Keith wrote: > (I was an environmentalist campaigner 40 years ago > when it was eccentric to do so. I don't call myself an environmentalist > these days -- even though I feel the same about the preciousness of the > natural world -- because many of those who say they are environmentalists > are saying and doing the silliest things.)
Yes, the so-called green parties often advocate or condone anti-environmental policies (immigration etc.), but if real environmentalists stop calling themselves environmentalists, then the fakes have the monopoly on that name... OTOH, when you deny climate change, you can indeed hardly call yourself an environmentalist... > Without going into detail* about any of the alternative energy technologies > which have been proposed so far, none of them show any efficiency > improvement over burning coal, oil and gas The supply of solar energy is so vast (a tiny fraction of the Sahara desert alone receives enough sunlight to cover all humans' energy consumption!) that the same efficiency of burning fossil fuels is more than sufficient! And if solar technologies would receive enough funding, its efficiency could be greatly increased. > So there's no hope of any of them coming into > large-scale play yet (without government subsidy). As a kick-off, government subsidies are okay, especially in an era when everyone talks about multi-billion government spending to help the economy... > I don't think that > billionaires are any more "insatiable greedheads" than most of the rest of > us If they weren't _more_ "insatiable greedheads" than most of the rest of us, they wouldn't be billionaires! (At least they would give away most money.) > *[Afterthought] I didn't want to write about these details because I have > written draft after draft ad nauseam in my new book [A Species in the > Making] to be published in India in a couple of months. So it's occurred to > me to add some of the relevant pages here. Why don't you publish it in UK? No publisher willing to take it? > 'Green' alternatives > > And then it is frequently suggested that there is a whole bunch of > alternative technologies deriving energy more or less directly from the sun > -- wind turbines, tidal barriers, wave machines, solar panels, etc -- which > can take over from fossil fuels. The basic problem with all these is that > they are themselves manufactured and maintained using the conventional > technologies of the industrial era which involve substantial use of fossil > fuel energy. You start off with a non-argument: Actually, it doesn't matter that the manufacturing energy came from fossil fuels. What matters is the EROEI alone, and on this you are also wrong: > When full energy costs for manufacture, maintenance and then end-disposal > of any of the usual 'green alternatives' are calculated, they turn out to > be more than the energy derived from their lifetime use. The EROEI ratio > (Energy Returned On Energy Invested) is negative. This is clearly untrue. The EROEI of solar panels is estimated to be between 3 and 30. Your claim that the EROEI ratio is "negative", shows a basic lack of understanding -- even the worst energy-losing ratio could only be between 0 and 1, but not negative! You are so hell-bent on negative propaganda that you defy maths. > The only analysis that I have been able to find after years of searching > that takes all these energy costs into account considers that no > combination of alternative energy systems can possibly replace fossil > fuels. (7) Not true in terms of EROEI, and much less true since the solar energy input is so vast. > What is even more eloquent evidence is that the major oil companies, having > dipped their toes into alternative energy research for a number of years, > are now turning back to the one sure source they know -- fossil fuels, this > time from coal fields, tar sands and oil shales. This is an absurd claim of "evidence". The oil companies have only "dipped their toes into alternative energy research" in order to buy it out and sabotage it! They have no real interest in competing sources of energy as that would ruin their core business. > In any case, all the non-nuclear alternative energy technologies mentioned > above only achieve about 20% energy conversion from natural power or > sunlight into electricity when transmission costs are taken into account, > even when energy investment and energy decommission costs are ignored. This still means that a part of the Sahara desert alone can cover humanity's energy consumption. > The only possible new energy technology which could achieve more efficiency > than this is the manufacture of hydrogen by bacterial methods directly from > sunlight. This is PR from the genetic tinkering industry. Not necessary. Also, you totally ignore efficiency gains within existing fossil technologies. The main energy consumption in private households is heating and cars. Zero-energy houses have already been built in Europe, as well as cars with 300 to over 1000 mpg. Chris _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
