<Vinod Khosla - Give Him Your Ideas The Oil Drum DrumBeat: July 29, 2006>
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266 comments on DrumBeat: July 28, 2006

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NC on July 28, 2006 - 1:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree with both of you.  Population is the problem because it drives consumption and we might be in overshoot already.

My approach might ( I stress might) if we really reduce fossil fuel consumption immediately.  We can't go cold turkey the infrastructure won't allow it.

The problem I see is there is no real proactive plan to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.  Until we try and power some things with renewable, and prove how little energy will be available, there will be no target for energy consumption per person to shoot for.  I see too many people voicing the concept of using all the fossil fuels we want until it is well past peak and then we will shift to "the new energy sources".  That approach is dangerous.  

Better to force consumption now, and start using alternatives now, giving us some emergency stored fossil fuel to make the 50 year transition.  This approach is really for the developed countries to implement.  The third world doesn't consume that much fossil fuel except as food.  The world needs to know there isn't the carrying capacity for 6.5 Billion people.  Not enough energy, not enough food without the energy.  What is the carrying capacity using renewables?  I haven't a clue but we better find out soon.

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NC on July 28, 2006 - 2:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry - above should say "Better force conservation ..." - not consumption.

The goal needs to be a planned steep decline in use of energy and population.  The alternative is dropping off a cliff. Both energy and population will crash.  We will end at the same place wether we engineer the decline or we crash.  The difference is what is left of civilization via the two paths.

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Nick on July 28, 2006 - 5:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"The world needs to know there isn't the carrying capacity for 6.5 Billion people.  Not enough energy, not enough food without the energy.  What is the carrying capacity using renewables? "

Renewables can provide more than enough.  Wind in the US could generate twice the electricity we use now.  The earth receives 100,000 terawatts of solar energy continously from the sun, and humans use the equivalent of 4.5 terawatts on average.

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Todd on July 28, 2006 - 11:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Nick,

It's late so you may not see this before this thread goes to thread heaven.

We all want to believe that there are alternatives that will work.  But, the reality is that homo sapiens are sucking every resource dry - water, aerable land, gas, oil, the sea, minerals, forests; everything.

It is a package deal.  Gaia if you will.  There are no magic answers.  I say this from personal experience since I embraced alternative energy and a concern for sustaible living 30 years ago.  I'm not into theoretical arguments about alternatives.

I'm not going to tell you are wrong because a change in reality only comes through experience.

Todd

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Nick on July 29, 2006 - 11:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"the reality is that homo sapiens are sucking every resource dry - water, aerable land, gas, oil, the sea, minerals, forests; everything."

Well, I agree that there are serious problems with all of these.  I haven't had time to research all of them thoroughly.  But TOD is dedicated to peak oil, and I have had time to research PO and energy thoroughly, and as far as I can tell peak oil is NOT peak energy.  I find that encouraging.

"It is a package deal.  Gaia if you will.  There are no magic answers."

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  It sounds a little...err...faith based.  This seems unclear and fuzzy.  I respect the role of intuition, but I find that I don't understand something in a clear way I get in trouble.  

"I say this from personal experience since I embraced alternative energy and a concern for sustaible living 30 years ago."

I've been interested in these things for more than 30 years too, ever since I read the Club of Rome's report.

"I'm not into theoretical arguments about alternatives.  I'm not going to tell you are wrong because a change in reality only comes through experience."

Well...talking about this, and learning from each other, is what we do here.   I know there are people feeling pessimistic, but that alone doesn't really tell me whether that makes sense, or give me a chance to change your mind.  I think you shouldn't give up on things, and that includes not giving up on communication - we can't come to a consensus on things unless we talk about them.

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Woilf on July 29, 2006 - 11:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Renewables can provide more than enough.  Wind in the US could generate twice the electricity we use now.  The earth receives 100,000 terawatts of solar energy continously from the sun, and humans use the equivalent of 4.5 terawatts on average."

One thing that interests me about renewables is that there seems to be a tacit assumption that, because they're renewable, they don't have a significant downside to their use.

All that solar energy being dumped on the Earth isn't going to waste, for example. Much of it heats the atmosphere and the hydrosphere, which makes conditions amenable for life. I wonder what environmental changes would result if humanity were to capture a significant chunk of solar energy, say 10  or 20 percent (20,000 terawatts), and redirect it through technological infrastructure. Sure, waste heat would contribute to keeping things warm (perhaps too warm!), but it would be distributed through the atmsophere in a different way. Could be detrimental.

I wonder what harnessing 4.5 to 9.0 terawatts via wind energy would due to local environments? Wind turbines tap into fluid momentum, and must produce a lot of friction on airflow. On a massive scale, wind "farms" could, perhaps, alter local wind-climates (at the surface), which may also have some interesting effects on local ecosystems.

Just some ideas. I would like to see more deep thought on just what the true ramifications may be for a full-scale "power-up" on renewables.

-best

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Kevembuangga on July 29, 2006 - 11:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
On a massive scale, wind "farms" could, perhaps, alter local wind-climates (at the surface), which may also have some interesting effects on local ecosystems.

Yes, I provided that link a few days ago :

Sow the Wind, Reap the Drag Coefficient (Dept. of "We are as gods, and might as well get good at it")

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Nick on July 30, 2006 - 3:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The main conclusion of the article seems to be that wind power would help with global warming, both by reducing CO2, and by shifting the balance between the poles and the middle latitudes.
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Nick on July 30, 2006 - 3:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The question you're asking is: how will using solar energy change the earth's albedo?  IOW, how will reflection change vs absorption?  The answer is, not much, and if it did the result would be much smaller than the effect of heat engine waste heat, and global warming.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that the solar energy is typically absorbed as heat now.  The likely places for solar panels is existing structures.  PV might change the albedo a little, but not a whole lot. There are a lot of buildings with dark roofs, which absorb a lot already - PV might actually absorb less.

Heat engines (coal, nat gas, gasoline ICE's) throw
off 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity generated.  IF solar absorbed an additional .1 unit for every unit generated, that would be a 30 to 1 difference, and that doesn't even include the reduction in CO2 and global warming.

If you were really concerned, it wouldn't be a big deal to make some human structures a little lighter to compensate for a little more absorption at the solar panels.  Really, the whole effect is negligible.

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Woilf on July 30, 2006 - 11:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Nick, I like your thoughts.

However, I think the change of albedo would become significant if the goal is to collect a high percentage of insolation. If, for instance, an attempt to collect 80-90% of total insolation was successful, then the Earth's albedo must change from it's estimate of around 0.30.

Anyway, I'll keep thinking...

-best

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Nick on July 31, 2006 - 9:26am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
" If, for instance, an attempt to collect 80-90% of total insolation was successful, then the Earth's albedo must change from it's estimate of around 0.30."

Sure.  Of course, that would be about 20,000 times as much energy as we use now.  I think it's safe to say that human energy use will level out a long time before that.

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Nick on July 31, 2006 - 9:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oh, and thanks!
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266 comments on DrumBeat: July 28, 2006

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