Wake Up Call for Green Energy

[Southside]

Mt Tambora, 1815, The Little Ice Age.  Our impact is but a grain of sand in the desert if mother nature decides to say "Hold my beer".  Yes we need to be mindful of our natural resources, and that includes the economic security of our society, because folks don't give a Dang, and rules don't matter, when people are cold, hungry, and broke.  

[Ianab]

You mean, like wind.
So how much energy do you feel is expended to lift a 1200ft fully loaded container ship twice at dock for 24 hrs if you had to do it without the tide? How much would it generate when it went back down, without the tide.

Good question. There is obviously going to be gravitational potential energy there, in the same way that there is with water in a hydro dam. 
Say for example your container ship weighs 50,000 tons and your tide moves it by 6 metres
The formula is mass (kg) x gravity force (9.8 m/s²) x height (m) = energy (joules) 
50,000,000 x 9.8 x 6 = 2940000000 joules. (sounds like a lot) 
A joule of energy is equal to 1 watt for 1 second. 
So it works out to 817 kw/hours. That's the theoretical potential power available in the system, so subtract a bit because it won't be 100% efficient. So maybe you can get 750 kw, for 2 hours a day?  Maybe some extra generation can be had as the tide lifts the ship again? Not sure on the maths of that, but assume it's potentially similar, but relates to the volume / buoyancy of the ship. So hold the ship down until high tide then let if float and generate on the way up?
But feel free to check my rough maths here, but I Think it's about right. 
So while it's physically possible, no laws of physics are being bent etc. I can't see the economics working out. It's a freaking huge generator that's going to produce less power than one medium size windmill, or a small field of solar panels, and while it's output is predictable, it's intermittent on a rolling schedule. (Tides)
You could of course also mount some Tesla batteries, a windmill and solar panels on your tidal float and really boost the output? You have a few acres of open space to work with. 

[barbender]

Yeah Southside, I was just explaining to my kids that typically people only care about the environment when they are well fed and comfortable. I told them if I was starving, I would probably shoot the last buffalo. Either it's going extinct, or I am🤷‍♂️

[Ianab]

Mt Tambora, 1815, The Little Ice Age.  Our impact is but a grain of sand in the desert if mother nature decides to say "Hold my beer".  Yes we need to be mindful of our natural resources, and that includes the economic security of our society, because folks don't give a Dang, and rules don't matter, when people are cold, hungry, and broke.  

As you say, a large volcano can produce a noticeable change, but it's temporary. If one of the Super-volcanoes (Yellowstone or Taupo) lets rip it might be opposite of global warming for a while. It's happened before (and will probably happen again) 

But as humans are dumping about 33,000 million tons of CO2 into the air each year, do you really think that has zero effect?  

The climate does change over time, we know this. The issue is that if it changes over say 100 years, the disruption will be serious. The Earth is still actually in a cooler than average period, but has gone from -4C below average to -3 over the last ~100 years. Not enough for us to really notice, but a pretty rapid change on a geological scale. 

It's not the end of the world, but people can also end up cold / hungry / broke due to the rapid changes. 

[stavebuyer]

I am not saying that burning carbon doesn't have negatives. I am saying that anything done on a global scale will also have drawbacks that may prove to be every bit has harmful. Setting those arguments aside there also lies the reality that the current system isn't adequate to meet current demand. Increasing demand by wholesale mandated conversion of vehicles while shuttering CO2, Nuclear, and in some cases Hydro generation will not end well.

Build the solar arrays and the Tesla's but don't pull the plug on IC's, hybrids, and Natural gas until the "new" stuff actually exists.

I remember an old M.A.S.H episode when they burned every stick of furniture trying to stay warm. Thats the only possible outcome of increasing demand while diminishing supply. There is going to be angry folks without power looking to take out their frustrations. We may see an increase in CO2 emissions from politicians being burned at the stake.

[Ianab]

Never said it was going to be easy or cheap. 

IC engines ARE going to be around for the foreseeable future, because there are still ~70 year old cars on the road. No reason too think you won't be able to buy gas for your 70-2022 vehicle in 20 years time. Just there might be one fuel pump and 5 charging stations? 

[SwampDonkey]

Never thought one or two degrees over a few decades or a century as a crisis, could just as easily swing the other way as it did from the 30's into the 70's. Look at the UK, the jet stream shifted since the war toward the north making winters milder. CO2 didn't move it north or I'd like to see the half baked math on that theory. Hurricanes, have not had a real intense one since 2014, hardly hear of one this year up until recently nothing to speak of and not all that much to them. Interesting how the planet is actually getting greener. Means you can grow more acreage, not less. Had a couple dry years here, this year as normal as it can get, only 2 days around 90F, lots of cool stretches as I've always recalled in 50 years. Frost hardiness maps of this region has had no change in the last two 30 year averages. The last map introduced two new zones, so tiny they don't show on the map. Highly suspicious data. It's like comparing temperature in a city to 5 miles away in the country, it's a lot hotter in a city of tar and concrete, and at an airport surrounding by pavement. This is biased data, big time. One thing that is certain is that a crisis is what some of us perceive and push as such. Not everyone agrees.

[mike dee]

The bottom line is it's cheaper to conserve energy than to make it. There has to be a shift towards conservation of resources and away from conspicuous consumption.

The issue is conservation is contrary to our culture. You need to convince people that they don't want to live in McMansions and drive oversized SUV 4WD minivans and fly around the world for weekend holidays and eat out-of-season foods imported from around the world. Personally I don't find guys like Al Gore credible telling us we need to do more to go green as he flies around in a private jet and his home consumes more energy than a small town.

The whole going green and carbon tax/credit movement is simply a money grab and and effort to create a market where there isn't one.

[Gary_C]

The bottom line is it's cheaper to conserve energy than to make it. There has to be a shift towards conservation of resources and away from conspicuous consumption.

We have a winner.   8)

The future is going to depend on the efforts to conserve energy, not on picking energy sources, green or otherwise. When governments try to influence the future, things will go wrong. Trying to "play God" with nature is never going to succeed. 

Yes, I know when I started this topic I said it was not political but unfortunately the information age we are in is always tainted by politics. I have read all the very good analysis of various energy sources expressed here but there are points in all the information presented for each energy source that is always tainted by politically correct bias.
For example, nuclear is discounted because of fears of accidents and the spent fuel storage problem. But there are a couple of new types of nuclear reactors under development that may cancel those fears. Also when comparing ethanol to other fuels they charge the cost of producing ethanol going all the way back to clearing the land to grow the corn. The basis for comparison is never equal. 

A planned economy for the energy future can lead you to being on "the ash heap of civilization." Especially when it is based on politically biased information. 

[SwampDonkey]

Picked up two baskets of peaches today at the grocery, Okanogan grown from British Columbia. Not everyone out there had a failed crop it seems. ;)

[Don P]

Ever notice bad things happen when we dig up stuff? Whether its long lost glittery star dust or buried ancient forests and mud puddles. 

Burning coal and oil was not popular when they were introduced. They are nasty, explosive, sooty. They were the new alternative fuel to disappearing forests a century or so ago. The wood was clean and didn't freaking explode! Who needs coal and oil, how times change, and change.

Someone mentioned that a few degrees one way or the other isn't a big deal. An ice age is triggered if we drop about 5 degrees from what was "normal". All it takes is a little more white every year and a number of repeats. I suspect cooking off the water is about the same. How much liquid water do you see in the neighborhood? We live in an incredibly narrow band of conditions, don't fool yourself.

[SwampDonkey]

Every creek is full of water around here. None of the lakes are dried up. And if you stand outside in the rain, well, it's wet. :D

In the 70's apparently it only took one or two bad winters of blizzards to make it an ice age. That's all Suzuki needed. And that isn't very good science. :D  Apparently by 2050 we will be into a mini ice age, sun is heading to a cooling phase.

[gspren]

How do you feel about seeing windmills out in the ocean when you are at the beach? Reason I ask is every trip we make to our Delaware house there are stories in the local papers and people claiming the windmills will destroy the tourist industry saying people will quit coming if there are windmills out there. I will add that the proposed windmills are huge but the closest to shore would be about 9 miles with most being further. Personally I think while some may be offended by the sight I feel others like myself may enjoy seeing distant windmills.

[Hilltop366]

I can see 3 windmills from my house, 2 smaller ones are 4 miles away and one much larger one is 7 miles away, I barely notice them on land in the ocean they may stand out a bit more.

[rusticretreater]

Did you ever notice that folks scream about climate change when a temperature breaks a record?  

That is the time I blow these arguments up.  What, it broke a record from 1896? Wonder what they did to really heat things up?  What did they do to stop climate change from happening?  We should do it too!  Crickets.

I recently read in The Atlantic where the US Forest Service is going to give out multiple mining permits in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho.  There is a huge deposit of Cobalt in the mountains there, enough to supply the needs of the US for years.  The Biden administration deems it a national security priority to mine there as the military has a huge need for the metal too. Most of the cobalt in the world is mined in the Congo and 84% of it goes to China.  There are current claims in the area that are said to contain 40,000 lbs of cobalt, enough to last the US 5 years.  A pristine forested mountain area about to go under the knife.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/01/cobalt-clean-energy-climate-change-idaho/621321/

The double edged sword.  EVs need batteries, batteries need rare earth metals and you've got to mine to get them.  Save the environment by gashing the environment.  Where do all the materials come to build the latest Apple products or Tesla vehicles and batteries, wind turbines or solar panels?  By gashing the environment.  Cradle to grave, its all environmentally damaging no matter which side you are on.

[Joe Hillmann]

The bottom line is it's cheaper to conserve energy than to make it. There has to be a shift towards conservation of resources and away from conspicuous consumption.

The issue is conservation is contrary to our culture. You need to convince people that they don't want to live in McMansions and drive oversized SUV 4WD minivans and fly around the world for weekend holidays and eat out-of-season foods imported from around the world. Personally I don't find guys like Al Gore credible telling us we need to do more to go green as he flies around in a private jet and his home consumes more energy than a small town.

The whole going green and carbon tax/credit movement is simply a money grab and and effort to create a market where there isn't one.

Conservation is key, but our entire economy is built on the idea of: spend more, do more, make more, consume more than you did the year before.  At this point it is literately growth for the sake of growth.  And if growth slows down, or worse, doesn't happen our economy grinds to a halt.

[TW]

There is so much propaganda floating about concerning the European energy shortages so I would like to add a bit to it from a Finnish/Swedish horizon. I live by the border being of Swedish ethnicity living on the Finnish side of the border. Those who drew the border on the map in 1809 did not ask us where to draw it. Therefore I know a bit about both countries.

The main and urgent problem is the reliance on Russian energy. This is not a matter of partisan politics in Europe. Or...well...it is..... there are some extremist groups on the outermost right wing fringe and some extreme pacifist groups on the left wing fringe who don't care.

However for the vast mayority of the population and the politicians the debate is concerned with how much and in what way we shall support the Ukrainans and end our depencency on Russian energy. Of cause people are more concerned about the Russian problem the further east you go in Europe. We have seen the propaganda spilling over the border from Russia and rekon that if Putin can show off a victory of sorts in Ukraine there will be further invasions elsewhere in Europe.

The reliance on Russian energy was in part a failed political attempt at strenghtening the ties with Russia in order to avoid a new cold war and in part it was the result of NIMBY politics and in part a result of free market ideology. Anyway now we are in the thick of it and need to find a way out.

-Nuclear power plants have proven to be prime bomb targets in the eyes of the Russian czar. Not to mention the unsolved environmental problems with the nuclear waste
-Hydroelectric cannot be developed any further than there is water to power it. What could be done at the moment would be converting old abandoned mill dams and such to run small power plants producing 10-200 horsepowers apiece. Big business isn't that interrested in such small scale activities and the NIMBY environmentalists want to have their rivers untouched.
-Wind power is at the moment heavily subsidixed and new power plants pop up everywhere. However the production is highly intermittent.
-Solar power is also heavily subsidized and people are installing solar panels on their roofs everywhere but this is also a very intermittent supply. In mid wither with 4 hours of gloomy daylight a day and snow on top of the panels they don't produce much.
-Tidal power is still in the experiment stage. In the Baltic we have no tides worth rekoning with but there are some places along the Norwegian and Irish and British and French and Dutch coasts where it might work.
-Coal caused mayor air pollution in the past and is now identified as a threat to the climate. Up here the ongoing climate change is very obvious to anyone who is over the age of 40.
-The easily exploitable oil sources are running dry worldwide and oil also contributed to climate change.
-Naural gas was for a long time marketed as a solution though it also affects the climate. The gas in the pipelines is Russian and the revenues feed Putin's empire.

So..... we are pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place. We have been there before and we have a good supply of jacks and pit props so we will make it through but at the moment there is a bit of a pinch.

Various political groups promote one energy source over another and usually promote their source as the key to continued growth and total electrification of everything and soaring consumption in the future but in reality there is no such magical solution on a planet with finite resources.

We must learn to use less and rebuild the economy to become less reliant on exponential growth in consumption while making the best of the energy sources on hand. Electric cars are now becoming a pie in the sky as they would use more lithium and more electricty than this planet can supply. Just like nationwide gas pipeline networks became 20 years ago when global warming became obvious. We just have to face the reality and make do. Some haven't yet realized and are still caught in a dream from the past.
One day you Americans will be in this situation too. Unfortunately.

[Jeff]

On the ground informative. Thanks for the post!

[bigblockyeti]

We must learn to use less and rebuild the economy to become less reliant on exponential growth in consumption while making the best of the energy sources on hand. . . . . . . . .


One day you Americans will be in this situation too. Unfortunately.

I'm under no false illusion we aren't already.

Learning to use less is tricky, there's much that I want and can afford without financing that self restraint can be difficult at times.  I've been shopping for something between a 3/4 ton a 1 1/4 ton truck but it's a want and not a need, for many in this country a want is more than enough justification to act.  I see 3/4 and 1 ton trucks with a only a driver, hauling nor towing anything with the vast majority of miles they've accrued just being used to get from point A to point B.  If they accelerate, stop or handle too well or they aren't inefficient enough from the factory, a lift kit with huge mud tires will fix those problems and does wonders for Exxon stock.  This conspicuous consumption will help lead us into dire straits at an accelerated rate.  I felt a little guilty going from a 65% to 70% aspect ratio on the new tires I got for my little truck 4 years ago as I knew it was working in the wrong direction when efficiency is the goal.  I've put less than 16K miles on those tires now as I drive the car @25+mpg when I don't need the truck so the extra fuel is in the $10-20 range over those 4 years.

My next car will likely be a Stanley Steamer with a good horse as a backup.

[Southside]

To me it sounds like you are suggesting that either our quality of life or our population must be reduced. 

I am standing about 2 hours from the ocean right now. A couple of hundred million years ago the ocean was 5 miles from here.

There are shark teeth in a dirt mound 8 miles from our place in north western Kansas, lots of shark teeth, you really can't get any further from the ocean than there.

The climate has always changed and always will. I am all for conserving our natural resources, but not at the expense of my pretty simple existence so that elites can fly around in private jets and tell me how evil I am. 

[bigblockyeti]

I'm not for a reduction of either, that does weigh heavily on what might some subjectively consider "quality of life" and all that entails.  The folks in the jets, yeah, they are the problem.  Flying all over the world in a private jet to talk about climate change and emissions reductions is ludacrous.

[barbender]

It seems that green or clean energy in the average person's mind is changing nothing about your lifestyle, and putting up solar panels and windmills to "fix" everything🙄

 Case in point. We have friends that have a college aged daughter. She became caught up in fighting climate change with evangelistic fervor. I even heard her on the local public radio station one day, giving folks helpful tips on how to fight climate change. You know, take a vacation close to home instead of flying somewhere and that sort of thing. Not long after that, mine told me this girl was flying out to California for 3 weeks to nanny for a family she knew. Now I thought if fighting climate change was important, there's gotta be someone local in CA that can nanny. But who am I to judge. After this incident, one of my daughters mentioned this girl had drove to Duluth (about 80 miles one way) to go to a fast food restaurant that had a menu item she wanted. Drove over there, ordered, came back🤔 At this point, I was beginning to suspect that either- A. She doesn't take climate change as seriously as she claims, or -B. She has already counted herself among the elite climate overlords that blast out carbon dioxide as much as they please while peasants like myself go back to living in huts. 

 I haven't got to have a conversation with this young lady since, but I assure you if she gives me any lifestyle/climate advice it will get very interesting😁

[Don P]

It's not malice, but it is cussed ignorance  :-\

[TW]

That sort of ignorant and blind climate warriors are a threat to climate I rekon. They turn people away from a good cause. Pestering us who produce stuff all while they pretend to be so independent of the fossil fuel that brings them everything they buy at the supermarket.

I am doing what little I can. Haven't been inside an aeroplane in 10 years. Drive a minivan that uses extremely little fuel for being a functional builder's work van. Use a bicykle for short distances. Have quit using the outboard motor and only row or sail on the water. Saving energy and cuting down consumption whenever I can witout making it a hindrance.
I am fully aware that I cannot save the planet alone but if we all tried to do what we can it would put pressure on politicians and businesses to make it possible to go further. Little by litle we could turn the ship around I rekon.

[brianJ]

For some reason biofuel was mostly skipped in the attempted switch from gasoline and diesel to electricity.  Even though gas vehicles being made and sold to day may still be working 20-30 or 40 years from now so having a way to power them on man made fuels from renewables feels like it should have been a priority.
 Especially since there are many applications where electric simply won't work,  It would be easier to run farm equipment that is run 20 hours a day at harvest time with some type of liquid fuel than it would be to run it on electricity due to the charging time and the fact that most fields don't have charging stations set up for the two times a year that a bunch of equipment will be needing to recharge in a very short window.  A  fuel that can be brought out in a fuel truck and fuel things up in minutes is what is needed for most farm and construction equipment and isn't possible with batteries YET.  Man made fuels from renewables would be a great midway point between diesel and electricity.

Well actually the answer is simple.  The harvest machine tows a wagon with the 6 or whatever ton battery.   After 4 or whatever hours then unhitch the wagon & unplug the battery to switch in a different one.      As always the economics of such are an issue and not the engineering.