The Times, They Are A'Changing

It's hard to keep a secret these days.

News from Iran here.

More Drought, More Severe Storms

People are always asking whether this is a contradiction, whether this doesn't amount to everything being evidence of global warming.

No. More rainfall in less severe events in the southern US would be counterevidence.

As I am just plugging everything back in after getting the only rain in the whole south in an intense and scary burst, it suddenly occurred to me that the picture might tell the story plainly enough.


See? One severe possibly tornadic storm (right over mt's house as it happens) and lots of nothing much else at the same time.

It could get more like this. There are reasons to suspect that it will. Make sense now?

He who hesitates...

From this worthy petition, which I am having trouble signing, because their web programmer considered "scientist" and "journalist" mutually exclusive...

The Sea Ice Steeplechase

It is on, and our horse has taken the lead by a nose.


Image: NSIDC

CCS NIMBYism

Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, CCS NIMBYism is starting up.

CO2 pipelines exist. This map (via RexTag Strategies) shows one of several CO2 pipelines leading to the oil fields of the Permian Basin in West Texas. Natural CO2 deposits are actually being tapped and mined in Colorado. 

The CO2 is shipped to Texas to assist in petroleum extraction. Wouldn't it be better to use some of the extra CO2 from coal fired plants for this purpose? I mean, rather than digging up extra CO2?

(Isn't that crazy? I wonder how that got going! Where were the NIMBY crowd then?) 

Note that the pipelines pass through populated areas in New Mexico. A more complete map of comparable pipleline systems is posted, but based on what I see in the hallways of my workplace, I believe even that one is incomplete.

However you feel about any of this, it's interesting to note that the extant CO2 pipelines in the US have been federally subsidized in the pursuit of domestic fossil fuel supplies (see p 15).

Conceivably under extremely unfavorable circumstances that CO2 could escape and kill somebody already. Dangerous industrial processes happen all the time. Trains and trucks and pipes full of who knows what go every which way. 

We can neither afford to allow them to go unquestioned nor to stop every one. What we need is a consistent way of thinking about them, not advocates and opponents slugging things out over and over using whatever weapons are handy. What happens now is not just capricious and random. It damages our capacity for collective thought every time.

 

Limits to Growth Kicking In?

In another The Oil Drum production, Ugo Bardi makes the case that yes, the condition of the world today is the Club of Rome prediction "verifying" as metorologists would say, or "coming true" as they say in the fable business.

The industrial capital stock grows to a level that requires an enormous input of resources. In the very process of that growth it depletes a large fraction of the resource reserves available. As resource prices rise and mines are depleted, more and more capital must be used for obtaining resources, leaving less to be invested for future growth. Finally investment cannot keep up with depreciation, and the industrial base collapses, taking with it the service and agricultural systems, which have become dependent on industrial inputs.

The Economic Crisis and the Limits to Growth

Thanks for all the responses on my query of how to link the resource question and the current economic crisis. I really do intend to follow up soon; an unexpected project dropped in my lap this week though.

Meanwhile you can get Herman Daly's most recent take on things at The Oil Drum:

The level of physical wealth that the biosphere can sustain in a steady state may well be below the present level. The fact that recent efforts at growth have resulted mainly in bubbles suggests that this is so. Nevertheless, current policies all aim for the full re-establishment of the growth economy. No one denies that our problems would be easier to solve if we were richer. The question is, does growth any longer make us richer, or is it now making us poorer?

...


We have many problems (poverty, unemployment, environmental destruction, budget deficit, trade deficit, bailouts, bankruptcy, foreclosures, etc.), but apparently only one solution: economic growth, or as the pundits now like to say, “to grow the economy”-- as if it were a potted plant...

...

So—if we can’t grow our way out of all problems, then maybe we should reconsider the logic and virtues of non-growth, the steady-state economy. Why this refusal by neoclassical economists both to face common sense, and to reconsider the ideas of the early Classical Economists?

I think the answer is distressingly simple. Without growth the only way to cure poverty is by sharing. But redistribution is anathema. Without growth to push the hoped for demographic transition, the only way to cure overpopulation is by population control. A second anathema. Without growth the only way to increase funds to invest in environmental repair is by reducing current consumption. Anathema number three. Three anathemas and you are damned—go to hell!

...

Well, let us not do that. Let us ignore the anathemas and instead think about what policies would be required to move to a steady-state economy. They are a bit radical by present standards...

If that's not enough to convince you to go read it, I can't imagine what you are doing hereabouts.

Progress Marches On

Economists and politicians are often found putting more faith in technical progress than actually technically adept people do. Hope springs eternal. It's a shame to neglect the possible role of technical progress in getting us out of our difficulties. Perhaps we should be rethinking our pessimism.

I was trying to track down the power consumption of a typical car in watt-hours per mile (this is oddly hard to do) when I came across this particularly striking example of techno-optimism in comments here. See what you think of it:

746 watts per Horsepower outdated
written by free energy now , April 18, 2007

Bruce
Your comments in compairing the car to cold fusion means that you're assuming that technology can't change the 746w/hp. Is it at all possible that the cars engines are more efficient then your calculations allow for. There are also ways of using capacitors to increase efficiency in heavy load conditions. Technology is changing my friend, and in a lot of situations the nubers just don't add up. My friend has designed a heater which can run indefinitly after a couple of days of being pluged in. He heats his whole house with them, no they don't use cold fusion, just an ingenious design. So just because you can't figure out the math, doesn't mean it's immposible. Peace out

That's the way to do it. Now we're really talking progress!

Water and Energy

I didn't raise any questions during Michael Webber's talk on Wednesday, but I did consider raising the issue of water, or specifically the relationship between fresh water production and energy production. Whatever Texas's advantages in energy production, they are somewhat mitigated by our disadvantages in water supply. If one agrees that water production and energy production are related issues, this obviously becomes relevant.

Until today, the only person I had heard raise this issue has been Richard Doctor of Argonne National Laboratory. In a talk I saw him give a couple of years ago, he pointed out that increasing water supply takes energy, and increasing energy supply takes water, so that the once demand reaches a certain point one can't treat the problems separately.

It turns out I should have asked the question as it would have been a real softball pitch for Webber. He has written an article on the subject [link to abstract only; article is behind a pay wall] appearing in Scientific American. (While it lasts: here is a scan of the text.)

This raises a question which I did not put to Richard nor to Michael Webber but which has been puzzling me. Webber's article makes it explicit:

We cannot build more power plants without realizing that they impinge on our freshwater supplies. And we cannot build more water delivery and cleaning facilities without driving up energy demand. Solving the dilemma requires new national policies that integrate energy and water solutions and innovative technologies that help to boost one resource without draining the other.

So here's my question: why do power plants require fresh water? Is the dominant purpose of water not cooling? If not, why is water such a big issue? On the other hand, if cooling and quenching and thermal conduction is the issue, why use precious freshwater instead of sea water? 

I note that Austin Energy's part-owned nukes are on the seashore. Of course, there is sea level rise to contend with... Yikes! 

I suppose that renewable energy (except biofuel) doesn't require significant water in operations. (Capital costs aside.) Isn't this a strong argument for wind and solar? Why aren't they making it?

Note, the following appears in an information-poor infographic (that doesn't make it into the scanned text) in Webber's article:

Water Required to Generate One MW-hr 

• Gas/Steam: 7,400-20,000 gallons
  
• Coal or Oil: 21,000-50,000 gallons
  
• Nuclear: 25,000-60,000 gallons

Another argument for natural gas rather than nuclear as the bridge to renewables.

Drop the thousands to convert into the easier to think about KW-hr, which is about the draw from watching a big screen TV for an evening. That would be, depending where you live, between 7 and 60 gallons. (25 to 225 liters). As much as a bathtub's worth on the high side.

So anyway. Is sea water usable instead of fresh water in power plants? 

"Green Star State"

In an influential article in Texas Monthly and in a series of lectures, UT Engineering Prof. Michael Webber argues that Texans, who by an undeserved twist of good fortune, led the world into the carbon-burning age, may well be the ones who are doubly fortunate to lead us out.

Webber so argued today at this month's monthly talk at The Austin Forum, a series of public talks held at the TACC/UTIG facility where I work, and I attended.

He doesn't mince words:

Despite the general perception of our energy consumption, Texas is already doing much more to promote clean energy than the world realizes. For example, we created the nation’s first comprehensive municipal green-building program (in Austin) and the first technology incubator designed explicitly to encourage clean energy start-ups. Our biggest impact has been the aggressive use of renewable electricity—we were one of the first states to establish a renewable portfolio standard, which requires that a certain percentage of an energy company’s power generation come from renewable sources. Today half the states have something similar, following, to their surprise, in the footsteps of Texas (and Nevada). The renewable portfolio has been a huge success, leading us to create the largest installed base of wind capacity in the nation, about 9,000 megawatts, nearly three times as much as second-place Iowa. Our quick ramp-up of wind farms has pushed the U.S. ahead of every other nation, including Germany, the former leader, in terms of installed renewable capacity.

One of the ironies is that in Texas, our lack of concern about the environment enables us to do great things for the environment. You hardly need permission to build a wind farm here, and your neighbors cannot sue you for blocking their view. It’s much more difficult in environmentally inclined states like Massachusetts or California, where activists worry about the impact of the turbines on wildlife and ocean vistas. We don’t mind raising wind turbines, building transmission lines, or laying pipelines, all key advantages for renewable energy, which is diffuse by nature and requires vast tracts of land and sprawling infrastructure to be effective. Texas has a long history of trading blight for money. Why stop now?

He also notes that by a combination of extensive experience in big energy, geographic enormity, and dumb luck, Texas is well-positioned for wind, solar and biomass. While it is not obviously dominant in any of these categories it is easily the best positioned to move resources among the three. Also, not only does Texas have good geological formations for carbon sequestration, Texas also has the companies with experience running CO2 pipelines and pumping it underground.

I think a strong majority in the audience, myself included, agreed with Jeffrey Sachs (This was originally on Grist but several efforts by me today to find it there failed. If David or somebody over there wants me to file a bug report on how the site search went drop me a line. Linked is the Guardian's version.)

That leaves the U.S. with no choice but to develop and use CCS technology, despite the fact that it's never been successfully implemented, he said. Renewable energy sources and improvements in efficiency won't come close to meeting the world's growing energy demand, he said.

"There's no quantitative way to get this right without the nuclear industry playing a really large role," he said. "It's not a happy thought, but it's unavoidable."

Well, agreed except for the "never successfully implemented". Hey. Guys. We do it all the time. We have CO2 pipelines runnin all over WesTixes and N'Mexico.

There was some CO2/greenhouse skepticism in the audience, but it was polite and intelligent, for which I am grateful.

Most of the Austin Forum talks have been excellent, by the way. July's is being given by me. Y'all come.