Great essay on entropy, energy and confusing coincidental access to a resource endowment with economic, institutional or racial superiority.
The hard reality is that the minority of us who happened to have been born in a few powerful countries squandered half a billion years of stored photosynthesis to give ourselves a brief period of spectacular economic abundance, and by doing so, foreclosed the chance that anybody else would enjoy that same abundance in the future… All the extraordinary things our species has done with fossil fuels over the last three hundred years are functions, in effect, of the difference in chemical potential energy between a barrel of oil and a cloud of smoke… The great majority will make themselves believe in zero point energy and evil space lizards and any other absurdity you care to name, rather than gulp and take a deep breath and admit that the prosperity we’ve enjoyed for the last three centuries was bought at our grandchildren’s expense.
On the other hand, we may get ourselves and our descendants out of jail if the investment of this endowment in education and research allows us to discover a new process to capture energy before we run out of the wherewithal to roll it out. Looks like it will be down to the wire, and come from discoveries in biology rather than chemistry or physics.
You’ve got to hand it to Venter. After capturing the lead role in sequencing the human genome (one sample turned out to be his own) he spends a few years sailing around the world taking water samples and sequencing the unknown organisms within them. Now he has ExxonMobil backing his latest venture to engineer a fuel-producing algae.
ExxonMobil announced a commitment to invest $300 million over five to six years in Synthetic Genomics, which Craig Venter founded and now leads as CEO, and to spend an additional $300 million on a complementary internal algae program. The push is to take advantage of algae’s ability to efficiently transform sunlight into lipids that can be relatively easily converted into diesel, gasoline, and possibly even advanced hydrocarbons used to manufacture plastics, chemicals, and other products. By the barrel, algae fuel provides three to four units of energy for every unit used to make it — a ratio that approaches petroleum’s [falling] 5-to-1 level of efficiency… Venter’s company has been developing strains of bioengineered algae that ramp up the output of lipids and can in some cases produce hydrocarbons directly… A study in 2004 at the University of New Hampshire concluded that 30 million acres–a space the size of South Carolina–would be required to grow enough algae to satisfy U.S. transportation needs…
Another new algae to biofuel process – consuming CO2 to produce fuel; too good to be true?
Joule Biotechnologies grows genetically engineered microorganisms in specially designed photobioreactors. The microorganisms use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into ethanol or hydrocarbon fuels (such as diesel or components of gasoline). The organisms excrete the fuel, which can then be collected using conventional chemical-separation technologies… the new process, because of its high yields, could supply all of the country’s transportation fuel from an area the size of the Texas panhandle… The company plans to build a pilot-scale plant in the southwestern U.S. early next year, and it expects to produce ethanol on a commercial scale by the end of 2010. Large-scale demonstration of hydrocarbon-fuels production would follow in 2011… While algae typically produce oils that have to be refined into fuels, Joule’s microorganisms produce fuel directly–either ethanol or hydrocarbons. And while oil is harvested from algae by collecting and processing the organisms, Joule’s organisms excrete the fuel continuously, which could make harvesting the fuel cheaper…
CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising about 25% faster than the IPCC predicted only 2 years ago, and are on track to reach 450 ppm by 2040 instead of 2100; but the US Chamber of Commerce wants to put global warming science on trial.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change… complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect… to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court… In the coming weeks, the EPA is set to formally declare that the heat-trapping gases scientists blame for climate change endanger human health, and are thus subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act… “The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable,” said a recent letter to world leaders by the heads of the top science agencies in 13 of the world’s largest countries, including the head of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the economist who came up with cap-and-trade in the 1960s, Thomas Crocker, said, “I’m skeptical that cap-and-trade is the most effective way to go about regulating carbon.” Crocker said he favors imposing a firm tax on emissions that would be easier to enforce.
Australia’s climate plan was defeated in the Senate where minority parties hold the balance of power. It’s still likely to pass in November.
Labor’s planned Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) would have reduced Australia’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 5% of 2000 levels by 2020, or 25% of 2000 levels if other major developed countries agreed to similar cuts. Australia is the biggest per-capita emitter in the developed world, largely because of the country’s heavy reliance on coal-generated power.
This is the year to buy solar panels, as polysilicon prices drop punishing those that bought forward when prices quadrupled at $145 oil and countries (eg. Spain) pull their subsidies in the face of the credit crunch.
Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year… Until recently, panel makers had been constrained by limited production of polysilicon, which goes into most types of panels. But more factories making the material have opened, as have more plants churning out the panels themselves — especially in China… At the same time, once-roaring global demand for solar panels has slowed, particularly in Europe… Spain slashed its generous subsidy for the panels last year…
Some concern about China calling for a ban on rare earth exports, resources which they almost entirely control and which are vital to many high-tech products though their mining is environmentally damaging..
A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs. China mines over 95% of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia… The rare earth family are hard to find, and harder to extract… Each Toyota Prius uses 25 pounds of rare earth elements…
The European Union has begun a three-year process to phase out the use of traditional incandescent light bulbs. Starting today, old standard frosted light bulbs and clear bulbs of 100 watts and more will no longer be manufactured or imported into the EU. The EU estimates the switch from incandescent bulbs to more efficient ones will bring energy savings of 25 percent to 75 percent compared to the traditional bulbs.
Hot, dry geothermal is struggling to scale to commercial profitability.
Hot dry rock found deep underground is one of the most abundant potential sources of clean energy. Drilling holes into the rock, fracturing it, and pumping water through it to extract the heat, and then using that heat to generate electricity, could supply the world’s energy needs many times over… In practice, however, harvesting that energy is proving a challenge, in part because developers have located the first projects in earthquake prone regions…
Gunnar Grecksch, a geophysicist and hot-rock fracturing expert at the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geosciences in Hanover, Germany, says follow-on efforts in the U.K. and Japan failed for the same reason: the fracturing of the rocks was never sufficient. “Flow resistance is still the key problem,” he says. “In none of these projects were the flow rates in the range you need for a commercial system.”
The Economist rounds up the tradeoffs in the approaches to electric cars.
One is to accept the range limit and design small, thrifty vehicles specialised for city use. This has the virtue of simplicity and the vice of inflexibility. The second is to add a petrol-driven generator known as a “range extender”. This complicates the mechanics, but provides the driver with a security blanket, for he knows he will never be stranded if he can find a petrol station. The third answer is to keep the car all-battery, but to introduce a network of battery-exchange stations similar to the existing network of petrol stations, so that someone who is running out of juice can pull in, swap over and pull out.
According to Bosch’s calculations, a conventional internal-combustion-engined car can travel 1.5-2.5km on a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy. A hybrid with a combined electric and diesel engine would go up to 3.2km. But a battery-powered car can travel 6.5km.
GM is claiming 230mpg in city driving for the Chevy Volt. The calculation apparently doesn’t count the energy used to charge the batteries overnight, so on this basis any fully electric car gets infinite mpg.
The Volt, which will be introduced late next year, is designed to run for 40 miles from a single charge of a lithium-ion battery pack. After the battery is partly depleted, a small combustion engine is designed to kick in to recharge the battery and power the vehicle… The Volt is designed to be recharged at a standard electric outlet… that would reduce the cost of the first 40 miles of driving for some Americans to as little as 40 cents, the cost of recharging the car overnight in a garage…
Germany proposed spending 500 million euros in a program to encourage electric autos.
Volkswagen says it hopes to put its first electric cars on the market in 2013. Daimler is working with Tesla Motors of California on better battery and electric drive systems. Daimler and the utility RWE plan to unveil an electric car and charging station test in Berlin this year.
Chinese auto company BYD, part-owned by investor Warren Buffet, plans to bring an all-electric sedan in small numbers to the U.S. next year.
BYD plans to offer a few hundred of one of its most advanced cars in the U.S., the five-seat e6, which takes seven to nine hours to fully charge and has a 250-mile range…
According to the United Nations, by 2020 water use is expected to increase by 40% to support the food requirements of a worldwide population that will grow from 6.7 billion people to 7.5 billion people. The U.N. estimate is that 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with extreme water scarcity… We’ll be able to produce oil and water for decades, but it will cost significantly more to do so. This will result in much higher commodity prices as farming requires prodigious amounts of oil and water… Brazil, Russia, and Canada also have the greatest amount of renewable freshwater…
Bioethanol from corn turns out to be an inefficient way to convert fresh water to ethanol.
Environmental Science & Technology are reporting that production of bioethanol — often regarded as the clean-burning energy source of the future — may consume up to three times more water than previously thought… Previous studies estimated that a gallon of corn-based bioethanol requires the use of 263 to 784 gallons of water from the farm to the fuel pump.