As awareness of the energy/climate crisis spreads, more people are starting to understand that we in the United States have approached our consumption of energy in remarkably mindless ways. Our use of gas-guzzling personal vehicles is perhaps the most obvious example. Another less apparent one is how we treat electricity.
     The bulk of our electricity is generated at large plants powered by natural gas or coal. Since few wish to live near them, they are often located in remote places, out of public view, requiring their electric power to be transmitted considerable distances.

CONSTRUCTION COST VERSUS OPERATING COST AND EFFICIENCY

Historically, fuel was cheap, causing electricity to be cheap. These conditions led to building generating plants with efficiency being secondary to capital cost. It also caused consumers to treat electricity almost the way we once treated water: cheap and abundant. There was little if any attention paid to the efficiency of electrical devices, from light bulbs to water heaters. Equally, few worried about turning off lights or air conditioners, for example, when they were not needed.
     Now that fuel is no longer cheap, and that which is cheap (coal) causes very serious climate damage, it is instructive to review how poorly we are set up for being more efficient, and perhaps heartening to imagine how much room there is for improvement.
     As a rule of thumb, we can assume that roughly half the energy content in hydrocarbon fuels consumed in a typical power generating plant ends up as high voltage electricity, ready for transmission. If carried a long distance, almost half the power is lost in transmission. Equally, at the final destination (a house or a commercial building) where the electricity is converted into "useful services", roughly another half of the electricity is wasted in either inefficient devices, poor insulation or simple human inattention.
     The simplest arithmetic applied to this situation indicates that one eighth of the energy in the original fuel results in useful services. That means about 88% of it is lost in generating unwanted heat, an unbelievably rich vein of potential savings, if we address the root causes of the waste.

MICRO/NANO-SOLUTIONS OFFER HOPE

Two developments, neither close to wide-spread adoption, offer "game changing" potential when and if they are proven and deployed. One is "nano solar", the other "micro nuclear". Both offer the potential of more efficient power generation, close to where it is used, which together with better management of electrical consumption on the part of the consumer, could recover half or more of the losses from each stage of the arrangement described above. Again, simple arithmetic shows that recovering half of what was wasted at each stage in the first example brings about an improvement in system-wide efficiency from 12% to 42%...3.5 times the overall efficiency. Most importantly, this waste recovery translates into reducing the need for power to deliver the same level of energy services by 70% . Note that still more savings are possible if consumers require less in energy services, such as cooling to 74 instead of 68 degrees.

NANOSOLAR

One company, called Nanosolar, Inc seems to be leading it competitors in producing solar cells by printing special foils with ink made from CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide). They have raised over $100 million from venture sources (including the founders of Google) and are delivering finished product from two plants, one near Berlin and the other in San Jose. Their technology is too complex to dwell on in detail here, but the potential impact of it is clear. They are currently building a low-cost solar electric utility plant producing 1 megawatt (enough for 400 normal dwellings) and should be able to reproduce it in almost any location where the sun shines.
     Net effect? Nanotechnology is making it possible to manufacture very large quantities of low cost solar panels that in turn can deliver utility power generation close to the point of use, with essentially no consumption of carbon fuels. That will be real progress.

MICRO NUCLEAR

Toshiba reports the development of a new class of small nuclear reactors designed to power apartment buildings or even city blocks. Occupying only 20 feet by 6 feet of ground space, the units offer a way for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors to band together, bypass the local power company, and take control of their energy needs, according to the company.
     Toshiba says that the 200 kilowatt reactor is engineered to be fail-safe, totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology instead uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. Toshiba maintains that the process is self-sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents a kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
     The company expects to install the first reactor in Japan this year and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
     We cannot say whether this technology will stand the test of time. But we are comfortable that something similar in performance will result from countless research projects all over the world. Again, if implemented, this would eliminate substantial amounts of carbon fuel consumption and the consequent climate damage.
           - DLA

Take one million tons of a sulfur- containing aerosol and spray it into the earth's lower stratosphere at heights of six to 10 miles where the sulfur drops will reflect solar radiation.
      Introducing sulfur dioxide into the lower stratosphere in this way would form sulfate aerosol particles to shade the planet, similar to the effect of ash clouds from a major volcanic eruption.
      In combination with existing approaches this will significantly impede global warming. So says Russian Academy of Sciences Academic Yuri Izrael, director of the Russian Global Climate and Ecology Institute, who in just making this announcement estimated that this approach will make possible a 0.5-1% reduction of solar radiation and a reduction of air temperature by 1-1.5 degrees Celsius. He said the method requires more detailed development, and that decisions need to be made on the international level for this to happen. Academician Izrael is considered to be President Putin's most influential science advisor.
      Approaches of this sort are known as geoengineering and this particular one is in fact not new, the Russian news conference not withstanding. The idea was first proposed and rejected thirty years ago as a serious but possibly very dangerous thing to do because of possible unintended consequences.
      If it works though, some think it has the potential to delay global warming for 20 years or so, buying time for other solutions to the long term problem to take hold.
      Present technology is capable of implementing the operational plan. One way to deliver that quantity of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere is directly by planes which would require an enormous number of planes and be extremely costly, or possibly to add sulfur compounds to airline fuel which would then form sulfur dioxide. The major questions though are whether it will work, what the unintended side effects might be, and the cost.
      - KEM

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will accelerate the proliferation of nuclear technology, and eventually weapons, into more hands, including some that are irresponsible and hostile to the West.
     Nevertheless, we feel obliged to develop at least provisional stands on these issues, lest we be accused of hiding our heads in the sand. Accordingly, we here offer a macro-view of where we suspect nuclear technology should fit into our energy futures, with lots of room for adjustment as other developments unfold.
CAN NUCLEAR ENERGY EXPANSION BE AVOIDED?      If we accept that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut about 80% to have a decent chance of heading off catastrophic climate change (to say nothing of reducing energy dependence), then we must make massive progress in curtailing fossil fuel consumption in all the major ways it can be accomplished. The big three consumers of fossil fuels, by far, are transportation (petroleum products), buildings, both commercial and residential, and electricity generation (largely pulverized coal).
     Multiple initiatives are in various stages of run cars, trucks, buses and planes. Some of these programs are virtually certain to succeed, but no one knows which or when. The recently developing impact on food prices of using corn to make ethanol underscores the uncertainty that attends any changes we try to make in what we burn for fuel. Meanwhile, efficiency standards are rising at various rates so that the vehicles we use will consume much less of either renewables or fossil fuels per mile. Again, however, the pace of progress is unpredictable. One clear conclusion is that electricity is likely to play a vital role in various ways: a) it works well for trains, b) it can be used to make hydrogen, one auto fuel alternative, and c) it works to power plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV's), another high potential alternative. So far, airplanes still require liquid fuel, and ships do not run well on electricity, unless it is generated on board. But for the rest of transportation, plenty of non-polluting electricity will remain critically important.
Buildings      Lighting, heating, cooling and operating buildings consumes even more energy than transportation, mainly in the form of natural gas, or heating oil, plus electricity. Little attention has been paid until recently to making efficient use of these energy sources because not only were they "cheap", but also the capital costs to make better use of them was high, and those who would pay for such improvements were different from those paying operating costs, so the overall system was not optimized. In addition to the benefits expected from harvesting efficiency gains, we now realize that fossil fuels still in direct use will need gradually to be replaced by cleaner energy, namely electricity, and so that source is likely to grow in relative importance. Again, the conclusion is inescapable that access to growing amounts of clean electricity will continue to be vital.
Generating Electricity      Ironically, we in the United States generate electricity in an inexpensive and extremely environmentally irresponsible way. We use mainly pulverized coal, of which we have an abundance. But the CO2 emissions from the process are uniquely large, and unsustainable if we are to bring our GHG emissions down. Encouraging progress is taking place in developing clean electricity from wind, solar, waves and geothermal, but even the most optimistic forecasts call for these being, relatively speaking, drops in the bucket. Other programs to continue using coal and to "capture and sequester" the CO2 are underway. Still others intend reusing the CO2 (which fuels photosynthesis) to grow algae that will in turn become fuel for the power plants. These efforts are both commendable and unpredictable. But we at PlanetWatch are not optimistic that CO2 capture and sequestration is going to prove to be attractive at scale, and the algae project is at an even earlier stage.
LIKELY CONSEQUENCES      The case for electricity remaining a vital way to deliver energy where and when it is needed seems inescapable. Also, new clean alternative ways to produce it are either insufficient in volume or too fraught with uncertainty. Therefore we are very likely to need to resume adding to the only currently available proven non-CO2-emitting large source of electricity known to man.....namely nuclear power plants.
     The French derive the majority of their electricity from plants built by the government that have proven remarkably safe and reliable. Every 40 or 50 miles in France there sits a medium-sized nuclear power plant and the system is widely accepted.
     We all would prefer to avoid adding to our inventory of nuclear power plants, given the risks associated with waste disposal and weapons proliferation. And, if the promise offered by non-nuclear, non-CO2-emitting sources advances quickly, we may not need to add very much. But the risk of not having adequate electricity available when needed, and the attendant potential for global disruption, is too great to take.
     So, PlanetWatch believes that the US should find a way to proceed with the construction of a significant number of new nuclear power plants, using the latest technology, as an insurance policy against the rest of the efforts to improve energy security falling short of their goals.
      - DLA