: hydrocarbons from organisms that feed on solar energy as well as chemical nutrients (that is, firewood); hydrocarbons from such organisms that have been transformed by the heat and pressure of the Earth's gravity (coal and petroelum); and materials formed from other processes outside our system, like uranium. These sources impose the costs of extraction of both the source and the energy from the source; and, because these sources are transformed by our extraction of the energy, they impose the cost of disposing of waste -- all of these apart from the costs of producing, maintaining, and recycling the means by which we extract the sources and the energy. If we were to try to manufacture these materialss -- synthesized petroleum, for example -- it would be we, not the Earth and Sun, that would have to pay the cost of "charging" those materials with energy for later use, making them essentially impractical.
That's what's great about petroleum. There is enough energy in petroleum to run the means of its extraction (drilling), the means of its refinement, and the transport of refined and unrefined products to where they need to go -- and still run a chunk of our electrical generation and heating and nearly all of our transportation. A truly self-sustaining system.
Except we know that it's not. We all know the general truth, if not the specifics: petroleum is finite. Technically, I guess, it is a renewable resource, and we could conceivably reach an equilibrium in which our usage of petroleum would be no greater than its production by the Earth during a given period of time. Of course, such a level would be utterly impractical, hence the effective exhaustability of the fuel. I have read figures that put the complete exhaustion of known oil supplies in the 2050s or so, and while it is unlikely that we shall ever see the last drop of oil pumped from the ground, it is pretty clear that, in the lifetimes of almost everyone reading this, we shall see the marginalization of oil from primarily an energy source to primarily a production material (for plastics and the like). I see this happening as follows.
So we now have to find sources of energy to replace oil in home heating, electricity production, and most especially transportation. The problem is that we can't rely on an external source anymore to charge the "batteries" that we put into these roles -- whether those batteries be pure hydrogen, metal hydride slurries, ethanol, or biodiesel. That means that we must be mindful of the system-wide costs of these energy sources, and not mindlessly assume that any of them is the new gasoline -- that'll lead to a cycle of energy waste and loss that'll cripple our energy system. We have to change the way we understand the usage, in all sectors, of energy, and make the choices that shall lead to the most sustainable energy system possible.
In the next few posts, I'll discuss why hydrogen, ethanol are will-o'-wisps, why nuclear, coal, and natural gas are dead-ends, and finally what our best options are.
posted by heavynettle at 18:49
2 Comments:
"...in a complex system such as ours, efficiency is primarily a matter of masking costs."
I don't challenge the assertion, but that's just sad.
Well, it's been sad for a long time. Most human endeavor has been accompanied by an ignorance or outright concealment of all the associated costs --usually because they were borne by somebody else, either cotemporaneously or in the future. Who could think that dumping sewage and trash into a river would be a viable way to dispose of waste? Those folks who didn't have any dealings downstream. What possible reason could there be to produce more than 44,000 tons of material that is known to be deadly to humans for centuries (and dangerous for millenia) after its production? The expectation that somebody else would take care of the mess. Hell, why do we poop in our pants? Because we don't have to wipe our own butts -- well, for a certain time in our lives. The ability of humans to impact their environment has always outrun either their awareness of the consequences or their willingness to address them. Yeah, it's sad. But contrary to what I guess I implied in my post, it ain't new. Also well-worn is the willingness of those in power (or, indeed, those out of power) to omit facts or lie about them when pursuing their own gain. Quelle dommage, dude.
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