Category: Wind

Wind is a renewable resource because there is a limitless supply that is naturally produced.

Ohio wants to ban Solar & Wind

The bill’s sponsors voted last year to gut state clean energy standards while subsidizing nuclear and coal bailouts.

An Ohio bill introduced last month would halt most large solar or wind energy development for up to three years — an echo of previous policies that stunted the state’s renewable growth for much of the last decade.

The legislation does not appear to have broad support, but it is concerning to critics nonetheless because it reflects some lawmakers’ ongoing hostility to renewable energy, despite its growing economic importance.

“It’s a relentless attack on the inevitability of where the energy market is today and where it’s going,” said Rep. Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, who opposes the bill. “It’s a bury-our-heads-in-the-sand mentality that is just so, so locked in with the status quo, while the rest of the world and country are moving on.”

House Bill 786 would prevent regulators from certifying any new solar or wind facility designed to produce more than 50 megawatts of electricity, as well as smaller “economically significant” wind farms with a capacity of 5 MW or more. The ban would end after three years or further legislation from the General Assembly, whichever comes first.

In a memo seeking co-sponsors for the bill, primary sponsor Rep. Todd Smith, R-Farmersville, referred to complaints about “unregulated solar and wind farms” and claimed the bill’s goal was “merely to press the pause button.” He did not respond to the Energy News Network’s request for comment.

“The impetus for this legislation is completely without merit,” said Dan Sawmiller, director of Ohio energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, noting that the bill is also “inconsistent with what is happening on the ground.”

“Despite the fact that large-scale renewables have been a reality for years, now without any justification they’re saying we shouldn’t do this anymore,” said Neil Waggoner, Ohio campaign leader for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal program. “It’s not just a bad policy. It’s terrible policy.”

“The sponsors of HB 786 are apparently unfamiliar with the rigorous certification process of the Ohio Power Siting Board and the mechanisms through which local residents can provide input,” said Jane Harf, executive director of Green Energy Ohio. “There has been considerable testimony to the benefits that have come to many rural communities in Ohio from the presence of large-scale projects that support local infrastructure, school systems, and businesses. This bill has no merit and once again puts Ohio on a clear path backward while neighboring states are embracing the future.”

The bill also has drawn ire from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, whose members work on many energy construction projects.

“IBEW is emphatically opposed to this misguided legislation,” said IBEW Fourth District Representative Steve Crum. “The solar industry is bringing thousands upon thousands of jobs to Ohio and our members see this [as] a tremendous opportunity to get work in the more rural parts of our state, where many of them are living. Bad ideas like this need to be soundly rejected by our state leaders.”

An ongoing fight

Efforts by utilities and some Ohio lawmakers to slow or stop renewable energy development go back to 2012. Indeed, the “pause button”phrase in Smith’s co-sponsor request echoes rhetoric from 2014. At that time, lawmakers froze further requirements under Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards for two years. Weaker versions of the standards resumed in 2017 and were then gutted by HB 6.

HB 786 co-sponsor Dick Stein, R-Norwalk, chaired the subcommittee that shepherded that bill through the House. Smith and co-sponsor Don Jones both voted for HB 6, which also provides huge subsidies for two 1950s-era coal plants and two nuclear plants owned by Energy Harbor (formerly FirstEnergy Solutions). The law is at the center of an alleged $60 million conspiracy case involving dark money and former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. The complaint’s references to Company A suggest that most of the money came from FirstEnergy and its current and former subsidiaries.

Current House Speaker Bob Cupp has said he wants to make the repeal of HB 6 a priority. However, Waggoner said, “it’s been over four months since Householder was arrested. The legislature has had a third of the year to repeal HB 6, and they still have not made this a priority.”

Bills to repeal HB 6 were first introduced in late July. Despite a majority of House members being willing to vote for a complete repeal in August, repeal bills have been held up in committee since then.

In contrast, five days after HB 786 was introduced, House leadership referred it to the Commerce and Labor Committee. That Nov. 17 assignment is unusual. Normally House bills dealing with energy would be considered either by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee or the Public Utilities Committee.

Weinstein is doubtful about whether the bill will progress. “But it perfectly exemplifies how much they want to keep us in the past and prevent us from embracing the environmental benefits and the massive economic benefits of an energy transformation in Ohio,” he said.

December 5, 2020
Green Prince of Darkness

Green Prince Of Darkness….

Exposed

Today’s Guest, November 28, 2020

About the author: Joseph A Olson, PE: Co-founder of Principia Scientific Intl. and co-author of the ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory’ the world’s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory. Retired Texan engineer and impassioned science writer, Joe Olson PE is a respected innovative thinker with over 100 major civil engineering and climate-related articles to his name. Olson is famed as a staunch advocate of the traditional English scientific method and combines a wealth of hard-edged industry experience with an insightful and deft writer’s touch to convey complex scientific concepts in a unique literary style.

There were a myriad of factors that contributed to the demise of the British Motor Industry in the mid seventies. The storied brands of Jaguar, Bentley, Aston Martin and MG of the automotive and Triumph, BSA and Norton of motorcycle industry all suffered under onerous labor union contracts and government ownership and controls. All of these brands also suffered with defective electrical components produced by the Joseph Lucas Company.

Quality control issues were so bad that a popular bumper sticker for those marquees read “All of the parts that fall off of this car are of the highest quality British craftsmanship”.

While purist can indulge a certain level of hardship with mechanical devices, they have little patience for the electrical gremlins that did not affect other manufacturers. For this reason, Joseph Lucas was nicknamed “The Prince of Darkness”.

Today we have a new Green Prince poised to plunge the western world into a self imposed darkness. This Prince first creates the fiction that Carbon causes climate change, then adds the fable that green energy exists which can dispel this nonexistent problem. The entire range of ‘green solutions’ are all nonsensical. We’ll limit this discussion to just solar cells and batteries, saving bio-fuels and windmills for another time.

The Sun Gives Us Nothing for Free

As alluring as the premise may be, the promise of solar energy is not free. The first solar cell was created in 1883 by Charles Fritts using a sheet of Selenium with thin Gold facings. The Sun radiates approximately 1000 watts per square meter at maximum. The Fritts cell produced 10 watts per square meter or 1% efficiency. The Russell Ohl patent of 1946 is considered the first modern solar cell. Today’s solar panels are high purity Silicon with a light doping of Phosphorus and Boron to provide breaks in the Silicone for electron movement.

The Universe is a radiation chamber with EMR and particle emissions from all concentrated mass, and decay particles from individual atoms. Solar radiation strips protons from Nitrogen atoms, creating Carbon-14. Stripping exposed electrons is even easier. Silicon has four rather stable outer shell electrons in an orbit that can hold eight electrons. Boron has five outer-shell electrons, and Phosphorus has only three. Silicon forms a cubic crystal grid, and slightly impure Silicone matrix sheets can then be embedded with Boron and Phosphorus atoms.

When exposed to sunlight, the Boron atom losses it’s easily excited fifth electron, which travels the Silicon matrix using the Phosphorus “hole” to the conducting collection grids on both sides of the photovoltaic cell and permanently exits the cell.

Only segments of the solar spectrum activate this flow and it must be captured on both sides of the panel to create a circuit. The required capture grid blocks some of the incoming energy and the net result is 10% efficiency, or approximately 100 watts per square meter, and only within limited ambient temperature ranges which prohibit lenses or mirrors for simple amplification.

Efficiencies as high as 40% are available with exotic materials, but then one must address the ‘high cost of free’, which applies to every ‘green’ technology. Silicon, Phosphorus and Boron are common elements, but to mine, refine and bring on line has a cost. That cost is reflected in ‘cost payback’ of 5 to 7 years depending on the system and level of government forced subsidy. But these costs are based on low cost carbon based energy systems providing these materials. Regardless, this is a ONE-TIME, ONE-WAY EROSION PROCESS with a total system life of less than 20 years.

Solar cells produce only Direct Current, which is electric power by the migration of electrons, and in typical PV cells is only 1.5 volts. Alternating Current creates a voltage, but transfers power as a wave, rapidly cycled between positive and negative, with little actual electron migration. The first municipal Edison power systems were DC, but transmission loss and multiple voltage issues prevented success, and the Tesla-Westinghouse developed three-phase AC system became the driving force for modernization.

Converting DC to AC involves a conversion loss in an inverter, boosting to higher voltage and converting to more efficient three phase causes additional losses due to the Carnot Cycle. If you connect a hydro-turbine to a pump, you can only pump a portion of the water flowing from a dam into water pumped back to the dam. If you use the hydro-turbine to generate electricity, then use an electric pump to pump water back ablve the dam, then the losses are even greater. The combined losses converting 1.5 volt DC to usable 50 kV, three phase transmissible AC power is forever technically impossible.

Ignoring just these physical limitations, supposed science leading publications like Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Discover, regularly show fanciful space based systems where vast arrays of solar panels, positioned around the planet, beam “sustainable” microwave energy back to Earth based antennas to provide 24 hour service. Never mind all the limitations above, now add the Carnot loss converting to microwaves on both ends of this system. Limitations to the field density of this transmission would require massive antennas, or large, “no fly zones” for humans, and instant on the fly cook zones for any stray birds.

To overcome solar wind and lunar gravity changes, these microwave transmitters would require constant realignment, or the transmissions would wander off the receiving antenna. The fact that this science fiction is presented as anything other than TOTAL FICTION, is proof that these publications are all “pop” and no science.

Much like paying your Visa bill with your Master Card, this parasitic ‘clean’ energy cannot provide the ‘spare’ energy to avoid ‘dirty’ energy. There is a constant loss of electrons in this system and power production erodes over time until, at twenty years, they are useless. The Silicon sheets are protected with glass covers which require periodic cleaning and are subject to damage from hail and wind debris.

Solar cells efficiency is also a function of azimuth angle and reduces with higher latitudes, and seasonal tilt angle. Systems with tracking ability have higher efficiency, but not recoverable installation costs. You get progressively less energy at the poles, precisely at the time when you need the MOST energy. To have usable power over extended periods requires a storage system. The most common of these is the battery, which is the heart of that ‘other’ planet saver.

Dream Green Machine

Soon Electric Vehicles, aka EVs, will replace the nasty internal combustion engine and humanity will be in harmony with the Universe. The transition technology in this race is the hybrid auto and the front runner is the Toyota Prius. This undeniable marvel has a 120 pound Nichol-Metal Hydride battery that costs $3500 to replace or approximately $20 per pound. There again, a cost based on carbon energy providing the material production.

The ‘Metal Hydride’ portion of these batteries includes the rare Earth elements of Lanthanum, Cerium and Neodymium. These required green components do not willingly join the green cult movement. To have your treasured EV, this planet must be mined and those elements must be extracted and refined.

Due to chemical erosion thru use, these batteries have an eight year or 100,000 mile warranty period. You can save $450 per year on gasoline if you spend $450 per year on a battery. You can walk forever up the down escalator and still get nowhere. There is no way to improve or even ‘sustain’ our carbon-based life forms without expending some geologically stored carbon energy.

To the blue-green Hollywood Eco-Smurfs and Na’vi wannabe’s, we are NOT living on a green Pandora that needs rescue from the evil RDA mining company. Humanity will not be saved by mythical noble savages or a forced return to a primitive life style. It took most of the nineteenth century to formulate the Laws of Thermodynamics. It took most of the twentieth century to apply those laws to the benefit of society. There will be no solutions to problems in the twenty first century that do not comply with these laws.

Curiously missing from the Climatology degree plan is any mention of Thermodynamics. Avoidance of these Laws must give license to break these Laws. Thus clouds can have a negative factor during the day, with their pesky ‘albedo’ effect reflecting sunlight back into space and then just hours later have a positive effect by blanketing the warmth at night….a reflector or greenhouse at the whim of a Climatologist.

Climatologist can ignore the specific heat and thermal mass of the entire planet and provide a computer model PROVING that the trace human portion, of a trace gas, in the trace portion of the Earth mass that is the atmosphere, is the single greatest climate forcing factor. They can then empower this three atom molecule the unique ability to radiate in a reverse flow in opposition to all proven Thermodynamic Laws. This is lawless behavior, which is by definition, criminal behavior.

Lady Gaga’s Underwear

If you don’t know what color underwear this pop icon is displaying for us today, it is only due to your willful avoidance of the main stream media message. If you recognize the need to open our ‘Pandora’ and mine some ‘Unobtainium’ to improve life for all humanity, then we need your support. Awaken your friends and family to the futility of the Green Utopia.

This manufactured crisis and faux consensus has been brought to you with your tax dollars by your government officials. This has been a bi-partisan effort. Think of the RNC-DNC Crime Syndicate as the ultimate Costa Nostra upgrade. The IPCC, EPA, DOE, NSF and NAS are all guilt of lying, suborning scientific perjury and attempted tax collection fraud.

There have been five high profile whitewash attempts since Climate-Gate, the blessed Hadley hacking event of Nov 19, 2009 by Penn State University and the British government. But now the cherry picked science and the cherry picked whitewash inquires face a serious challenge.

If the ‘Hockey Stick Maker Mann’ did indeed knowingly delete conflicting data to force a curve match of proxy CO₂to match his proxy temperature, then he has no protection under academic freedom. Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, filed a Civil Investigation Demand and was rejected by Mann’s former employer, the University of Virginia. In a hearing, July 13, 2010 the judge ruled that UVA must provide this material within one week and prepare for oral arguments in a month.

Now a jury of peers, who are NOT government paid academics, will hear evidence denied to skeptics by countless Freedom of Information Act requests. A legitimate inquiry will for the first time review the ‘science’ of this faux hypothesis. The evidence that will pour forth in this court will be the final death knell for the warmists and their elite handlers. Humanity does not need to be plunged back into the darkness of their green hell.

As America struggled to avoid the world conflict of the 1940’s, then Prime Minister Winston Churchill made this observation, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” We do not need try everything else. We know science, we know what works and we know when our leaders are systematically lying to us. If you reject the green group think and feel true science, true debate and true democracy are humanity’s best hope, then come join us. We are the anti-barbarians.

Environmental Side Note

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the twin millstones of taxation and inflation” ~ Vladimir Lenin

Every ton of pure Polycrystalline Silicon, refined for photovoltaic use, produces EIGHT tons of Silicon Tetrachloride and Ammonium Chloridadized Silicon TOXIC waste. Similar levels of toxic waste are produced in the mining, refining and production of all batteries and the rare Earth elements needed for DC motors in Electric Vehicles and windmill DC generators.

Western monarch-monopolists have no use for meritocracy and have been at war with freedom and property rights for eternity. When the Chinese democracy movement threatened Universal Democracy at Tiananmen Square, it was feudal elites who rushed to prop up the Chinese dictators with western capital and western technology. The trade off was Chinese slave labor and environmental degradation to destroy competitiveness.

The reason that China is the main producer of all of these ‘green products’ is that China has a vast slave labor population, no property rights, no land use restriction and NO environmental restrictions. Just more proof of the blindness induced by wearing green goggles. We are borrowing money to subsidize non functional green energy to supplant functional energy….taxing, regulating and inflating our way to extinction….the ultimate darkness.

BOOTNOTES

Since This article was published, so much of the Green Energy lie has emerged that even the far left activists, Michael Moore felt compelled to expose the fraud. His movie “Planet of the Humans” was available on FewTube briefly, removed for copyright strikes. This Sky News Australia newscast has a good summary.

See: “Exposing Green Energy Fraud” > https://youtu.be/c4NvDaMQs6g

You can also find Joe Olson at PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.

November 28, 2020
Renewable Green Energy Myth

THE RENEWABLE GREEN ENERGY MYTH: 50,000 Tons
Of Non-Recyclable Wind Turbine Blades Dumped In The Landfill

Posted by SRSROCCO IN ECONOMY, ENERGY, NEWS

Funny, no one seemed to consider what to do with the massive amount of wind turbine blades once they reached the end of their lifespan. Thus, the irony of the present-day Green Energy Movement is the dumping of thousands of tons of “non-recyclable” supposedly renewable wind turbine blades in the country’s landfills.

Who would have thought?  What’s even worse, is that the amount of wind turbine blades slated for waste disposal is forecasted to quadruple over the next fifteen years as a great deal more blades reach their 15-20 year lifespan. Furthermore, the size and length of the newly installed wind turbine blades are now twice as large as they were 20-30 years ago.

graphic courtesy of Ahlstrom-Munksjo.com)

Honestly, I hadn’t considered the tremendous amount of waste generated by the so-called “Renewable” wind power industry until a long-term reader sent me the link to the following article, Landfill begins burying non-recyclable Wind Turbine Blades:

Hundreds of giant windmill blades are being shipped to a landfill in Wyoming to be buried because they simply can’t be recycled. Local media reports several wind farms in the state are sending over 900 un-reusable blades to the Casper Regional Landfill to be buried. While nearly 90 percent of old or decommissioned wind turbines, like the motor housing, can be refurbished or at least crushed, fiberglass windmill blades present a problem due to their size and strength.

“Our crushing equipment is not big enough to crush them,” a landfill representative told NPR.

Prior to burying the cumbersome, sometimes nearly 300-foot long blades, the landfill has to cut them up into smaller pieces onsite and stack them in order to save space during transportation.

Wyoming isn’t the only landfill accepting worn-out wind turbine blades. They are also being dumped in IOWA and SOUTH DAKOTA. Although, there’s probably a lot more landfills across the country, especially in Texas, that are accepting old wind turbine blades. Texas has the largest amount of wind-generated energy in the United States at 27,036 MegaWatts, followed by Iowa (8,965 MW), Oklahoma (8,072 MW), Kansas (6,128 MW), and California (5,842 MW). (source: Wikipedia)

So, with Texas powering more wind energy than the next three states combined, they will be discarding an enormous amount of wind turbine blades in the state’s landfills over the next 10-20 years.

Now, why is the Wind Power Industry discarding its blades in landfills? Unfortunately, due to the way the blades are manufactured, it isn’t economical or practical to recycle them even though some small-scale recycling has been done. Here is an image from the Low-Tech Magazine website explaining why the large wind turbine blades aren’t recyclable:

(graphic courtesy of Low-Tech Magazine)

The wind turbine blades are a toxic amalgam of unique composites, fiberglass, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride foam, polyethylene terephthalate foam, balsa wood, and polyurethane coatings. So, basically, there is just too much plastic-composite-epoxy crapola that isn’t worth recycling. Again, even though there are a few small recycling centers for wind turbine blades, it isn’t economical to do on a large scale.

As I mentioned, the wind power units built today are getting much taller and larger. Check out the 83.5 meter (274 feet) long wind turbine blade being transported for a 7 MegaWatt system:

(photo courtesy of GCR – Global Construction Review)

This picture was taken in 2016. So, in about 15-20 years, this blade will need to be replaced. Just think of the cost to remove three massive blades this size, cut them up, transport them to the landfill and cover them with tons of soil. Now, multiply that by tens of thousands of blades.  According to the data from Hochschule Bremerhaven & Ahlstrom-Munksjo, the wind industry will generate 50,000 tons of blade waste in 2020, but that will quadruple to 225,000 tons by 2034. I have read that some estimates show an even higher amount of blade waste over the next 10-20 years.

I don’t believe the public realizes what a horrible waste of resources that wind energy is when you start to look at the entire operation from beginning to end.  Wind energy is definitely not RENEWABLE. And, even worse… the wind turbines are not lasting as long as the 20-25 years forecasted by the industry. A study that came out in 2012 by Gordon Hughes, researching the relatively mature Dutch and U.K. Wind Industry, suggested that only a few of the wind farms would be operating for more than 12-15 years.

Wind & Solar A Disaster On The Electric Grid

The one thing not mentioned by the “Renewable Energy Aficionados” is that the more solar and wind that is added to the grid, the more volatile and problematic it becomes. You see, the U.S. Electric Grid has been powered by BASELOAD energy from Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear… for the most part. This type of energy generation is very stable, which is precisely why it’s called BASELOAD ENERGY.

When wind and solar came onto the picture, the Renewable Energy Aficionados thought this “CLEAN GREEN ENERGY” was going to get rid of the dirty fossil fuel power plants.  Unfortunately, the more wind and solar that are added, the more BASELOAD energy has to be removed. Why is that unfortunate? Because when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, then the Electric Utility Industry is forced to TURN ON the Natural Gas Power Plants to make up the difference.

And let me tell you, this is becoming much more of a big problem when the wind energy that was generating 40% of the electricity in the area totally falls off the very next day when the wind stops blowing. I have read several articles showing examples of the extreme shut-in of wind and solar electric generation in a very short period of time.

There is so much information out there about this “Intermittency” problem, let me provide a perfect example taking place in Germany. Germany installed one hell of a lot of wind and solar, and it is now becoming a nightmare because they are suffering from black-outs, while at the same time their citizens are paying some of the highest electricity rates in Europe.

Germany’s Renewable Energy Disaster – Part 1: Wind & Solar Deemed ‘Technological Failures’

Germany’s wind and solar experiment have failed: the so-called ‘Energiewende’ (energy transition) has turned into an insanely costly debacle.

German power prices have rocketed; blackouts and load shedding are the norm; and idyllic rural communities are now industrial wastelands (see picture).

Hundreds of billions of euros have been squandered on subsidies to wind and solar, all in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide gas emissions. However, that objective has failed too: CO2 emissions continue to rise.

But you wouldn’t know it from what appears in the mainstream media. Its reticence to report on what’s actually going on in Germany probably stems from the adage about success having many fathers, and failure being an orphan. Having promoted Germany as the example of how we could all ‘transition’ to an all RE future, it’s pretty hard for them to suck it up and acknowledge that they were taken for fools.

REST OF ARTICLE HERE: Germany’s Renewable Energy Disaster – Part 1: Wind & Solar Deemed ‘Technological Failures’

That article above came from the website, StopTheseThings.com, which I highly recommend checking out. They put out a lot of excellent material on the global wind industry.

For example, I found this interesting article about a wind turbine that was purchased by Akron-Westfield’s School Board that went operational in 1999. The wind turbine was supposed to provide the School District with approximately (2) teachers’ salaries worth of revenue once the loan was paid off after ten years. According to the article from StopTheseThings.com, Turbine Trouble: School Board’s Wind Turbine ‘Investment’ Ends in Financial Disaster:

After a decade of dashed financial hopes, mechanical failures and punishingly costly repairs, the school has been left to lick its wounds and lament. The experience to date has been a total financial failure. And now comes the whopping cleanup bill to have the nightmare removed, for good.

A-W wind turbine removal may become budget item
The Akron Home Towner
Julie Ann Madden
11 October 2019

What will it cost to remove the Akron-Westfield’s inoperable wind turbine from its site?

According to A-W School Board Member Nick Mathistad, about $220,000:

$183,000 for disassembly and disposal of the wind turbine; and
$37,000 for foundation removal/disposal, dirt fill and seeding of site.
“These are budget numbers, and the scope of work would be bid out at a later date if it comes to that,” Mathistad explained in a text to The Akron Hometowner.

I recommend reading the entire article because it is worth a GOOD LAUGH. I believe the author of the article misunderstood and thought the town of Akron was in Ohio, but it was located in Iowa.  Once you read the article, it plays like the typical TRAIL OF TEARS as the poor school board was plagued with mechanical failures and issues that cost one hell of a lot of money and just when the wind turbine was going to be paid off after ten years, it broke down for good… LOL.

That’s correct, and the wind turbine has been sitting there idle for nearly a decade… rotting away. And now, it seems that the school board is placing the $220,000 cost to disassemble and dispose of the wind turbine in their $5.2 million bond. Again… LOL.

I have to tell you; I am simply amazed at the level of INSANITY and STUPIDITY taking place by individuals, companies, corporations, and countries that are ramping up wind and solar energy. They are a complete disaster and will only get worse as time goes by.

Lastly, the world should have used the energy that has been investing in wind-solar and put it into transitioning our society to a smaller footprint or DEGROWTH. That was the smart and logical move. However, we are taking the last bit of good fossil fuel energy and putting into Non-Recyclable “supposedly renewable” Green Technology Boondoggles that will become serious liabilities in the future as we won’t have the available energy to properly disassemble and dispose of the tens of thousands of wind turbines dotting the landscape.

August 8, 2020
Is Green Really Green

Today we have a new Green Prince poised to plunge the western world into a self imposed darkness. This Prince first creates the fiction that Carbon causes climate change, then adds the fable that green energy exists which can dispel this nonexistent problem. The entire range of ‘green solutions’ are all nonsensical. We’ll limit this discussion to just solar cells and batteries, saving bio-fuels and windmills for another time.

    The Sun Gives Us Nothing for Free

As alluring as the premise may be, the promise of solar energy is not free. The first solar cell was created in 1883 by Charles Fritts using a sheet of Selenium with thin Gold facings. The Sun radiates approximately 1000 watts per square meter at maximum. The Fritts cell produced 10 watts per square meter or 1% efficiency. The Russell Ohl patent of 1946 is considered the first modern solar cell. Today’s solar panels are high purity Silicon with a light doping of Phosphorus and Boron to provide breaks in the Silicone for electron movement.

The Universe is a radiation chamber with EMR and particle emissions from all concentrated mass, and decay particles from individual atoms. Solar radiation strips protons from Nitrogen atoms, creating Carbon-14. Stripping exposed electrons is even easier. Silicon has four rather stable outer shell electrons in an orbit that can hold eight electrons. Boron has five outer-shell electrons, and Phosphorus has only three. Silicon forms a cubic crystal grid, and slightly impure Silicone matrix sheets can then be embedded with Boron and Phosphorus atoms.

When exposed to sunlight, the Boron atom losses it’s easily excited fifth electron, which travels the Silicon matrix using the Phosphorus “hole” to the conducting collection grids on both sides of the photovoltaic cell and permanently exits the cell.

Only segments of the solar spectrum activate this flow and it must be captured on both sides of the panel to create a circuit. The required capture grid blocks some of the incoming energy and the net result is 10% efficiency, or approximately 100 watts per square meter, and only within limited ambient temperature ranges which prohibit lenses or mirrors for simple amplification.

Efficiencies as high as 40% are available with exotic materials, but then one must address the ‘high cost of free’, which applies to every ‘green’ technology. Silicon, Phosphorus and Boron are common elements, but to mine, refine and bring on line has a cost. That cost is reflected in ‘cost payback’ of 5 to 7 years depending on the system and level of government forced subsidy. But these costs are based on low cost carbon based energy systems providing these materials.   Regardless, this is a ONE-TIME, ONE-WAY EROSION PROCESS with a total system life of less than 20 years.

Solar cells produce only Direct Current, which is electric power by the migration of electrons, and in typical PV cells is only 1.5 volts. Alternating Current creates a voltage, but transfers power as a wave, rapidly cycled between positive and negative, with little actual electron migration. The first municipal Edison power systems were DC, but transmission loss and multiple voltage issues prevented success, and the Tesla-Westinghouse developed three-phase AC system became the driving force for modernization.

Converting DC to AC involves a conversion loss in an inverter, boosting to higher voltage and converting to more efficient three phase causes additional losses due to the Carnot Cycle. If you connect a hydro-turbine to a pump, you can only pump a portion of the water flowing from a dam into water pumped back to the dam. If you use the hydro-turbine to generate electricity, then use an electric pump to pump water back ablve the dam, then the losses are even greater. The combined losses converting 1.5 volt DC to usable 50 kV, three phase transmissible AC power is forever technically impossible.

Ignoring just these physical limitations, supposed science leading publications like Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Discover, regularly show fanciful space based systems where vast arrays of solar panels, positioned around the planet, beam “sustainable” microwave energy back to Earth based antennas to provide 24 hour service. Never mind all the limitations above, now add the Carnot loss converting to microwaves on both ends of this system. Limitations to the field density of this transmission would require massive antennas, or large, “no fly zones” for humans, and instant on the fly cook zones for any stray birds.

To overcome solar wind and lunar gravity changes, these microwave transmitters would require constant realignment, or the transmissions would wander off the receiving antenna. The fact that this science fiction is presented as anything other than TOTAL FICTION, is proof that these publications are all “pop” and no science.

Much like paying your Visa bill with your Master Card, this parasitic ‘clean’ energy cannot provide the ‘spare’ energy to avoid ‘dirty’ energy. There is a constant loss of electrons in this system and power production erodes over time until, at twenty years, they are useless. The Silicon sheets are protected with glass covers which require periodic cleaning and are subject to damage from hail and wind debris.

Solar cells efficiency is also a function of azimuth angle and reduces with higher latitudes, and seasonal tilt angle. Systems with tracking ability have higher efficiency, but not recoverable installation costs. You get progressively less energy at the poles, precisely at the time when you need the MOST energy. To have usable power over extended periods requires a storage system. The most common of these is the battery, which is the heart of that ‘other’ planet saver.

   Dream Green Machine

Soon Electric Vehicles, aka EVs, will replace the nasty internal combustion engine and humanity will be in harmony with the Universe. The transition technology in this race is the hybrid auto and the front runner is the Toyota Prius. This undeniable marvel has a 120 pound Nichol-Metal Hydride battery that costs $3500 to replace or approximately $20 per pound. There again, a cost based on carbon energy providing the material production.

The ‘Metal Hydride’ portion of these batteries includes the rare Earth elements of Lanthanum, Cerium and Neodymium. These required green components do not willingly join the green cult movement. To have your treasured EV, this planet must be mined and those elements must be extracted and refined.

Due to chemical erosion thru use, these batteries have an eight year or 100,000 mile warranty period. You can save $450 per year on gasoline if you spend $450 per year on a battery. You can walk forever up the down escalator and still get nowhere. There is no way to improve or even ‘sustain’ our carbon-based life forms without expending some geologically stored carbon energy.

To the blue-green Hollywood Eco-Smurfs and Na’vi wannabe’s, we are NOT living on a green Pandora that needs rescue from the evil RDA mining company. Humanity will not be saved by mythical noble savages or a forced return to a primitive life style. It took most of the nineteenth century to formulate the Laws of Thermodynamics. It took most of the twentieth century to apply those laws to the benefit of society. There will be no solutions to problems in the twenty first century that do not comply with these laws.

Curiously missing from the Climatology degree plan is any mention of Thermodynamics. Avoidance of these Laws must give license to break these Laws. Thus clouds can have a negative factor during the day, with their pesky ‘albedo’ effect reflecting sunlight back into space and then just hours later have a positive effect by blanketing the warmth at night….a reflector or greenhouse at the whim of a Climatologist.

Climatologist can ignore the specific heat and thermal mass of the entire planet and provide a computer model PROVING that the trace human portion, of a trace gas, in the trace portion of the Earth mass that is the atmosphere, is the single greatest climate forcing factor. They can then empower this three atom molecule the unique ability to radiate in a reverse flow in opposition to all proven Thermodynamic Laws. This is lawless behavior, which is by definition, criminal behavior.

Environmental Side Note

Every ton of pure Polycrystalline Silicon, refined for photovoltaic use, produces EIGHT tons of Silicon Tetrachloride and Ammonium Chloridadized Silicon TOXIC waste. Similar levels of toxic waste are produced in the mining, refining and production of all batteries and the rare Earth elements needed for DC motors in Electric Vehicles and windmill DC generators.

Western monarch-monopolists have no use for meritocracy and have been at war with freedom and property rights for eternity. When the Chinese democracy movement threatened Universal Democracy at Tiananmen Square, it was feudal elites who rushed to prop up the Chinese dictators with western capital and western technology. The trade off was Chinese slave labor and environmental degradation to destroy competitiveness.

The reason that China is the main producer of all of these ‘green products’ is that China has a vast slave labor population, no property rights, no land use restriction and NO environmental restrictions. Just more proof of the blindness induced by wearing green goggles. We are borrowing money to subsidize non functional green energy to supplant functional energy….taxing, regulating and inflating our way to extinction….the ultimate darkness.

Article source: https://principia-scientific.com/green-prince-of-darkness-exposed/

August 3, 2020
$110T Renewable Energy Stimulus Package

$110 Trillion Renewables Stimulus Package Could Create 50 Million Jobs

The past few weeks of current events have led us to unprecedented levels of job and capital destruction, decimated consumer spending, underperformance by nearly all major financial markets, and a breakdown in the world fiscal order.

Even giant economic powerhouses have not been spared, with California–one of the wealthiest states in the United States thanks to its booming tech sector–having obliterated all its job growth over the last decade in just two months.

But now a renewable energy think-tank says directing those stimulus dollars to renewable energy investments could not only help tackle global climate emergency but spur massive economic gains for decades to come.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)–an organization dedicated to promoting global adoption of renewable energy and facilitating sustainable use–says that it will cost the global economy $95 trillion to help return things to normal.

Investing $110 trillion in renewables could, on the other hand, potentially spur an even more robust economic recovery from COVID-19 by creating massive socioeconomic gains as well as generate savings of $50 trillion-$142 trillion by 2050.

The big question is: Will the world’s governments be willing to put their money where their mouths are?

A Deluge of New Jobs

IRENA alleges that channeling all those stimulus dollars into the renewable energy sector would grow global GDP about 2.4 percentage points faster than the currently recommended scheme and spur a 13.5% increase in global welfare indicators such as education and health.

Related: This Oil Price Rebound Is Only Temporary

But here’s the kicker: investing that amount of money in renewables could quadruple the number of jobs in the sector to 42 million as well as create tens of millions more in related industries. In other words, it could easily create more than double the 26 million jobs that the United States has so far lost to the pandemic.

IRENA director-general Francesco La Camera says COVID-19 has “…exposed deeply embedded vulnerabilities of the current system…” notably the fossil fuel sector which is finding itself in dire straits due to an epic collapse in demand amid a global lockdown. Francesco has opined that the world needs more than a kickstart and that accelerating renewables can potentially achieve multiple economic and social objectives that would help build a more resilient economy.

Beyond 2050 and over the long-term, the report identifies investments in ‘five key pillars of decarbonization,’ namely electrification, renewable energy generation, system flexibility, green hydrogen, and innovation–as being necessary for the achievement of a near- or zero-carbon global economy.

Too Much Rhetoric

Not surprisingly, the renewable energy sector has lauded the report, with Ignacio Galán, CEO of Spanish power company Iberdrola, saying aligning economic stimulus with climate goals is crucial in enhancing the long-term viability of the global economy.

A previous report by the IEA aired pretty much similar views, with IEA executive director Fatih Birol saying some of the stimulus packages being rolled out by governments should be invested in the renewables sector:

“We have an important window of opportunity. Major economies around the world are preparing stimulus packages. A well-designed stimulus package could offer economic benefits and facilitate a turnover of energy capital which will have huge benefits for the clean energy transition,” he said.

The IRENA report has also come in for some panning, with Charles Donovan, executive director of the Centre for Climate Finance and Investment at Imperial College London, saying its long on facts and figures but short on actionable interventions that governments can undertake right now to bend the carbon emissions curve.

Related: Shale’s Decline Will Make Way For The Next Big Thing in Oil

But what are the chances that IRENA’s ambitious ‘Transforming Energy Scenario’ that aims to lower global CO2 emissions by 70% by 2050 through channeling stimulus dollars into clean energy will see the light of day?

Unfortunately, slim-to-none.

The report has already sounded a warning on the “widening gap between rhetoric and action” by governments regarding climate change.

COVID-19 has resulted in a significant reduction in CO2 emissions due to travel restrictions and depressed economic and manufacturing activity, it will end up being far more inimical to the sector.

The IEA has warned that governments are likely to deeply scale back on clean energy investments, with the current year set to record the first fall in solar energy growth in nearly four decades.

Meanwhile, EV sales are expected to come to a standstill for the first time in more than a decade as well as trigger a dramatic reversal in the incremental shift away from coal-fired power plants.

The unfortunate fact is that whereas governments everywhere have been paying lip service to climate change and clean energy, in reality, they are wont to go to much greater lengths to try and save the fossil fuel sector from collapse than invest in clean energy projects with much longer and unproven paybacks.

Credits: Oilprice.com

April 25, 2020
Batteries for Grid Backup

Distributed energy platform provider AutoGrid has been developing “co-optimisation” capabilities that will allow residential battery storage deployed to mitigate power outages to continue participating in market opportunities such as joining virtual power plant (VPP) programmes.

In a recent interview with Energy-Storage.news, AutoGrid general manager for new energy, Rahul Kar, acknowledged that California’s recent wildfires had led to people “putting in a lot more batteries,” in the state as they seek to keep their lights and appliances running as utilities enact public power shutoffs that can last for days, or even weeks or months. A report out this week from analysis firm Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables appears to back this up, finding that California was by far the US leader in behind-the-meter residential storage deployment in the final quarter of 2019.

As reported by this site previously, Kar said that Japan – where AutoGrid is participating in a 10,000 asset virtual power plant (VPP) programme with local partner ENERES – and Australia are also markets where disaster consciousness, be it from storms, fires or earthquakes, are helping drive a strong uptick in interest and purchases of batteries. It helps that these markets already had experienced some deployment of home storage, Kar said.

“One of the use cases is something we are working on with ENERES, is how we provide emergency planning,” Car said.

“Suppose you have an imminent disaster or suppose there’s a storm coming, if there’s an earthquake warning, is there some way that you charge up all the batteries under your control so that it provides relief for whatever period that battery is available for?”

While a technical barriers to doing that is having in place the right software and intelligence to co-ordinate the charging of those batteries, for instance processing weather forecast data and feeding it to networks of many many units, being able to create “co-optimisation capabilities” could turn out to be important for the economic case for customer-sited, behind-the-meter energy storage. It also helps that batteries bought to backup loads for at least several hours at a time tend to be higher capacity in kilowatt-hours than those sold purely for optimising solar self-consumption.

“Suppose someone needs to be ready for offering emergency services like in an imminent storm, while participating in the market, while making sure you’re still optimising the rate tariffs that the customer is on, while making sure that you’re not feeding it back to the grid,” AutoGrid’s Rahul Kar said.

“All of these things are like constraints in the multi-scale optimisation algorithm, and that’s not easy to solve in real-time across hundreds of thousands of DERs. That’s why we invested quite heavily in solving that problem for well over two and a half years and that’s bearing fruit right now.”

Customer acquisition the primary barrier for grid services programmes

After all, Kar said, there have been some VPP projects around the world that show great promise. South Australia’s VPP network programmes that battery storage system providers Sonnen and Tesla have signed up to participate in, are planned to reach a scale of tens of thousands of units over the next few years.

With those being government-run programmes that include systems deployed on public housing helping bulk up numbers, the main barrier until now – and likely in the future – for other VPPs is getting customers to not only buy the batteries but also sign up to join programmes. The latter consideration extends also to making not only the customer understand what they’re signing up to, but also to making the network and the battery manufacturers come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.

“The primary limitation [to VPP participation] is, as with any aggregation play, customer acquisition. That’s where the primary cost goes to. [But also] customer comfort, when you’re acquiring the customer, that you have the right contracts in place.

“In certain cases the battery manufacturer may not give you complete control over the battery while the customer wants complete control, stuff like that in the contracting phase. There has to be a very simple and clear communication to the customer as to what they’re signing up for.

“If you want to use their batteries for grid services, what sort of payment they’ll get from that and so on. The simpler you make it for them, the easier the customer acquisition. That still is kind of the primary barrier of scalability, which is, especially on the residential side, if you’re trying to aggregate tens of thousands of batteries and sign up residential customers, that’s a pretty significant cost,” Kar said.

Energy-storage.news

March 14, 2020
Energy Consumption by Country

2020

Few people can argue that electricity isn’t one of our world’s most greatest inventions. After all, electricity allows up to light up our homes without the need for candles or lanterns, lets us watch television, and even is used to charge or power the computer or smartphone you’re using to read this.

While electricity does have its advantages, there are also some disadvantages. This includes the need for large, expensive infrastructure, millions of wires and cables, and dangers in the home, such as electrical fires. Power plants also create pollution, which degrades the quality of the air that we breathe as well as contributes to global warming.

In this article, we’re going to explore the top consumers of electric energy around the world. Topping this list is China. Based on data from 2017, China consume over 6.3 trillion kilowatts of energy per hour annually. However, the highest consumption of energy per capita does not go to China. Instead, that honor goes to Iceland. Overall, Iceland is ranked 73rd in the world based on its total energy consumption at 17 billion kilowatts per hour annually. However, the average energy use per capital is about 50,613 per person per year. Compare this to China, which has a much larger population and an average energy use of 4,475 kilowatts per person per year.

The United States is the second largest consumer of electric energy in the world with over 3.9 trillion kilowatts per hour used each year. Other nations that use at least 1 trillion kilowatts per hour per year include Russia and India.

On the flip side, there are nations that consume very little electric energy as a whole. The lowest is the Gaza Strip, which consumes roughly 200,000 kilowatts per hour per year.

February 8, 2020
Texas and Renewable Energy

2019 Texas Produced More Renewable Energy Than Coal

Last year Texas generated more energy from renewable sources than from coal, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

Texas produces the most wind energy of any state in the nation, and its solar energy capacity is growing rapidly.

Earlier this year, Texas’ wind energy output surpassed its coal energy production for the first time.

Texas uses the most coal in summer and winter, during which hot and cool temperatures lead to high air conditioning and heat use and put more demands on the energy grid.

In 2019, the sum total of renewable energy produced in Texas did turn out to be more than coal. Last year, energy facilities in the state produced 21.5% of energy from renewable sources (wind, solar, hydro and biomass) and 20.3% from coal.

Here’s the catch: Those hoping to see Texas produce primarily renewable energy, have a long wait ahead. The state still makes more energy from gas, a largely non-renewable resource, than from any other form of energy.

Although Texas generates three times the wind energy of the next most prolific state, Oklahoma, and is poised to increase solar power production by up to 30 times the current level, according to the council’s numbers, this year Texas generated 47.3% of its energy from gas sources.

Data from Electric Reliability Council of Texas

While natural gas burns cleaner than coal, most of it still has to be extracted from the ground, it exists in a finite quantity and creating energy from it still pollutes the atmosphere.

Some natural gas can be gleaned from decomposing natural matter in places like landfills and waste water, but right now the process is expensive and complicated to produce. If the process is refined, it might become a viable source of energy, especially because bio gas, as this form of natural gas is known, can be stored in and travel through existing natural gas infrastructure, per Michael E. Webber, a professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin, stated last year.

Because of the sheer quantity of existing natural gas facilities, and their owners’ expectations that they continue to be used, switching to a more renewable energy future in Texas is more complicated than simply installing more wind turbines and solar panels and connecting them to the energy grid, Webber said. Still, over time, as renewable production becomes cheaper and easier, the trend toward more green energy production is likely to continue.

January 11, 2020
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Malawian Teen Taught Himself How To Build A Windmill From Junk, Brought Power To His Village, ALL Learned From Library Books!

Many people think about changing the world, making a difference, or becoming something more, but few have the courage to act on that impulse. Stories of innovation and success inspire us and should be shared, and none are as inspirational as the actions of a Malawian teenager who taught himself how to build a windmill and brought power to his village.

William Kamkwamba was 14 when he struck with poverty and famine; today, he is an influential inventor and speaker.

Dropping Out of School Didn’t Stop Him

Kamkwamba was born on August 5, 1987, in Dowa, Malawi. His childhood was spent on his family’s farm in Masitala Village, Wimbe, about two hours from Malawi’s capital city. Kamkwamba was the second eldest child among six sisters, Annie, Dorris, Rose, Aisha, Mayless, and Tiyamike.

Kamkwamba studied at the Wimbe Primary School from first to eighth grade and was accepted to the Kachokolo Secondary School. However, a severe famine in 2002 forced him to drop out of school when his family was unable to pay the $80 annual school fee. He had completed only a few months of his freshman year and was unable to return for the next five years.

Still, Kamkwamba wouldn’t be defeated by his unfortunate circumstances. At 14, he began borrowing books from a small community lending library at his former primary school. There he found the book that would change the course of his life.

It was an 8^th grade American textbook called Using Energy and it had wind turbines on its front cover. It inspired his idea to create a windmill to power his family’s home. Until that point, the house used kerosene for power, which resulted in weak, smoky, and expensive light after nightfall.

The Windmills Were Just the Beginning

The teenager went to work. First, he built a prototype of his invention with a radio motor. Then he constructed his first 5-meter windmill out of a broken bike, tractor fan blade, an old shock absorber, and blue gum trees. He hooked the windmill to a car battery for storage, and his invention was complete. He successfully powered four light bulbs and charge mobile phones for his neighbors. His windmill even had a light switch and circuit breaker created from nails, wire, and magnets.

Later on, he expanded this windmill to 12 meters to catch more wind and create more power. Then he built another windmill to pump water for an irrigation system.

The young inventor was just getting started. His next projects provided clean water for the village, malaria prevention, solar power and lighting for six households, a deep well with a solar-powered pump to create clean water, a drip irrigation system, and uniforms and shoes for the Wimbe United village team. Quite appropriately, the uniforms are sun and wind-themed and took the team on a winning streak that filled the village with unity and pride.

Word spread about the wonderful windmill, catching the attention of Dr. Hartford Mchazime, Ph.D., the deputy director of the MTTA, the Malawian NGO responsible for the community library that inspired the young inventor in the first place.

Mchazime brought the press, including the Malawi Times, who wrote a long cover story about Kamkwamba. Soyapi Mumba and Mike McKay, engineers at Baobab Health Partnership in Malawi wrote about the article, and news of Kamkwamba’s inventions spread to Emeka Okafor, the program director for TEDGlobal. Okafor searched quite diligently to find Kamkwamba and invite him to the conference as a speaker. Kamkwamba’s talk led to additional mentors, donors, and companies to support his education and further projects.

In 2014, Kamkwamba graduated from Dartmouth College and began to work at Ideo.org as a Global Fellow. There he focused on Human Centered Design, which sent him on missions around the world including sanitation projects in India and preventing gender-based violence in Kenya.

Today, he works with WiderNet to create a technology curriculum that will allow students to make the connection between “knowing” and “doing,” as he did at their age. This content will be distributed around Malawi and across the continent. [1]

It’s safe to say he’s now famous, and deservedly so. We need more heroes like him, and his story might be the inspiration they need to take action. [2]

October 12, 2019
Renewables Lead Peak Energy

It can be hard to get your head around just how much energy the world uses. Expressed in terms of oil, it was equivalent to almost 14 billion metric tons. That’s like burning through all of Russia’s proved reserves in the space of 12 months, which is, in technical terms, a lot.
But there’s an even trickier issue to ponder: What does it even mean to “use” energy? Granted, that sounds like something you might hear from a stoner at the engineering faculty. But it’s an increasingly important question as renewable energy and electrification expand.

Harry Benham, an oil-industry veteran who now runs Carbury Consulting, wrote an elegant blog post this summer about the fundamental difference between thermal energy — mostly from burning stuff or splitting atoms — and what he calls the “universal energy” captured in wind and solar power. While earlier shifts, such as swapping wood for coal, are often called energy transitions, they were really substitutions of one thermal source to another. But wind and solar “are different energies in kind, not degree.”

The big thing here is waste. Broadly speaking, when you burn a gallon of gasoline, perhaps only a quarter of the energy released actually goes into turning the wheels. The rest is wasted, mostly as heat. In other words, you buy roughly four gallons of gasoline to get the useful energy of one. Renewable energy doesn’t work that way, with wind turbines or solar arrays effectively capturing energy from the ether. Yes, they only convert a portion of the energy hitting them into electricity, but that energy is infinite and hasn’t had to be mined or pumped and transported.

This presents an apples-and oranges-problem for statisticians. Here are projections of global primary energy demand in 2040 from BP Plc and the International Energy Agency.

Related: Global Investments in Electricity Beat Investments in Oil and Gas for Second Year in a Row

The estimates for thermal energy from fossil fuels and nuclear power are very similar. The “other renewables” bars are different largely because BP excludes some non-traded fuels that the IEA measures.

The really interesting difference concerns hydro, solar and wind power. BP’s higher figure isn’t because it is more bullish on these. Rather, in order to make the renewables figures comparable with the ones for fossil fuels and nuclear power, BP grosses them up as if they also produced waste energy. The IEA doesn’t do this, so its figure represents just the energy derived from a solar panel, wind turbine, or hydro plant. The IEA figure is 36 percent of the BP one, similar to the 38 percent conversion factor BP uses to adjust the data.

There are pros and cons to both approaches. The IEA’s reflects the fundamentally different nature of renewable energy, but at the cost of making its share of the market look very low: Solar and wind are 11 percent of BP’s mix in 2040 but less than 4 percent of the IEA’s.

By far the biggest element in both forecasts, though, is the one you can’t see: waste.

Here are BP’s projections, but with a few adjustments. First, I’ve grouped them into thermal sources (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, biomass and biofuels), hydro power, and wind and solar power. Then, I’ve assumed a flat conversion efficiency of 38 percent for the thermal sources (i.e., the amount of useful energy they produce). This is in line with BP’s assumed average for thermal power plants and is used across the board for the sake of simplicity:

The numbers aren’t exact, but the picture is clear: Perhaps 60-70 percent of what we call primary energy isn’t usefully consumed at all.

That’s a moot point when fossil fuels plus nuclear power dominate. Their sheer energy density (the power they pack into a small volume) combined with, in the case of fossil fuels, inconsistent or absent pricing of greenhouse-gas emissions, has made them dominant. Waste heat just comes with the territory.

But as renewable energy falls in cost and makes inroads, especially in conjunction with increased electrification of things like heating and transportation, it becomes a far more interesting issue. Consider an electric car being charged mostly with power from renewable sources. If it replaces a car running on gasoline, then it doesn’t just displace the useful gallon turning the wheels, but also the other three that were just making the radiator do its job.

In his blog post, Benham proposed a thought experiment, shifting some estimates around on energy consumption and the growth of solar and wind power. Using my broad assumption on conversion, BP’s projections imply useful energy demand — that is, excluding the implied waste — growing by almost 1.2 percent a year from 2020 to 2040. Hydro power grows by about 1 percent a year (it’s hard to build dams everywhere) and solar and wind together by an average of just under 7 percent a year (front-loaded and down from 20 percent in the previous decade).

Now plug in more aggressive numbers for wind and solar, growing at an average of 10 percent instead through 2040 and dropping to 7 percent in the next decade (leaving everything else unchanged):

In case it needs to be said, this isn’t supposed to be an accurate picture of the future. The point is to show how renewable energy, at higher penetration, subverts the way we think about the world’s energy consumption. By displacing not only useful thermal energy but also the waste, renewable sources add to the overall level of useful energy while simultaneously slowing and even reversing the growth in primary energy consumption.

A growing world economy and population coupled with flat or even falling primary energy demand might seem paradoxical. But we’ve seen it happen already in the U.S. and some other countries (see this recent analysis by Nikos Tsafos at the Center for Strategic & International Studies).

At the very least, the rise of renewable sources means we should be thinking about “useful energy” as a way of adding up our needs rather than just “primary energy.” Competition from renewable technologies, coupled with higher electrification, represents a decisive break with the past. All that primary energy that isn’t actually being used is like a target on the incumbent system’s back; especially as, for some fuels, it also serves as a metaphor for more pernicious forms of waste, such as carbon dioxide. As with any other industry, such excess invites disruption.

by Liam Denning, Bloomberg Opinion

September 28, 2019
Energy Efficiency is the Global Economy’s “Hidden Fuel”

The global demand for power is rising. Although the increasing prevalence of solar farms and lithium-ion batteries is making energy expansion greener, the need for ever-increasing volumes of electricity remains an issue.

Instead of having to resort to traditional sources, there may already be a new source of energy within the global power grid: energy efficiency.

While the term is often associated with localized changes aimed at reducing power bills, energy efficiency goes further than just reducing energy consumption. Imagine two separate buildings with two unique heating systems, one standard and one energy efficient. The building with the energy-efficient system can provide the same level of energy with a lower cost, thereby reducing operating costs and increasing net operating income.

According to research by the IEA, each dollar spent on energy efficiency displaces $3 of utility-scale transmission and distribution investment. Each dollar of energy saved also has a corresponding potential reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since it is cheaper to conserve energy than it is to build it, intelligently harnessing energy reserves by reducing wasteful usage is one of the most available energy resources today.

Financial incentives for consumers are also a component of energy efficiency. Besides reducing utility costs, information compiled on a building’s power consumption could someday be monetized and sold to third parties from either residential or commercial properties for a profit, adding further incentive.

The policy push behind energy efficiency

Concerted policy efforts to attain energy efficiency are also underway elsewhere. The North American Energy Working Group was founded by the US, Canada and Mexico in 2001 as a joint effort to enhance energy cooperation on the continent. By instituting minimum energy performance standards in all three nations, the group has prompted the emergence of policies targeting energy efficiency.

In Canada, for instance, all regulated energy-using products, whether imported or shipped between provinces, must carry an energy efficiency certification mark from an organization accredited with the Standards Council of Canada.

Reducing energy wastefulness in commercial buildings

The building sector has the largest potential for delivering long-term, significant and cost-effective greenhouse gas emission reductions, while National Resources Canada stated that energy efficiency, achieved through retrofits and other means, is a “high-volume, low-cost approach to reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.”

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One method for managing a building’s thermal performance more efficiently is improving its windows. Properly treated or glazed windows reduce heat gain by reflecting heat energy while reflective coatings reflect solar energy, according to the Whole Building Design Guide. By properly treating windows, the amount of air conditioning needed to offset a rise in temperature can be reduced.

Larger changes, known as deep-energy retrofits, can involve replacing a heating system or reinstalling a building. “Due to their disruptive and cost-intensive nature, deep-energy retrofits are usually triggered by non-energy-related factors, such as a significant change in building occupancy.

How tech is reducing energy waste

Properly managing current energy use is also paramount to reducing GHG emissions, an area of focus the tech sector hopes to address. Companies like Kontrol Energy are working to introduce technology solutions to help reduce their customers’ spending and emissions while maximizing energy efficiency.These reductions are achieved, in part, by leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is essentially the name for the interconnectivity between devices that can generate and share data in real time. In Forbes, Jacob Morgan writes that the IoT “includes everything from cellphones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of.”

Data collected from the IoT by companies like Kontrol Energy can track the energy output of each device so users, ranging from building managers, asset managers and institutions, can reduce waste in their energy consumption. For instance, a company using smart lighting to monitor its light usage can identify if conference room lighting is contributing to an overly high electricity bill. If so, the company can install sensor lighting that will automatically shut off if no movement is detected to curb energy waste.

IoT can essentially turn a building into a live system of connected devices reporting information in real time. This technology allows users to take greater control of their energy expenditures and is reinventing the power distribution industry, according to Ghezzi. “Through this real-time energy management, building owners and assets managers gain access to deep analytical profiles of how energy is used and also where there are potential for improvements and savings,” he told INN.

Monetizing efficiency

Numerous governments offer tax credits for buildings that comply with energy-efficiency standards. The US’ Energy Star program, for instance, provides a “tax deduction of up to $1.80 per square foot to owners or designers of commercial buildings that meet certain standards.” However, this is just part of the financial incentive for monitoring energy use data.

Data gathered from energy usage can become an independent revenue stream. After compiling energy analytics and usage trends, building owners could potentially sell this data for a profit to third parties that could use it to better target services to their customers.

For example, a utility company could use this data to improve customer satisfaction or to garner insight on a customer’s likeliness to purchase additional utility-offered services.

This new influx of information is helping to radically shift relationships between consumers, providers and the ways they view energy. “From a disruption perspective, similar to how the taxi industry was disrupted by Uber, the utility industry is experiencing massive disruption from energy efficiency and distributed energy generation,” said Ghezzi.

“There are over 120 billion square feet of commercial real estate that consume close to US$240 billion in energy costs per annum. The energy efficiency opportunity alone within the North American commercial building sector is in excess of US$70 billion per annum,” he added.

September 20, 2019