<An Overlooked Detail - Finite Resources Explain the Financial Crisis The Oil Drum DrumBeat: November 22, 2008>

187 comments on Cars or Wind Turbines? Time to Choose ?

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DaveMart on November 23, 2008 - 7:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi Joe,
Some of the figures you are using seem to be a little inaccurate.

For wind turbines a commonly used lifetime by the industry to work out when they will need replacing is around 20 years I believe.
It should be borne in mind though that there will be maintenance during that time, which may include heavy expenditure if some of the major equipment goes, but OTOH when it comes time to replace it then you will already have the foundations, access roads, grid interconnect etc built in.
Maintenance for off-shore installations is likely to be more expensive.

Battery technologies have a longevity which is also pretty much as long as a piece of string, depending on the configuration and usage, and also which battery technology you are talking about.
To confine our discussion to car batteries, some of the latest lithium batteries have a life-span of over 10,000 cycles, which if you work that out means that they will probably be going strong for 20 years or so in most uses.
Even lead-acid when oversized and backed with capacitors has given plug-in hybrids a over a 100,000 mile lifetime:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/ultrabattery-combines-supercapacitor.html

If you have a look at Gail's article and the responses to it the real concern is if we have a high enough EROEI energy source and the infrastructure to support it, given those things then it should be possible to replace kit as it wears out.
If we don't we are screwed.

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Joe Average on November 23, 2008 - 5:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks, Dave.

I guess my point was, unless something's made out of stone, we'll have to keep replacing stuff forever. And forever on a finite planet with billions of non-carbon neutral consumers seems like bad math.

Regards, Matt B

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Pitt the Elder on November 23, 2008 - 7:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I guess my point was, unless something's made out of stone, we'll have to keep replacing stuff forever. And forever on a finite planet with billions of non-carbon neutral consumers seems like bad math.

True, but not the most reasonable assessment, as nothing is infinitely sustainable. "Forever" is unattainable - thermodynamically - meaning that the only reasonable time horizon to look at is "long enough", which is inherently subjective.

One way to look at this is that the resource constraints of the western world are very different from the constraints it had 1,000 years ago. Very little that a government could have done in 1008AD to conserve resources would have had a significant positive effect on our available resource base today; accordingly, one wonders if our own efforts might not be too relevant to 3008AD, assuming the next thousand years pass as well as the last thousand did.

Based on that, I would argue that "sustainable for the next thousand years" is a reasonable upper bound for "long enough", at least for planning purposes, and in many cases "long enough" will be considerably shorter.

Pretty much necessarily, more detailed plans will have shorter horizons; however, one way to combine detail with longer horizons is to artificially limit the total resources budget. If, for example, a plan with a 50-year time horizon would only use up 20% of a certain resource, then it's probably reasonable to assume that that plan is sustainable (with respect to that resource) for 200-300 years, but possibly much more (if better technology or better plans are developed and adopted).

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Joe Average on November 23, 2008 - 11:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks Pitt for the reply,

I'm still stuck on "sustainable growth" - that is, consuming more and more of the raw materials that are finite (I realise you didn't mention growth, but it's relevant I think).

If you told me we could build a wind turbine with x resources only ONCE, then that machine could maintain/repair/replace itself hundreds of times over with zero input from elsewhere, I'd be far more optimistic. But I understand self-sustaining man-made "things" are unachievable, so I must conclude that ultimately a wind turbine (for example) IS NOT a renewable energy source.

So as things stand, I doubt we have a thousand years of sustainability in us. Let alone "growth".

Regards, Matt B
PS. I'm not an arrow-clicker... Still trying to get my head around all this!

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scientastic on November 24, 2008 - 1:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Self-sustaining man-made things may be impossible, but as long as our ecosystem has a net influx of energy from the sun, it is possible to maintain a level of complexity above total entropy (chaos).

When the wind turbine reaches its end of life, if there are humans left on the planet with enough know-how, its parts and raw materials can be recycled.

You're right, anything that is a simply linear process (inputs from the environment, outputs to the landfill) is unsustainable. But if we can turn our linear process into a circular one, via recycling, then sustainability in that particular subsystem is possible.

"Sustainable growth" is an oxymoron. We do have to manage somehow to stabilize the population. That's where the scariest challenge really lies, because in all instances in the past that has been accomplished by disease and/or war.

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pragma on November 24, 2008 - 2:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Pitt, Joe, Sci:

This may be picky, but perhaps part of the problem is the use of oxymoron. I would include "Sustainable Development", a variant.

Similarly, Global Warming is only sound bite worthy, as it fails dismally at even suggesting the complexity of climate change. At best they are a poor choice of words, at worst, they are bait and switch or platitudes.

A meme that may be worth propagating is "sustainable change".

To me, sustainable change means that we can continue to evolve and develop but within the constraints of our resources. It may make the future more palatable, rather than the bleak prospect of picking over landfills and slopping hogs 'til the end of time. True, population is an ugly issue, but perhaps that is simply a sad part of the transition.

When I combine the remarkable things we have created over many centuries, in a highly resource limited environment, with what we have learned since, perhaps it just might be OK. Not BAU by any means, but not bleak subsistence either.

I know it's just words but think of "Yes we can". That phrase seems to have potential.

I must to stop now or I'll have to turn in my doomer membership.

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Cyril R. on November 24, 2008 - 2:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We do have to manage somehow to stabilize the population. That's where the scariest challenge really lies, because in all instances in the past that has been accomplished by disease and/or war.

Most demographics agree that population will level off (or at least slow down to a very low growth rate) somewhere between 9-12 billion people, and this appears to be a result of a number of demographic and economic developments that are not actively the result of any population policy.

So there's some reason for hope on that front.

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187 comments on Cars or Wind Turbines? Time to Choose ?

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