The Time For Leadership
Again, Obama and McCain have this strange belief that we can invest in offshore drilling, nuclear power, clean coal, and as an afterthought, some renewables.
Obama thinks that $15 billion a year will do the trick for the green economy. McCain doesn't know what a green economy is, unless it glows green in the dark.
The energy payback time; i.e., the time it takes to return the energy required to build and operate an energy system, is over ten years for nuclear power. There would be no net contribution to our energy needs by a massive expansion of nukes, but a new giant deficit. There is no such thing as clean coal, as we know to be true. Global warming is not some parlor game, it's a matter of survival. If we don't kick Big Carbon out of the game, we all die. It's that simple. Drilling our way to "Independence" is an absurd and dangerously suicidal notion.
Energy payback for solar thermal and wind technology is about 6 to 9 months. Ocean power systems are around one year. Other solar technologies, like photovoltaics and biofuels, are somewhat longer and more resource intensive. The capital intensity, and by definition the labor intensity of renewable solutions, is nearly 100%. We are talking about 30 million new jobs as the potential!
So, if the only answer is renewable energy, then why not focus all of our resources to get it done?
It will take over ten trillion dollars to do the job in the U.S. alone. The global solution is nearer to 30!
$15 billion a year is factor of 20 too low. Obama has his heart spread too thin. McCain's is in the wrong, dark place.
How can we achieve the desired result?
We need real commitment.
We need new alliances.
We need new leadership.
Obama thinks that $15 billion a year will do the trick for the green economy. McCain doesn't know what a green economy is, unless it glows green in the dark.
The energy payback time; i.e., the time it takes to return the energy required to build and operate an energy system, is over ten years for nuclear power. There would be no net contribution to our energy needs by a massive expansion of nukes, but a new giant deficit. There is no such thing as clean coal, as we know to be true. Global warming is not some parlor game, it's a matter of survival. If we don't kick Big Carbon out of the game, we all die. It's that simple. Drilling our way to "Independence" is an absurd and dangerously suicidal notion.
Energy payback for solar thermal and wind technology is about 6 to 9 months. Ocean power systems are around one year. Other solar technologies, like photovoltaics and biofuels, are somewhat longer and more resource intensive. The capital intensity, and by definition the labor intensity of renewable solutions, is nearly 100%. We are talking about 30 million new jobs as the potential!
So, if the only answer is renewable energy, then why not focus all of our resources to get it done?
It will take over ten trillion dollars to do the job in the U.S. alone. The global solution is nearer to 30!
$15 billion a year is factor of 20 too low. Obama has his heart spread too thin. McCain's is in the wrong, dark place.
How can we achieve the desired result?
We need real commitment.
We need new alliances.
We need new leadership.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by charles metrailer on -
i'm having a hard time understanding how a solar or wind genreator can pay back the cost of construction in six to nine months.......if it were true everyone would be building them......i myself would spend 10 million tomorrow if i could have the entire amount returned to me in six to nine months....you know what they say about....if it sounds to good to be true.....i look forward to seeing your figures....make sure you include the price of construction the amount of power generated in the first nine months....you also said that tidal genrators would pay for themselves in a year.....again, all i need is numbers.....i'm an engineer with 40 years experience in electrical design and construction and have followed developments in wind, solar, tidal and even hamster power.....somehow i missed all the conclusions that you have come to.......what am i missing......
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on -
Charles,
Your concern reflects the skepticism that has blocked renewable power development for over a century.
If you standardize the wind farm system design, and build them in large factories, as we have begun to do and several other countries have done, not only is there an economy of scale in production costs, but a reduction in the energy required to build a high-efficiency system. Depending upon where the wind turbines are deployed and how well they are sited relative to transmission lines, the energy payback is between 6 and 9 months. If you look online, there are many analyses of this fact.
Solar thermal systems also can have an energy payback of the same order when sited in reliably sunny locations, like the Mohave, Gobi, Atacama, Sahara, and other deserts around the world, and are used in cogeneration applications. Ridgecrest was a classic example of a 6-month payback system. Look at my Web page for details.
Ocean power systems are not the one you spoke of, it is ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) that has the shortest energy payback time. The studies we performed at MITRE and JHU/APL came to the same conclusion: a one year payback on full-scale production plants. There is iinfo in the OTEC group and at my Web page on Pickens.
There is too much material to discuss here on the technology.
Our concern is that new leadership is required, and I hope that you agree that we are following the path over a cliff, not to self-sufficiency and survival.
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on
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It has been a long-term campaign for some of us veterans already. I can attest to at least 42 years' worth, and some of my personal friends and colleagues, God rests their weary souls, were fighting these battles in the first quarter of the last century!
I knew warriors who worked on the Manhattan Project, were the brains behind Apollo and the Shuttle, designed and built the first photovoltaic devices and solar collectors, designed and built the first multi-megawatt wind turbines, and designed and built the first functioning Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plants ever put to sea.
American know-how is the greatest in the history of the world. I know the guys who can prove it in the past, in the present, and in the future.
Pickens Plan is the first political movement to at least begin to fix the problems we face. But its focus is too narrow and half its technological solution is unsustainable and counterproductive. I support the other half, and implore Pick to change his mind to fix the bad half.
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Permalink Reply by Luane Todd on -
Dr. Paul
As a long term observer of the various energy alternatives being promoted here and elsewhere I would be interested in your take on what part of the technological solution being promoted here is unsustainable and counterproductive. I have my own ideas but feel you are in a better position to assess the current proposals than I am. Which half are you in favor of?
I would like to see more focus on removing obstacles, in the form of regulations on alternative energy implementation, which would let we, the creative people trying to secure our own areas of influence (communities, states, regions), proceed in a timely manner.
I don't think there is any 'one right way' to address our needs beyond my favorite method--pay attention to how Nature works and see if we can duplicate that. By definition that will mean that some things work better in some areas than others.
I look forward to your responses.
Lu
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on
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Luane,
In PickensPlan.com, the Plan is to utilize Wind power specifically in a 200 mile-wide corridor of the Midwest US running from West Texas roughly NNE through North Dakota to the Canadian border. This land exhibits wind power properties of an extraordinary nature; i.e., scale 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 in power over time -- energy. It also happens to overlap a series of geological formations, known as shale, that contain enormous quantities of natural gas. The potential is an amount of gas nearly as large as that which we have already burned here in the US, about a quadrillion cubic feet.
One problem is that the gas cannot be extracted economically at today's prices. In other countries, the nations who have vast amounts of economically recoverable gas can produce 20 times as much as the US at one tenth the price, and ship it to us cheaply in LNG tankers.
In addition, since we have only recently discovered that the earth is overheating at an alarming rate because of Man's thirst for fossil fuel, the vast majority of civilized nations have banded together to halt the spread of fossil fuel combustion and to conserve energy. Most nations, but not the US, have decided to switch as soon as practicable, to renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biomass, and ocean power. This overheating is known as global warming. The outcome if we do not follow the lead of the other nations is very simple. We may be sentencing all our children to death, or at the least to a life of misery and starvation. Many Americans do not believe this truth because they have been lied to by the lobbies and minions of Big Carbon. As a NASA scientist, I am swearing before Almighty God that we the people of the United States are committing an act of the most heinous: Crime Against Humanity, by not acting to reverse our addiction to oil, gas, and coal.
We are killing our own babies.
The PickensPlan.com statement is that we want to use CNG as a bridge to provide time so that the alternatives may be found and perfected for our use.
This CNG plan is total BS. CNG is compressed natural gas. It is compressed to about 250 psi, or around 17 atmospheres, to increase its density, so that you'll only need 2.5 gallons to go as far as 1 gallon of gasoline used to take you in a car.
The only problem is that we are already importing nearly 5 trillion cubic feet of gas each year to meet our current needs. We have a choice: Do we import another ten trillion cubic feet to meet the demand of using CNG in half of our cars and trucks, or do we rely upon our gas industry to drill another few thousand gas wells in the shale to see if the gas is really there and produce enough to meet our needs at ten times the cost of the imports?
Well, that sums up the natural gas part, except for a couple of loose ends.
One, and this is an ironic twist, is that Pick just signed contracts to build the first wave of windmills on the property involved. He is importing the towers from China as prefabs, and the mills from Germany. So much for truth, justice, and American Green jobs.
Two, and this is a show stopper, the wind turbines go when the wind blows, not when you want them, necessarily. The Plan is to displace oil and gas now used as intermediate and peaking power by the utilities in the Midwest when the wind turbines are running. Well, that ain't how it works. The utilities make power to meet demand on command. The wind blows when it blows, not on command.
The utilities may actually use more gas after the windmills go in than before to match the generation of power with the load.
The displacement of energy, if there is any, may be of coal and nuclear power, which is much cheaper.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pick is busy buying up water and mineral rights on these Midwest properties.
Now, all of this is hearsay, at least the part about what Pick is doing. I also heard that he bought options for oil to go up in price and gas to go down.
If he did, he lost his shirt.
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Permalink Reply by EARNHARDT on -
I find watch you said about buying the wind mill parts from china and Germany very disturbing. that's the total opposite of what Mr Boone said where doing here and would like him to comment on that.
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on
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It's all out there. Just look. Pick also admitted that he bought oil options and sold gas options. He lost two billion dollars as a result.
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on
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CW,
Your system is small compared to big utility jobs and using very large production facilities to supply the equipment. Wind farms in the 100 MW range are the right scale.
This is energy payback, not economic return on investment.
Economics depends on many other factors.
Take away all incentives and on a level playing field, we all win.
--Paul
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Permalink Reply by Lou De Frog on -
To repeat what Dr. Paul is saying. The amount of energy used to build a wind generating system is paid back in energy within 9 months. The energy used to built a nuke plant is paid back in energy in 10 years.
If we have to pay interest on the money needed to buy the energy input used for each of these systems, we also have to understand that if interest rate goes up it can take a great deal longer to pay off. If debt is too large the energy return on investment will be inadequate to even pay off the debt.
This is the reason that Solar Photo Voltaic is a non starter. It's output is too small to justify the massive amount of energy used to produce the stuff. We are talking energy return on investment - EROI.
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Permalink Reply by Lou De Frog on
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I'd be happier if we were using the fossil fuel to build the alternate energy systems. If we leave it much longer and burn the stuff in our autos, we won't have anything to work with.
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Permalink Reply by WALTER REED on -
Hi Charles;
Dr. Curto's numbers are approximately correct. Many variables have changed since the 'last energy crises' that we experienced in the late 1970's and early 80's. Our government and the public are not terribly talented at 'long range planning'. I was a serious participant in large solar projects during that pioneering period.
The cost per peak watt for photovoltaic cells has come down from $8.50 per Watt to approximately $3.50 per Watt today. One bone thrown to the industry from the Washington-Wall street bailout fiasco was raising the Federal Tax CREDIT from 25% to 30%! Various states offer attractive State Tax Credits and incentives, such as California. Here, the result, right up front, is a capital recovery net at approximately 50% of the investment. Higher prices are now paid for sold power and full price is appreciated for avoided power purchases. Additionally there is tax depreciation. Ok, so far this is a large tax advantage. Power is from the sun (free) through reliable, long lived photovoltaic arrays. The result is some attractive returns, but there are variable to consider.
For example, if the land use is a capital consideration, then economics fail. Accordingly, that has to be first evaluated for any such project. Roof tops of factories and warehouse are really good candidates as there is typically no land charge as the factory or business may be buying the power at a discount or attractive arrangement through the investor (which may be the business themselves). An array place on the roof of a business or factory also provides a bonus of ventilated shade, which significantly reduces air conditioning loads.
Wind mill systems also appreciate the tax credits, and can currently have a very favorable ROI. There are many other 'alternative energy' technologies worthy of consideration, having very attractive pay-backs and returns. I myself, work on a few of these new technologies. Just dig a little deeper and I think you will find some very interesting opportunities with handsome returns.
Kind regards,
Walter Reed
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Permalink Reply by Bill Tucker on -
I believe that Obama is on the right path but with too low a dollar number. How ever six months ago most Americans had not heard of T. Boone Pickens. To make my point clearer, sometimes things must be said in order to position your self as a leader. Even though I believe that 30 million new jobs would turn some heads I also believe that under the present economic circumstances that if Obama or anyone else for that matter shifted gears and turned that 15 billion dollar number to 300 billion they would be committing politcal suicide at this point.
We need a leader in Washington that knows renewables are the answer, we also need to drive home the point about 30 million production based jobs here at home in the first 100 days of the new President's office. With financial markets still in a free falland less than thirty days before the election I do not believe there is an alternative.
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