bigenergyquestion_blue.png

The Big Energy Question: What to Develop Next?

Posted by Marianne Lavelle of National Geographic in The Big Energy Question on September 5, 2012
(49)
More »

Some of the people who could shape the energy future have a maddening aversion to playing favorites.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the U.S. presidential race, where President Barack Obama endorses “all of the above” energy strategy, the same approach, word-for-word, touted by the opposition Republican party. The GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, is a tad more specific, placing greater emphasis on the U.S. “cornucopia of carbon-based resources.”

Here are just a few examples of proposed next energy directions, as expressed by their strong advocates. How do you rate these ideas, and why? We will follow up with a look at your feedback and what the experts say about setting priorities on energy.

What’s the best next energy solution? Give your rating for the answers below and share your thoughts in the comments.

 

Solar Resources (Including Wind and Biofuel)

“Prices for renewable energy are decreasing constantly…Since installations producing renewable energy (in particular wind and photovoltaics) can be directly set up in those regions that need it, a widespread transmission infrastructure will be superfluous. What is more, wind and solar… do not need water for cooling and produce no emissions. The conclusion is inescapable: investments in renewable energy today are the only chance to reach a cost-effective energy supply for everyone everywhere.” —the late Hermann Scheer, member of German parliament, who spearheaded that nation’s feed-in tariff for renewable energy

 

Heat-Mining the Earth for Geothermal Energy

“[Enhanced Geothermal Systems are] one of the few renewable energy resources that can provide continuous base-load power with minimal visual and other environmental impacts. Geothermal systems have a small footprint and virtually no emissions, including carbon dioxide. Geothermal energy… requires no storage, and, thus, it complements other renewables…in a lower-carbon energy future. In the shorter term, having a significant portion of our base load supplied by geothermal sources would provide a buffer against the instabilities of gas price fluctuations and supply disruptions, as well as nuclear plant retirements.” —Massachusetts Institute of Technology interdisciplinary panel

 

Natural Gas for Transportation

“Oil monopolizes about 95 percent of the world’s transportation, and OPEC…controls nearly 80 percent of the world’s conventional oil reserves. We cannot change anything fundamental if we continue to permit oil and OPEC… to maintain their dominance…

The only realistic way to [provide competition for OPEC] is to enable vehicles, in short order and with relatively little investment in new infrastructure, to operate on alternatives to petroleum products… Cheap natural gas, which is key to ending our vehicles’ oil addiction affordably and promptly, can destroy oil’s monopoly and OPEC’s cartel.” –T. Boone Pickens, Texas oil and gas executive and investor, and  R. James Woolsey, former U.S. Director of Central Intelligence

 

Energy Efficiency

“For the next few decades, energy efficiency is one of the lowest cost options for reducing U.S. carbon emissions. When efficiency improvements [are] both properly chosen and properly executed, the projected savings of energy and money [are] indeed achieved. Too often… savings [go] unrealized, due to… poor efficiency investment decisions and shoddy workmanship… Market failures include inertia, inconvenience, ignorance, lack of financing…Regardless of what the skeptics may think, there are indeed 20-dollar bills lying on the ground all around us. We only need the will—and the ways—to pick them up.”—U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu

 

Research to Spur an As-Yet-Unknown “Breakthrough”

“Any proposal to fix environmental problems by turning away from technology risks worsening them, by attempting to deny the ongoing coevolution of humans and nature…The Y2K computer bug was fixed by better computer programming, not by going back to typewriters. The ozone-hole crisis was averted not by an end to air conditioning but rather by more advanced, less environmentally harmful technologies….We already have many nascent, promising technologies to overcome ecological problems. Stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions will require a new generation of nuclear power plants to cheaply replace coal plants as well as, perhaps, to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and power desalination plants to irrigate and grow forests in today’s deserts.” —Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, cofounders of the Breakthrough Institute

 

Photo credits, from top to bottom: Rim Rock wind farm, courtesy NatureEner; geothermal plant in Iceland, Shira Golding/Flickr; natural gas-powered UPS truck, biofriendly/Flickr; LED light bulbs, greenplasticamy/Flickr; hydrogen energy storage research, Brookhaven National Laboratory/Flickr

Keywords: , , , , , ,
(49)
More »

Comments

  1. James Cleland
    Edmundston
    December 29, 2012, 8:52 am

    Most thermally generated electricity is generated via condensing power not using a cogeneration process. These plants are about 30% efficient.If we utilized cogeneration and heat recovery. We could use this waste energy to heat homes and hot water and for some industrial processes.
    We use about 20% of our electricity to light outside areas. If we consider the light that is wasted by lighting the sky,sideways glare ,areas that are lit all night with little or no activity ;about 90% of this is waste.
    We have allowed our rail systems to deteriorate so badly that goods that once took 7 days now take 30 days to deliver.Businesses cannot afford to have inventory tied up for 2 or 3 more weeks so now these bulk goods are delivered by truck.The trucks add $50 to $100 /ton to the cost of delivered goods ,make roads more dangerous and add to the cost of road maintenance.

  2. Osmand Charpentier
    PANAMA
    December 30, 2012, 7:38 am

    The tests and interviews for admission to Stanford and other universities of USA, are proof that the University gives no the ability, but only polishes the talent of the candidate.

    Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, too, are good examples of this.

    So it is possible there are solutions that do not arise from these universities, simply because they are solutions found elsewhere on our planet.

    OCEANOGENIC POWER. of Panama is one of these, and is superior to most of these. Why not consider it within the Great Energy Challenge?

    We are in the “Informatic Age” and global problems must be solved with global solutions, is anachronistic that any country, however powerful it is created, is isolated.

  3. Osmand Charpentier
    Panama
    December 30, 2012, 8:16 am

    Sorry, “Informatic Revolution” is better than “Informatic Age”

  4. Dr. KANTILAL KHATRI
    Trinidad (W.I.)
    January 3, 3:59 am

    It is so true that solution to most of technological problems come not from Universities but from high school drop out viz. Bill Gate and Steve Job.
    There are people who may not have academic career or qualification but may have passion and intuitive quality which if given support may be able to solve many of technological problems not by Reinventing Wheel but merely by improving already existing technology.
    For example I believe that Wind Energy could be achieved by innovative ideas of Windless Energy by improved technology of rotating Wind mill blades even when there is no wind or not sufficient wind! Does it m ake any sense? Yes it does to me. Because I think I do have ideas to do that! Unfortunately
    I am not able to materialize those ideas due to lack of support to do just that.
    I will be more than glad to get some positive response or suggestion about that.

  5. Concerned in CA
    January 5, 2:44 pm

    National Geographic has lost ALL credibility due to the sabatoging of information by Shell. All oil companies are responsible for gross environmental contamination in its long history of market manipulation. Oil companies like shell are responible for the death of people overseas where they neglect all american industry standards. Therefore do not trust what you read here. The ONLY SOURCE of knowlege is the UNIVERSITY the acedemic system. Nobody paid me to be a student and what I studied is truth not lies that oil companies spit out everyday. The future is carbon free or at least its efficient. The people who advocated and invented fuel efficient mechanisms in the past were murdered. Research truth! We must empower ourselves and stay away from oil industry. The sun is actually all we need.

  6. Xuezhong he
    Trondheim
    January 22, 3:44 am

    Development of renewable energy sources such as biogas could be the most promising alternative, while in short-term, fossil fuel is still dominating the energy consumption in the world. so CCS is the most attractive technology for the reduction of carbon emissions. shifting from coal to natural gas for power generation can significantly reduce the CO2 emissions. therefore, the next generation energy will still be the fossil fuel, but renewable will become more and more important in the near future.
    Membrane as an environmentally friendly technology, will be widely used in different energy processes, especially for CO2 capture, biogas upgrading, natural gas sweetening and PRO for power generation.

  7. Prof. Subramaniam Udhayamarthandan
    Tamil Nadu, India
    January 24, 2:10 pm

    All the above said solutions can not meet the long term sustainable energy in a consistent and abundant manner. First of all, any heat based energy technology calling for burning any form of matter- say Coal, Gas, Fuel, Bio fuel, Fire wood & Nuclear are unsustainable. The worst blunder humanity is committing is, by resorting & clinging to heat based energy systems as primary energy source & addiction to IC engines. Whereas the abundant fossil fuel reserves can be best utilized as non burning based organic resources for solvents, chemicals, polymers, materials, fertilizers, pharma etc, we are just burning out & exhaust lading into future uncertainties & climate change issues. Towards meeting sustainable ,long term, economical, consistent, abundant and cleanest energy resource we have the limited option of physical forms of energy resources feasible on this planet earth. Mother nature has kept the secret as non obvious & expect humanity to derive the source solution. So to say Solar, Wind , Tidal, waves & natural head based hydro power energies are to be phased out of the list. What else is the left out cleaner physical energy source for long term reliability? Is there any other source really feasible? How best it is sustainable ? Can it be applicable to all geographies? Can it be flexible for peak & base loads? Can it be retrofittable to existing prime mover systems without losing generator value? Can the gestation period of power plants made shorter? Can it be available consistently for 24 hrs X 365 days? Can the costs of energy be the lowest?- Well there is a positive reply feasible for the above posed complex multiple questions. The only long term reliable, sustainable clean energy source is the power of gravity. It is the only energy source qualify to answer the above posed complex multiple questions / demands . What is the best way to harness gravitational energy? Via Hydro Power. If the draw backs of existing hydro power plants are solved out, the solution is reached automatically. Problems & Solutions: Use of any water resource for hydro power. How? By artificial head formation. When heads can be artistically formed, we can expect more hydro power. The big challenge is returning water back to source after power generation. Hence the ultimate challenge is to solve the water lift problems. If we can lift water using indirect natural resource s without fuel / electrical energies, that is ultimate energy solution as well as solve all our water related problems. Extraction of Gravitational energy via fluid power is the ultimate energy resource.
    Prof. Subramaniam Udhayamarthandan
    Clean Planet Technology Initiatives for Sustainable Development.

  8. BRENILDO TAVARES
    Brasil
    February 9, 3:36 pm

    WHY NEVER IS REFERRED MARINE/OCEAN TIDAL ENERGY THE MOST PREVISIBLE AND IMMUTABLE SOURCE PROVED BY TIDAL TABELS ALL OVER THE WORLD DEFINED FOR MORE THA ONE THOUSAND YEARS.
    VALUES ARE DEPENDENT ONLY FROM MOON MOVIMENTS
    AND NEVER FROM DAMS WHICH CAN BE REDUCED ON RAINLESS UNCONTROLABLE PERIODS IF NOT ON DROUGHT CATASTROPHES ?

  9. Osmand Charpentier
    PANAMA
    February 11, 9:34 am

    Hopefully forgive me, Miss Lavelle. But your readers need a little explanation, more direct, of my discovery, against which, it is being spent a lot of money, so they will not publish:

    The Earth is a giant centrifugal hydraulic pump without flow. Therefore, we can consider any of these, as analysis model.

    No matter their inefficiency, when there is no flow of water: the efficiency is zero, and all the energy in the shaft, is lost in heat or internal energy, and self-recirculation. When the flow rate increases, so does the efficiency until it reaches its maximum; being transferred more energy from the shaft, and lowering the energy loss. That is, one flow is primed, which implies, a percentage of the total energy of rotation.

    The rotational energy of our planet is 63 yottawatt-hour, at 1% efficiency, we would have at our disposal 630 zettawatt-hour.

    Also, there are estimates of the energy in the powerful, ocean currents, that I think, the most powerful are 4; already such estimates of lost energy (370 Tw) is enough to justify our discovery. But the interesting thing is that, until the more inefficient, centrifugal pumps on our planet, if its impeller rotates, its efficiency is not less than 1% , Why think that the earth not have this efficiency, in the worst case?

    This is the source of OCEANOGENIC POWER of Panama, that only in Panama, with current technology, we can extract. Currently the net effect is a head of water of 0.3 to 15 meters between the Pacific and Atlantic, separated 70 kilometers (44 miles). When priming any flow, will happen the same as occurs in a centrifugal pump, which is nothing more that a chain reaction that will precipitate an energy in equilibrium that is front of our noses.

    At a cost of 3 cents per kwh, and the new HTS lines, makes available to all present civilization, enough, clean energy.

    With these costs and abundance, can be electrolysed at 200 Pa, onsite water to produce hydrogen and oxygen that it needs the existing USA transport: 33 TWH per day.

    Although it would be much easier, and would reach for the whole world, if, while we build the first OCEANOGENIC POWER plant: we increase the efficiency for move, our civilization, from the current 3% to 30%; through electric drive. We wanted to consider the use of brakes.

    With terrestrial Cryogenic nitrogen plants, and easy modifications to install on floating offshore platforms, or for take care of thunderstorms: semi or fully immersed; superconducting lines, underground or underwater, can carry from Panama, all the OCEANOGENIC POWER necessary on any, or all continents, both for electricity as for distill, onsite hydrogen and oxygen, or any green fuel at CIF cost: less than 5 dollar cents per kilowatt hour.

    With superconducting transformers, connected as directional couplers, and using perfect loads that consume electrical energy distilland, of seawater, hydrogen and oxygen, is unnecessary to find a way of fault interrupt to the transmission of large amounts of electricity.

    And if the generation is, in small stages, as is the case of the first power plant to extract OCEANOGENIC POWER in Panama, there is no obstacle to send already, clean energy to any market of our planet, and distilling on site, fuels requiring the respective markets or last mile users.

    From Panama to USA, the superconducting transmission line would cost 2 billion to Florida, 3 to Texas, and 5 to California.To Japan or China, via USA, 10 billion should be increased more. To Spain; and therefore Europe: would be 8 billion.

    And the CIF cost of each kilowatt-hour will be less than 5 cent of a dollar.

1 … 3 4 5