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Why will not solve the energy crisis

Source: sapedia.gosaints.org

Dear readers,

A first explanation for those of you more time to follow me: this post there is nothing new, or not substantially, just try with that letter put together some ideas already expressed in posts and comments above. The main thing was voiced in " The limits of renewable capital" and " The EROEI of all-electric society ." I think, anyway, it's time to fix recap what my position on the future of the energy crisis that is both an economic crisis that is both a financial crisis that is both an environmental crisis that is both a political crisis, which is in short, a crisis model for its lack of sustainability.


The comments of the last posts have been a number of ideas to improve efficiency systems use renewable energy, and have even been proposed some new renewable sources waiting to be exploited. All the discussions and proposals are set out in purely technical aspects specific to each proposal and are not able to see the overall difficulties greatly complicate if not prevent altogether, the future development of these options. Let's do a quick review of these problems. To begin, do a lot of separation between the systems that produce electricity and biofuels, whose problems and limitations are different.


Biofuels now account for about 3% of all oil and equivalents consumed in the world, and that is getting worldwide consuming 6.5% of the grain harvest to 8% of the vegetable oil . Taking into account the problems that are causing food shortages, further increase our consumption of biofuels may be suicidal, because the final problem is not confined to the poorest countries, as already discussed , some of the most affected countries are producers of oil and time are heavily dependent on food outside, and this causes internal instability and unrest, and eventually supply problems for us rich countries. Some might argue that the problems of global food shortages have more to do with poor harvests this year in Russia (by the drought and fires) and Australia (ironically, by the torrential rains and floods) that abuse biofuels. However, in an interesting article Stuart Staniford present the following figure that is very enlightening:

In graphic compares the variations on the trend average wheat production in Russia ( fluctuations, red line) with the amount of grain (an average crude but it serves to get an idea of \u200b\u200borders of magnitude) allocated to biofuels worldwide (blue line; value is represented as negative because it is a detriment on the other uses of cereal). The rapidly increasing use of corn for ethanol is several times higher than the annual crop fluctuations. All that is added as a problems already identified in a previous post, the most consistent low TRE (English: EROEI) of biofuels, issues that apparently can not trace or the second-generation biofuels (cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel from algae), and it will be apparent that biofuels, although they will have a place in our energy future (for good energy density and to already have engines that can take) are not never produced a much larger scale of the current (even more likely to decrease).


With respect to all other sources of renewable generation, his main problem is to generate electricity, not liquid fuels such as high energy density that we used to. As a result of which, produced a succession of problems and interactions that tend to limit or banish, the massive introduction behold a relationship, certainly not exhaustive (particularized for the case of Spain, but surely with the weather here is extrapolated to comment other countries):

• Electricity consumption in Spain is not able to grow since the beginning of the acute phase of the crisis. The promise of electric cars are not just met (and we've talked about why three times: 1 , 2, 3 , and gift a more general discussion) and no electric car there is no increase in consumption are possible or as often praised and announced intelligent networks with distributed storage (and paid by the consumer, faith). That makes more economic interest in investment in power generation is limited.
• total electric power installed in Spain is 98 GW to cover a power consumption equivalent to an average of 32 GW, with peak demand of just over 45 GW and valleys of about 20 GW. Although the load factor from various sources, particularly renewables, is considerably less than one, overall installed capacity in Spain is greater than necessary to ensure stability of the electrical system, as consumption.
• Because of this excess generation capacity, and in spite of net exports to Portugal, Morocco and pásmense, France (which has many problems with the supply of uranium, but we will discuss another day) The fact is that traditional generation companies are losing a lot of money (or rather, you lose the division of power generation), since to ensure supply when demand peaks are kept a few power plants and combined cycle minimum active power waiting to take action if necessary. But with the tariff system for electricity generation in Spain, are paid every kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed at the price of the most expensive source has been used, which is always the last to join, always start by the kilowatt · nuclear time (because you can not regularly go to fixed gear), then if necessary, add the wind and other sources of special arrangements, after finally hydro and thermal plants, the network has national coverage and is interconnected with those of our neighbors, but consists of subnets and a part of the generation is managed so relatively local, so it is possible that in an area of \u200b\u200bSpain are building power plants while in others it is not necessary. The problem occurs when between nuclear and wind will cover all the demand, which happens ever more frequently, because that makes kWh will be paying almost $ 0. For this reason, the managers of these big companies regularly charge against renewables, and particularly against the wind, they are ruining the business.
• To appease utilities, and to address certain perceived abuses (most bleeding was the case of solar wind produced electricity at night, if we have to trust your records) the Government has redefined the support system to new energies, eliminating or greatly reducing subsidies. This makes investment less attractive in them, because the time for payback (payback time) grows significantly and this investment is seen as less financially attractive.
• In this context it is hard to believe it worthwhile to invest in power generation entrepreneur. The truth is that investment is stagnating or falling, and that is that no one can force an investor to pull their money, rather than a strategic investment is needed for the country. The solution, say some readers, is that it is the government who ordered this investment. But how? Embedded as we are in a financial crisis the Government of Spain is increasing difficulty in raising money for his expenses, and in this context is difficult to convey the need to get into a market, spoiling the competition therein and damaging the commercial interests of companies . And over at great cost to the state. It's obviously not going to do well.
• We've already discussed here: the energy from various sources is not necessarily fungible, and therefore serves not account for all that we Mw ⋅ h generate, if we do not use it to existing corporate applications. And apart from the cars is the use of trucks, ships, aircraft and heavy machinery. The battery technology today has progressed a lot, but its energy density is still about 100 times less than gasoline or diesel. It seems wiser, therefore, to use another vector, and one possibility is hydrogen. But, as already discussed, the small molecules that form hydrogen when trying to contain a certain pressure (necessary for good energy density) is rapidly released from its container if the walls are not very dense (and therefore very expensive .) Transform hydrogen power (hydrolyzing) wastes between 33 and 50% of electricity used, and the comments above has to do to eat soon, it is clear that hydrogen is a bad choice. And fuel cells that use hydrogen more efficiently are still very expensive ... So what to do? It is proposing to quickly convert organic matter into methane (which is over 80% natural gas) using electricity, but have not achieved commercial developments and necessary ...
• But to further deterioration, there are many industrial uses fossil fuels are not easily replaced due to loss of efficiency, by electrical means. It is unthinkable to have the large ovens that require cement to make concrete electrically powered instead of gas and how to make steel without coal coke? Without solving these problems, the necessary increase in electricity consumption will not occur, and we will run over essential commodities.
• Some analysts say the nuclear and renewable energy tracts of fossil fuels (fossil fuel extenders ), ie, can increase the power of our fuels fossils but they can not exist without them. And it certainly can not create, operate, maintain and dismantle these facilities without extensive use of fossil fuels, and it is difficult to imagine how we could do without them, especially considering the problems of storage and energy density discussed now.
• The economic crisis that is connected and feedback to the energy, and therefore it can never end will cause the consumption capacity of individuals and businesses decay indefinitely. And pray also that the power consumption, with investment in generation will become most unlikely and endless brawls between supporters of the pro-nuclear and wind increase, which the two factions dreaming of a future powered only by your preferred choice. In the end, their own power are at risk of bankruptcy and go bankrupt, its services and infrastructure deteriorate.
• To counteract the above effect, it may eventually impose a war economy, perhaps through an authoritarian regime. At that time, many people would have to work almost as a force to build the new infrastructure. That will lead to much political instability and the loss of the sense of this infrastructure, because if consumers become virtually slaves of those who are paid the minimum ergo have no purchasing power, what sense does it seek to establish major infrastructure? Since we could not also enjoy the benefits of this energy, better physical effort directly employ their own benefit by planting the land. Depending on the location, the obvious contradiction (another way of looking at it is that the EROEI of renewable facilities created and maintained with human muscle has a very low value) will create tensions and riots, and make it much more difficult for renewable utopia.

That is one thing clear: I am not against renewable energy. In the medium and long term is the only thing that remains, and is and has to be our future project. We simply have to be realistic about how and why we can exploit. Humanity for thousands of years taking advantage of these energies, so if we overcome our hubris that blinds us we will be able to see how to use them.

Salu2, AMT

How To Build Horizontal Surfboard Racks

When the bell rings

image blog "Time 4 Dogs"

Dear readers,

As a child, somewhere, ahem, rarely occasion I had a major blunder during an examination. Maybe it was a review of History, or Mathematics, the fact is that just asked me about topics that had no well-learned, or had some doubts and gaps and did not quite find the right way to develop the theme. Over time, you learn to focus on those aspects that one knows or suspects that will be able to defend, accepting that the review will not be perfect, there will be parts that will be abandoned to their fate and be rated at zero, but at final assembly can pass the bar for approval. But, of course, to learn the optimal strategy with which to manage the scarce resource that is being self-knowledge one must first fail a couple (or more) times. Who has not passed it, needing to concentrate on an exam, just try to draw from the depths of the conscious and subconscious happy date of the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa or the coronation of Charlemagne, or how did permutations with repetitions, leaving just his imagination unfettered by the hills of Ubeda? And the worst of these recreational trips is that, suddenly, you realize that there are five or ten minutes for the review were to end, not because a spontaneous return of those green pastures, no, but because he said aloud the teacher. I stormed at the time a cold sweat and oppression in the stomach of a intensity difficult to describe. And then you could accelerate as much as the activity of neurons, but only a glance you could not stop looking at the clock class, which was relentless fall minute by minute. "Id delivering and examinations, please," you sweat trickling down his temples. The comrades had given their mostly written test, and there you were with two or three behind forever. If the teacher was lenient let you keep writing until the moment last, which was when the bell rang marking the end of the class. Then, slowly, passing through the desks behind and snatched them without violence but merciless examination. And then came up your desk ...

it comes to the case of financial assistance and inevitable that the final will be on economic reality, of Portugal. With him are now three euro zone countries that have undergone surgery (sorry, that have benefited from the bailout fund), after Greece and Ireland. Among the three would have needed about 300,000 billion bailout fund, which in its constitution had 500,000 million euros (constants and "in kind") provided by the European Union countries and another 250,000 million from the IMF , in total, 750,000 million, but lately there is talk of extending this fund. The latter is natural, due to their own internal imbalances and English positions in Portugal, it is quite likely that Spain will have to end up benefiting from the bailout fund itself within months, with the aggravating circumstance that the English economy (counted as GDP) is more than twice the Greek, Irish and Portuguese together and therefore is easy to believe that Spain's financial needs will exceed half a billion euros (officially Spain's total debt is 250% of its GDP, which is approximately one billion euros, though many analysts to rise to 350% and more).


should be very visible that the IMF is putting a substantial amount in the fund's rescue. The International Monetary Fund , or IMF, is not exactly an intergovernmental organization to use. Although formally a UN specialized agency, administrative structure, financial and, above all, governance is determined by the economic weight of each country. In practice, representatives of big firms in the world have de facto control of the institution, and thereby gain political visibility that allows them to implement their agenda. These policies IMF always pursue one goal: that big borrowers do not lose money. Therefore, when a country needs to go to the direct or indirect supervision of the IMF, its "recipes" shock not seek the country's economic growth but to ensure by whatever means its solvency, although this is achieved by destroying the heritage compromising its current and future economic growth. Governments bow to the strict conditions imposed by the IMF and that if financial markets would be closed to them and could not finance its public budget (nowadays most Western governments operate on the basis of continued funding of current expenditure and investments). Such simple words, the IMF is the fraction collector, and you go to pay your debts, with interest to their customers if needed will force you to sell the jewels and your grandmother's grocery store at which you earn bread, and if you do not agree to it suddenly close the tap and you can not pay your suppliers, so also you would go to ruin. It is a grotesque simplification, but it captures the basic idea (at least I did not say that a thug breaks your legs, that is, an army comes over to stay with your resources, but that is another story ...) . Some of my overseas readers may verify your personal experience what it is and how it works the IMF.


With the arrival of the rescue fund, Portugal ran out of time to speculate: the teacher has collected and consideration. It has not made the necessary infrastructure to reduce its dependence on oil and will no longer how to finance them. Nor can fund more research into biofuels or nuclear fusion will be lucky if he can keep having. You have not strengthened their local networks and has driven energy descent plan, and now will be much more difficult to do, while oil and external financing are becoming more expensive. Portugal simply running out of phase 1 of the collapse (as discussed in the corresponding post what are the stages of collapse ) and falls into a hole that, given the historical context of declining energy availability, costs out. In the process now starts in the neighboring country of the writer, the economy will shrink and its energy consumption will decline, which will be good for everyone else that may feed spoils. Clear that Portugal is small and hardly notice the effect of the resources, so do not expect a big drop in oil prices over the months and years will this induced energy and economic decline of Portugal. Of course, to Portugal this move will be a blow, for all practical purposes to Portugal the decline post-Peak Oil will be accelerated. And, already discussed, each country will experience an epic particular, its own version of Peak Oil understood as its own decline in oil consumption, and hence energy.

As I repeated many times, the energy crisis will go for neighborhoods, so different in each place, so that although there are common features each region will experience a different start of the energy shortage. Moreover, the fact that they occur phase transitions characteristic of the right side of the Hubbert curve makes the economic downturn, with the subsequent drop in energy consumption, is perceived as the immediate cause of energy descent, and not vice versa, that is leading to talk of "Peak demand" as opposed to "peak production" or Peak Oil. Actually remove the myth of peak demand is fairly simple: if the problem is the height of demand, economic growth will end with strength, finish this cycle. If the problem is production, then this crisis never end in our current economic paradigm. However, it is expected for decades and decades that even countries that have fallen into this black hole in this catabolic collapse, affirm that the recovery is about to begin and that the energy descent is peak demand for multiple causes, so great is our blindness and strong faith in economic growth make us unable to recognize the Oil Crash even though they live it. This process will actually be involuntary catabolic collapse, with deliberate or accidental destruction of those structures that we can no longer maintain. Worse still, destroy those facilities or investments needed to alleviate the energy shortage: the paralyze the exploration and development of new wells in the affected countries or companies are operated collapsing native country, are left to build power plants, wind farms, etc. In the medium term the situation will degenerate into chaos, to the aggravation of collapse following the different phases. The fact that for the rest of the participants in this game, countries that have not yet collapsed, the situation is more or less normal, with an efficient distribution of oil and energy in general, would not even in the country collapsing is to be aware that we are experiencing an energy crisis; Moreover, when attempting to address the issue will not touch it, because more urgent matters - the economic and financial crisis, demand our attention. Who wants to invest in a new rail line if it can not fund it? Who will consider establishing an emergency plan for energy savings when the priority is to reduce the rampant unemployment? Who will invest in research if not already used to pay the bills? Not perceive a problem with the power until prices stay high permanently, and then, when the volatile phase price finished, it will be because the sharp decline of production will have begun, and at that time will be too late to do anything. That is, when we know that we have an energy crisis because it is fully evident by then it will be terminal.


economic intervention (sorry, rescue) means an irreversible deepening of this complex process and will not be recognized for what it is: a systemic crisis associated with a natural resource crisis. In Portugal we have collected the test and the teacher has already stopped at our desk. It is a meager consolation stupid while those countries looking at us over his shoulder, calling us to face PIGS (acronym in English disgraced countries) have not yet realized that after collecting our discussion the teacher will be at their desks too. It turns out that none of us, from Greece to the U.S., has launched reforms that were needed at all levels, energy, economic and financial (not to mention the environment), we all have gaping thinking fantasies Network smart power, millions of electric cars , hydrogen fuel cells algae biofuel, nuclear reactors and rapid regenerative melting and so forth ... we let fly our imagination, instead of answering the test. It is too late for regrets.


I do not know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.


Salu2,
AMT