The Swarm
The holiday season is pleasantly underway. Over the last two days I read a work of fiction for the first time in, well, quite a while. I read The Swarm by Frank Schatzing. It’s pretty good. It’s long at 881 pages but pretty easy to read, in between bottles of red as befits the season.
It is a kind of ecological thriller - the destruction we’ve wreaked on the oceans coming back to haunt us. There are long sections that are pretty didactic about the science of the oceans, which you may find boring if you already know it or aren’t interested, or you may find it pretty informative and interesting otherwise. I fell into the latter category and really enjoyed it.
It still amazes me that it is in our lifetimes that we are reaching the limits of the planet. Whether in the form of reaching the limits to supply us with resources - oil - or the limit of the planet to absorb our wastes without serious consequences - greenhouse - we really are having to face up to the fact that the planet is finite, in a way the no other generation before us has had to face up to. And books like this one are part of the process of getting us psychically prepared for the changes we are going to have to make if we are to live within the limits of planet earth.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:48 am
I was wondering what NZ government is doing about the japs coming down and killing the whales that live around or island? Nothing i assume.
Can we not adopt / tag, make them part of the New Zealand Public service, like a police dog would be. and therefore illegal for them to be killed?
December 27th, 2007 at 5:35 am
we are nowhere close to exploiting the limits of the earth. they are, for practical purposes infinite. when oil runs down other sources will become commercial Hydrogen fuel cells powered by remewable energy such as solar or hydro or biogeneration will have replaced polluting hydrocarbon within 50 years.
There is no need to be gloomy, the future is bright. Merry CHristmas and a happy new year
Phil Sage
December 27th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Seems that the Maori have decided that THEIR rights, in terms of protecting and caring for the environment are being infringed. The influence that they can bring in terms of denying Japan fishing rights over a larger area than even NZ controls gives us some hope.
respectfully
BJ
December 27th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
“when oil runs down other sources will become commercial ”
oh yeah, once we’re desparate for energy & paying drastically increased prices for it, other sources which aren’t competitive with oil will come on stream…
December 27th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Two bodies discovered in Urewera Hut
Dec 27, 2007 10:44 AM
There are unconfirmed reports that two men are dead after a hut was burnt down in Urewera National Park.
Fire and police are remaining tight lipped about the deaths.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/413551/1523853
December 27th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Should be interesting; the laws of thermodynamics remain inviolate, and they prevent us from creating energy; thus we need energetic sources we can convert to usable forms of energy. Hydrocarbons are nice as they are dense forms of energy storage that are easy to handle.
If my back-of-excel calcs are right-ish, then to replace our oil consumption with electricity means we ‘only’ need to about double our generation and distribution capacity. (Assumptions: NZ uses 156Kbbl/day, 50% conversion efficiency).
It will all work out in the end, the only questions are whats it going to be like…?
December 27th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
dbuckley,
Thanks for doing the number crunching for us. However I think substituting the word ability for capacity creates a more positive perspective on what it all means. You know, things like how much of our current capacity is wasted by using Victorian era lightbulbs and how the Edwardian era centralised generation/trunk distribution system limits investing in generation to big corporations and stifles innovation.
As discussed on these threads:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/12/21/super-cheap-solar/
and
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/07/05/yep/
December 28th, 2007 at 12:15 am
dbuckley - who is talking about changing the laws of thermodynamics. I stated for “practical” purposes energy is infinite. Water can be converted to hydrogen through solar, wind, biogeneration, wave hydro or many other sustainable methods that create storable & transportable energy. When it is used in a fuel cell it reverts to water and the process starts all over again.
December 28th, 2007 at 5:15 am
sagenz,
There is more any in the universe than mankind will ever use. The problem is working out how to convert that energy into a useful form at a reasonable cost. Not an insoluble problem. As long as we have the luxury of 50 years to make it happen. It could, and probably should, be done in five years. That would have the same sort of short and long term economic effects that WWII had.
December 28th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Sagenz
Maybe you don’t QUITE get the gist of the answer. A sustainable process which breaks down water or water and CO2 to make a burnable compound (H2 or CH4 or something more complex) requires a large energy input. The doubling of our sustainable power capacity isn’t “cheap”. .. nor easy… nor quick.
The laws of thermodynamics tell you (if you were paying attention in your Engineering and Science classes) that TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) … is not just a social warning about the motives of a banker offering a teaser rate on a loan.
The economy of this nation and to a far greater extent the global economy, is based on burning energy captured by plants and animals over the past 100 million years and buried in the earth as coal and oil. The capture was not as efficient as we can make it now, but the plants are self-reproducing (no need to build them) while a solar cell or solar thermal system takes a bit of work up front.
When the economy of the planet tanks on the back of a lack of stuff it can dig out of the ground to burn, or a lack of places to put the residue of the burning, or a poisoning of the well or all three, we may manage OK if we’ve prepared ourselves but to optimistically assert that we can make this change without being hurt if the change is forced on us without our preparation for it. That’s just not possible. You say “Water can be converted” … I suggest you try to do it on a small scale and look at the efficiencies and the effort you have to make and consider where the process plant and the collectors and the rest of the things you expect us to use are going to come from.
We have to plan for this transition, which is what Greens are all about, and we aren’t doing it as a planet, which is why Greens tend to be pessimistic about the outcome. If we get things started here in Aotearoa I will be satisfied enough. I have no expectation, knowing the way business works and controls governments, that even our meager successes here will be matched by any progress in the nations that are in the most dire need of such. The resource wars started a decade and more ago. They will continue.
The prospect IMHO is for a sea level rise of between 1.5 and 2.5 meters in this century. A temperature rise of at least 4 degrees and the starvation of a billion of the poorest human beings on the planet… and that’s the optimistic end of the predictions… WAIS and GIS will shed enough ice to hit that mark and while Manhattan Island could be protected somewhat by dikes in the Dutch style… a fair amount of Florida will disappear. Drought will slam the barn doors in the midwest farm belt …. surpluses of food will melt to nothing. Oil will become too valuable to burn. Coal will burn instead and the ocean acidity will rise.
I don’t reckon we’ll hit the wall in “my” generation necessarily. If I live to see it I will be one of older geezers around…. but my kids will see it.
I’m a Green because I want them to have a chance for a civilized life… and because I appreciate that the magic that is done by Engineers is ALWAYS paid for.
respectfully
BJ
December 28th, 2007 at 11:03 am
BJ,
once again, I salute your eloquence, and clarity, in explaining the untenable to the obtuse.
Great post, Russ.
I confess to reading Are Angels OK? - some good physics in there, BJ!
- and going to see The Golden Compass, yesterday, for a dose of good old-fashioned geek-fantasy.
It’s PG, round up some fantasy-inspired kids and take them, I thoroughly reccommend it.
Very sexy witches, too, for the talent-spotters amongst the readership… and great digi-work with the bears and the ‘dust’; lovely costuming, if you like amoured animals, Victorian-gothic adults, and witches who fly without broomsticks, in very skimpy, wafty costumes
Oh, and a great Pirate ship!
Oh, and the clincher is the Catholic League in the USA has issued media statements denouncing the movie, the writers and especially the director, which are scaarily anti-semitic.
December 28th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
David Farrar’s Kiwiblog is a bit of a sounding board for National; note Roger Kerrs article and another go at AGW.
Act is largely irrelevant these days and so Acts backers have defaulted to National, this creates a problem for national as it attempts to look Green.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2007/12/apocalypse_now_and_again.html#commen ts
December 28th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
dbuckley - perhaps you dont quite understand how far technology has come. as a schoolboy, a mate of mine, understanding the science better than me, used a couple of electrodes, a power cord, a bucket of water and a container to produce hydrogen using simple electrolysis. We then had the bright idea of lighting it by holding a match to the just opened top of the container. it surprised the schoolboys with a very loud but essentially harmless bang.
All you need to produce hydrogen is electricity. All you need to produce electricity is hydro/wind/other sustainable operating at 100% of capacity. One of the biggest problems with any sustainable generating method is that exact time of production does not equal exact time of requirement and traditional storage methods are commercially inefficient. Not so with hydrogen. This is not a free lunch, you need to pay for the storage containers and the fuel cells. The technology is sold commercially now. All it would need is a far sighted enough government to invest in suficient research to make a combined hydro & hydogen fuel cell system a commercial reality. Excess hydrogen generated could be transported and sold. Where better to try that than New Zealand.
The REALLY cool technology is the microbes that work on waste water to break down the constituent chemicals including some that actually produce hydrogen. Solar energy obviously contributes to that process but it has a double beautiful impact.
As for your 4 degree rise in temperature and a billion people starving? Lets not go there. The markets, wonderful things that they are wil solve those problems. You forget that energy was a much higher cost of living 150 years ago. Oil at $100 a barrel is still less than half what it is on an inflation adjusted basis compared to the 1970’s.
Political assassinations aside the world is wonderfully placed. Happy New Year
December 28th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
A little lateral thinking always comes in handy. Sydney Water has gone beyond using the methane from it’s sewage plants to generate elctricity. It is in the process of installing hydro turbines in some of it’s water supply pipielines and sewer outflows.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
sagenz- electrolysis is in principle a simple process, but in application the inefficencies can be hard to overcome. 2H2O to 2H2 + O2 is an endo-thermic reaction which means to break the bonds you will need to add energy, because there will always be some degree of inefficency you will need to use more energy than is gained by the molecules, the opposite reaction 2H2 + O2 to 2H2O is exo-thermic (net release of energy) but due to the inefficency of whatever mechanisim is converting the energy (presumibly a combustion motor, which is extremly inefficent) much of the energy is lost to the surroundings rather than being utilised by the converting device. on top of the aforementioned, the only practicle way to store molecular hydrogen is through compression, and yet compression results in hydrogen loosing much of its energy :P. a useless ranta bout what im sure everyone knows, but hey, the point is: massive inefficency, would be better to use alternative forms of transport and electricity without the intermediate hydrogen, but then again, its not my specialty, im only a humanities lad.
Sapient
P.S. that little bang ising quite so harmless when in large volumes, ever wonder why hydrogen tanks are so thick? labbeled explosive? or how about the desasters with the zeplinns?
December 29th, 2007 at 12:19 am
sapient - you are correct but my point is that the energy required for the conversion is already available. It is just not being utilised. Only around 50% of Waitaki hydro scheme total generation capacity is utlised. partly drought, partly maintenance but a very big chunk due to the fact that the energy requirement of the grid is not the same time the energy is available. peak demand exceeds capacity. There is inefficiency in any conversion process. but better some inefficiency than 100% waste as the water disapears over the slipway or the suns rays not utilised.
Better to use fuel cells rather than combustion engines, they are less inefficient.
re the PS - Yes we were fortunate it was a plastic container and it was a lesson well learned
December 29th, 2007 at 12:22 am
OK JH… I registered with kiwiblog and took a dump there. I have a couple of days off…. but this stuff does take a bit of a long while and have some fencing to repair.
I read the quoted stuff and responded. Kerr is one sorry example of a human being writing what he did. He clearly has to know better. He grabs a bunch of stuff that is and isn’t science, misquotes Ehrlich and ignores the quite specific warning about buying time that he gave and takes great pains to paint AGW as another “hysteria”. I’d love to get him to try that sh!t on me cause such arguments DEMAND dissection in public…. and the people who make them might serve the public best by joining their arguments.
Am I correct in that this guy is somehow a “Sir” Kerr? What is his claim to “specialness” anyway?
respectfully
BJ
December 29th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Sagenz
I have often pointed out that the invisible hand also kills. It is a hand, it has no eyes, no brain and nothing but the a sense of touch. It reacts ONLY to the present. When conditions change it is inefficient. When the market has imperfect knowledge (which is most of the time), it is inefficient as well. In other words, your reliance on the MARKET will probably allow 3 billion to starve to death instead of a billion…. because the market does not care.
You still haven’t come close to gathering the required energy. Even here in NZ where it is dead easy to do. What happens in China?
What happens in Namibia?
What happens in the USA?
I don’t actually doubt that NZ and Iceland can probably do something sustainable if we start now. We’re sure-nuff trying to make that happen here. What I doubt is that it will happen automatically and soon enough to avert trouble without our trying. What I doubt is that it will happen everywhere else where it needs to happen.
We might not get global warming… a nuclear winter could quite handily prevent it.
Either way our kids will curse us for what we’ve squandered.
respectfully
BJ
December 29th, 2007 at 1:22 am
sun in the desert is a wonderful source of energy. Of your examples only China will have problems, but no worse than Japan with its total lack of any resource except its population. It has competitive advantage with its huge cheap labour force so it can continue to import energy.
The market made America & the West enormously wealthy. Socialism did not do the same for North Korea, India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe.
Try reading this article for an excellent description of the way life has become so much better for people in the last century despite supposed increases in income inequality. http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10328935
To quote some of the key bits
“IN 1904 Willie Vanderbilt hit a thrilling 92.3 mph (147.7 kph) in his new German motorcar, smashing the land-speed record. His older brother’s sprawling North Carolina manse, Biltmore, could accommodate up to 500 pounds of meat in its electrical refrigerators. In miserable contrast, the below-average Gilded Age American had to make do with a pair of shoes and a melting block of ice. If he could somehow save enough for an icebox, a day’s wage would not have bought a pound of meat to put in it…
You can see this levelling at work in markets for transport and appliances. You no longer need be a Vanderbilt to own a refrigerator or a car. Refrigerators are now all but universal in America, even though refrigerator inequality continues to grow. The Sub-Zero PRO 48, which the manufacturer calls “a monument to food preservation”, costs about $11,000, compared with a paltry $350 for the IKEA Energisk B18 W. The lived difference, however, is rather smaller than that between having fresh meat and milk and having none. Similarly, more than 70% of Americans under the official poverty line own at least one car. And the distance between driving a used Hyundai Elantra and a new Jaguar XJ is well nigh undetectable compared with the difference between motoring and hiking through the muck. The vast spread of prices often distracts from a narrowing range of experience.”
December 29th, 2007 at 2:16 am
IMHO the poverty line is one of the screyest measurements economists have come up with. Either that or the constant misrepresenting of “below the poverty line” as “living in poverty” makes it seem screwy.
The poverty line is simply a percentage of the median income. It is a measure of income disparity (or relative poverty) rather than a measure of actual poverty or deprivation or actually going without the necessities of life. For instance, Russia has a smaller proportion of people living below Russia’s poverty line than the USA has below the USA’s poverty line. But when purchasing power parity is used to calculate a global poverty line 95% of Americans are above it whereas 80% of Russians are below it. Even that suggests that the percentage selected for the poverty line may be well above a genuine impoverished income.
It is possible for governments to reduce the number of people below the poverty line without increasing any incomes. The British government came up with an innovative way of achieving this in the 1960s. They taxed the super-rich such as pop stars and formula one drivers at such a high rate that many of them began residing in Monaco for 6 months and one day each year. That was sufficient to transfer their incomes to Monaco and thus Britains median income dropped, as did the official poverty line and therefore the number of people “living in poverty” also fell without anybody actually being any better off.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:21 am
and lets be honest - poverty and ignorance kill far more people than the market. The “market” may well be imperfect but it is the best system that we have.
December 29th, 2007 at 9:55 am
(Keeping the sarcasm dripping) - collecting all this energy can’t be that hard, after all, if you could just havest the energy that falls on 16KM x 16km of desert you would have the same energy as we use burning 84m bbl/day of the black gold. Only 16km by 16km? A tinly little bit of Planet Earth, in a place not known for it’s overpopulation.
If it were that easy we’d be doing something like it already.
I mean; the Canadians have a far less hairbrained scheme; they could replace the oil consumption with just 1600-ish reactor powered tar converters, and they have a bunch of research and good data to back it up. It sounds almost half reasonable. Mind you, once we’ve got out 1600-odd reactors that will run for 30 years, we need to build more, so thats (1600/30) a steady state of just 54 new reactors per year. How hard can that be…?
December 29th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
if we could get a functioning space elevator (or 3) then an orbital ring with solar generation facilities wouldint be out of the question for energy supply.
last time i looked it was the market that acts to create poverty? for one to gain wealth another must loose it, be it another human or the earth. also economics is a large reason for going to war…
December 29th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite
Harvest ALL the energy??
Why do I get the feeling that this involves an area underneath the collector that is reaching absolute zero?
Then there’s the power distribution…. which isn’t going to be a trivial issue, and the energy losses in that transmission… and what you do for the hours of darkness… for people not nearby… there ARE problems and a lot of them.
There will however, be deserts conveniently located all around the planet on current form, so it isn’t that unlikely that it could be done at some level of inefficiency.
Cheap however? Not a chance.
BJ
December 29th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
it is the silly season after all, so I will forgive you.
There is a new solar panel that has just been released commercially that is a lot more cost effective as it uses less silicon.
The main point about hyrogen fuel cells and other new technology is that you can locate the generation much closer to the use. Micro generation is enabled.
But lets go back to Russel’s premise - “It still amazes me that it is in our lifetimes that we are reaching the limits of the planet. Whether in the form of reaching the limits to supply us with resources ”
I think this discussion has firmly proven that we are nowhere close to reaching the limits of the earth’s resources. Greens should be cheering for oil use. The sooner it finishes or becomes vastly more expensive the sooner it will become commercial to switch to less polluting and more sustainable energy sources.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
i was talking more about a ring than several sattilites but same principle, that way transfer sites can be kept to a minimum and the overall energy generation would stay constant, could also work to facilitate further growth/exploration/terraforming past earth orbit or hold a colony or two would have to clear the derbis first though, but then again im not a physicist or engineer and theres the whole problem of teathers and light propulsion
December 29th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Life has become better for everyone because we have had and have used profligately… cheap energy. When it is done, we either come up with something equally cheap or spend more on it. How much more is a question. More is apparently and unfortunately, locked in.
To a certain extent I AM cheering on both the next recession and the end of cheap oil…. for much the reason you mention. However, that does not make me a real fan of those solutions. Nor, in the climate of banker’s capitalism with its insatiable demand for continued growth, continued expansion of debt, and increasing economic disparity… is there any long term advantage to the planet. A sustainable, steady economy is anathema to the bankers. The status quo suits them far better.
BJ
December 29th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
“If it were that easy we’d be doing something like it already.”
Not true. You are forgetting that solar systems have high capital costs and low operating costs. And locating them in deserts requires a substantial investment in distribution infrastructure.
Which desert nations can afford to make the capital investment? Only the ones that already have the required distribution infrastructure in place. So, if it’s such a freat idea why haven’t these nations done it already and made the black gold redundant, I hear you ask.
Because the only nations that are in a position to establish solar harvesting and distribute the energy globally through existing supply chains on a scale that will replace black gold are the very same nations that are sitting atop the worlds biggest reserves of the black gold.
Do you really think covering an area of dessert a little bigger than Auckalnd with mirrors would bother any of the arab leaders. It can be done, it will be done, easily an quickly. Just as soon as it suits the arab members of OPEC, and not before.
December 29th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Sapient
A ring would have to be at geosync, or the tethers drag the ground. You could conceivably hold the thing up by running a set of satellites inside the ring, attached to a maglev rail and so hold a stationary portion up. The construction would be of the impossibly difficult variety and the circumference of the structure would be around 50000 Km or If you go out to Geosync the 260,000 Km but you don’t need the bullet trains.
Almost all practical SPS systems entail Microwave power transmission.
All economically practical SPS development plans use resources from the moon or from asteroids guided into appropriate orbit. The ability to live and work in space efficiently is a requirement. We ain’t there yet.
BJ
December 29th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
bj, we’re all going to need somewhere to live between stuffing up this planet and migrating to a new planet suitable for stuffing up in new and imaginative ways.
December 30th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
bj, geosync is what i had in mind, we certainly arnt there yet but we are getting there fast, the capital investment would be absolutly massive but once its running it would pay for its own growth and with the elevators it would significantly cut down costs to orbit, making it more cost effective to source from earth. the largist problems are a teather as our current level of skill with carbon nanotubes is still not sufficent and our ability to use photons as a source of propulsion is still in its infancy.
sattilites would have a lower capital investment but the flexibility that a ring offers in terms of further development outweighs that. with a ring in geosync we could conceivibly transmit energy to any point on or near the equator and if the ring was extended longitudanly then anywhere.
all it comes to in the end is mind games though, i doubt the entire southern hemisphere could muster enough money to construct such an undertaking.
December 31st, 2007 at 2:56 am
BJ, thanks for the excellent post. And Katie- it’s lovely to see some more like-minded people on this blog. Sometimes I wonder what it says about the internet and human nature that people are so drawn to things they disagree with. (Incidentally, I’m looking forward to seeing the Northern Lights film, too)
Sage, it seems we agree on most of the basics. I just find it appalling that anyone with any real-world experience can say that relying on the market is enough. We have to push the market to do what’s right, because the market never has perfect information. People make mistakes; sometimes rather spectacular ones, and not because they are stupid or oblivious but because there really was nothing they could do to find out that they would’ve failed. Economic failure is the norm, it’s exceptional that a business succeeds at all, let alone that it succeeds comfortably.
I don’t see how you can have faith that business will do the right thing without significant government and social pressure. I don’t see how you can say we’ll get the infrastructure in place by the time it will be profitable and advisable to switch over energy, when we’ve made insignificant efforts at switching over to less energy-demanding communities already.
Personally, I do think we’ll get things done. But I don’t delude myself that it isn’t going to be costly- either through time and effort on behalf of environmental campaigners, or through the tremendous social and economic costs of not preparing.
I look forward optimistically to the prospect of a world with fewer people, much less energy-intensive lifestyle with the same rewards, and a space for growth redefined- not in terms of number of lives or number of dollars, but quality of life, efficiency of resource use, and inspiration of idea.
On microwave beaming of solar power from space: Great idea, and if we start investing and actually working on launching them now, at a cost, we can create economies of scale in the future when we’re really going to need large-scale renewable generation of that type. Also, because the rectennas are so much less obtrusive land use than other types of generation, it would be entirely possible to build communities or business districts around them and serve energy much more efficiently that way. Imagine beaming power down directly into the middle of Wellington, you would gain so much in transmission efficiency that the enormous startup cost starts to look cheap, and as rectennas can be translucent, it would be possible to build one without it being too much of an eyesore. (It would certainly be no less appealing than the ridiculous stock ticker by the waterfront)
December 31st, 2007 at 7:30 am
Sapient
The reason I emphasize the geosynch satellites and microwave beams is that the science to do that exists, not one “new” development is required, we could have started building them 20 years ago. Anything else requires new technology development that will, without any additional consideration, add years to to effort. Cheap access to space is mostly a matter of re-usable bits and pieces…. simple and re-usable. The shuttle is quite complicated and only “sort of” re-usable. It is actually a bit more like a fuel dragster than the family car. The engine gets rebuilt after every run.
respectfully
BJ
December 31st, 2007 at 9:38 am
BJ, i do agree with you, i am just one for grandose ideas, its part of my nature, i agree with the use of concentrated electromagnetic radiation to transmit the energy, the use of microwaves does potentialy pose a threat or two considering the volume of energy and possible interfarance with the water molecules that are so plentyful in our atmosphere.
satellites was origionaly what my mind game was based around but then it kinda expanded to the ring because of the advantages i have mentioned in previous posts, though satillites are certainly more feasable economicly and physicly.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Er, why put something in space when you could just stick something on your wall and get the same nett effect? Perchance because Dr Who is “sexier” than Bob the Builder?
http://www.thegreenpowergroup.org/solarthermal.cfm?loc=us
January 12th, 2008 at 2:12 am
24 hour a day sun.
Solar intensity greatly increased.
No need to clean the dust off.
Easy transmission to remote sites and sites that seldom get ANY sun.
——————–
Side benefit… after working out the construction problems of large arrays and mirrors in space we also get the ability to alter the solar insolation of the entire planet, access to every rock in the asteroid belt and colonies in space.
The human species leaves the planet.
Try to do that while you’re nailed to your wall.
BJ
January 12th, 2008 at 11:02 am
One idea that was believed to be feasible right now was a set of solar power satellites in low earth orbit, each equipped with a pair of high power infra-red lasers. The laser frequency (colour) would be tuned to one absorbed by water molecules in the air. Relatively standard aircraft would have laser targets on top, near the tail (similar to the American Air Force’s AWAC planes in appearance) which simply heat up when hit by the laser beam. This heat then drives jet engines mounted on the tail. The plane takes off and lands using its conventional engines and then when it gets high enough, it calls up the satellite and the satellite hits its target with the laser. The extra jets start working and the pilot shuts down or backs off the conventional engines, saving most of the fuel. The lasers would be focussed on the height of the plane, so if they miss, the beam that hits the ground is defocussed, and largely absorbed by the water in the atmosphere below the plane (remember the plane is flying at 30,000 feet or higher, above most of the atmosphere) and of course the beam is sweeping a large area of ground (at >500 miles per hour). These are passive safeguards so no significant injuries would occur to anyone illuminated by the beam. However there would be active safeguards as well, so the beams would be shut down automatically if they aren’t directed onto the plane’s target. I expect that the plane would carry enough fuel so it isn’t reliant on the lasers to get to a safe landing site - even for a Trans-Atlantic crossing. For a long flight, the aircraft would need to be switched between satellites. This would also largely solve the problem of a satellite moving into the earth’s shadow for a while.
Sounds scary, and impractical but it isn’t as far fetched as it seems and doesn’t require new technology such as nano-tubes.
Trevor.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am
The efficiency of eletrolying water to hydrogen isn’t horribly bad. One company is achieving more than 75% and getting close to doing this at power densities of 1 Ampere per square cm. However the efficiencies going the other way are worse.
Remember that energy is never destroyed. Low efficiencies normally mean heat is generated instead, so if that heat is useful, then the effective efficiency isn’t as bad. This means that if you can use the waste heat from your hygrogen fuel cell to heat your buildings or your hot water, the net losses aren’t horrible.
Of course, if you can use the hydrogen as it is, then the conversion efficiencies of fuel cells or engines don’t enter the picture. Heat for cooking and industrial processes come to mind, but New Zealand already manufactures hydrogen for use in ammonia manufacture and the oil refinery.
Trevor.
January 12th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
BJ,
Frankly, I’d rather be nailed to a wall than be lost in space listening to “Never fear Nick Smith is here”.
Actually, this is the down to Earth technology I was referring too.
http://www.solarwall.com/home/whatsnew.aspx
http://www.solarwall.com/home/data/Image/CaseImages/Ford%20Motor%20Com pany.pdf
January 13th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Here is another wierd source of energy - fresh water, or more specifically osmotic pressure. A Norwegian company seems to be one of the leaders…
http://www.statkraft.com/pub/innovation/teknologiutvikling_i_statkraft /saltkraft/hva_er_osmose.asp
http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/pdf/other_res05_aaberg.pdf
Given the number of rivers that we have flowing into the sea, this has to be a significant possible resource for New Zealand, with the benefit of continuous power production, night and day, if the water is flowing. They estimate the resource in Norway is 25,000 GigaWatt-Hours per annum.
Trevor.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:27 am
It is interesting that Osmotic Power didn’t even get a mention in the EECA’s 2006 status report (the 2007 report isn’t available)
http://www.eeca.govt.nz/eeca-library/renewable-energy/report/renewable -energy-industry-status-report-06.pdf
nor did it get a mention under marine power resources
http://www.eeca.govt.nz/renewable-energy/marine.html
You can’t even apply for funding for Osmotic Power development under the Marine Energy Fund because this is restricted to devices that “converts wave or tidal stream energy into electricity”, although to be fair, this fund is for deployment rather that initial development.
Given that the theoretical potential of the energy available from this resource in New Zealand is around 3 GigaWatts, equivalent to 2 or 3 nuclear power stations, it is a little disappointing that it hasn’t shown up on the EECA radar.
Trevor
PS: The equivalent head of water pressure is of the order of 220 metres, or 21.5 atmospheres.
http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Solutions/Osmosis-Equation.html
Another site gives 27.8 atmospheres and the convenient value of 0.77 kiloWatt-Hours per cubic metre:
http://urila.tripod.com/desalination.htm
(The difference in values from these two sites is largely or wholely due to taking different sea water salt concentrations.)
January 26th, 2008 at 12:41 am
An Osmotic Power station using the waters from the Manapouri tailrace could generate 500MegaWatts, or around 3000 GigaWatt-Hours per annum - comparable to Benmore, and about 60% of the output of the existing Manapouri generators. And the best thing is that this is despatchable power, since it would run at the same time as the existing generators - when the power was needed.
Unfortunately it is likely to be too expensive (for now) and the technology is perhaps 7-10 years away.
Trevor.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Trevor, Can it be scaled down to efficiently harvest the tailrace energy from any hydro dam?
January 26th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Statkraft haven’t yet reached an economic system in their development, so I can only point you to the links above and to Google. It doesn’t need a hydro dam, just a supply of fresh water flowing into a sea. It is not harvesting kinetic energy, from the flow of the water. Instead it is harvesting the energy required when water is removed from a salt solution (as when the water evaporates off the surface of the seas) - think of the sea water sucking the fresh water into it. However without a dam or equivalent storage, you are looking at a “run-of-river” generation model, i.e. baseload power or intermittant generation rather than power when you want it. I expect smaller installations won’t be as economical as larger installations because there seems to be a significant amount of maintenance involved.
Trevor