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Is It True that Alternative Energy Is Too Expensive?
Many people assume that alternative energy is simply too expensive,
and not competitive with oil and other conventional means of energy.
While
some alternative writers allege that the big oil companies have
artificially increased alternative energy prices by buying up promising
alternative energy technologies - for example supposedly helping to kill
first-generation electric cars by buying
up promising battery patents so they couldn't be used in electric
models - we don't even need to go down that rabbit hole.
Specifically,
a 2008 report for Congress by the Congressional Research Service
entitled "Renewable Energy R&D Funding History: A Comparison with
Funding for Nuclear Energy, Fossil Energy, and Energy Efficiency
R&D" notes:
Over
the 30-year period from the Department of Energy's inception at the
beginning of fiscal Year (FY) 1978 through FY2007, federal spending for
renewable energy R&D amounted to about 16% of the energy R&D
total, compared with 15% for energy efficiency, 25% for fossil, and 41%
for nuclear. For the 60-year period from 1948 through 2007, nearly 11%
went to renewables, compared with 9% for efficiency, 25% for fossil, and
54% for nuclear.
In other words, renewable energy research
and development received a small fraction of the R&D funding for
nuclear and fossil fuels. This has skewed the market, making
conventional energy sources cheaper and alternative sources more
expensive.
In addition, when the externalities
of environmental, military and terrorism costs are taken into account,
conventional energy production is much more expensive than most people
realize.
For example, as I wrote
yesterday, the government has decided that deepwater oil drilling in
the Gulf and other fragile and hard-to-drill regions - and securing oil
in Iraq and other foreign regions - are in our national security and
national energy policy interests (remember that Alan
Greenspan, John
McCain, George
W. Bush, Sarah
Palin, a high-level
National Security Council officer and others all say that the Iraq
war was really about oil).
Nobel prize winning economist
Joseph Stiglitz says that the Iraq war alone will cost $3-5
trillion dollars.
And economist Anita Dancs writes:
Each year, our
military devotes substantial resources to securing access to and
safeguarding the transportation of oil and other energy sources. I
estimate that we will pay $90 billion this year to secure oil. If
spending on the Iraq War is included, the total rises to $166 billion.
In addition, experts say that the Iraq war has increased
the threat of terrorism. See this,
this,
this,
this,
this, this
and this.
The
bottom line is that if alternative energy R&D was funded at the
same level as conventional energy, and when the externalities of
environmental, military and terrorism costs are taken into account, it
is not clear that alternative energy is really substantially more
expensive than conventional energy. At the very least, if the playing
field were leveled, alternative energy could become cost competitive in
the relatively near-term future.
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Silly progressive... He actually believes that government R&D = innovation...
I guess there's a sucker born every minute...
Yes, there is a sucker born every minute.
If "wind" and "solar" are the answers, then the question must be, "How do you waste precious capital resources by funding a losing energy venture in the name of science?"
And if we just keep kicking the can down the road on Social Security, I'm sure it'll all work out fine eventually. Sure, someday the money might run out, but no need to worry about that or start planning for the problem now.
Oh, wait....
The EROI is necessarily lower than oil that pumps itself out of the ground.
Steady-state power solutions also do not grow. It does not get windier or sunnier.
There's MORE THAN ENOUGH oil to power a 70s lifestyle for most of the world, but growth is the name of our game.
Too expensive compared to what? Compared to imported oil that my home country's currency is likley unable to purchase precious little of in the near future?
Any comparisons of solar/wind to oil in today's environment are likely to be irrelevant shortly during an unwind of globalism. As things drive to "relocaling" out of necessity, any energy that can be domestically sourced is likely to see the scales tip closer in its direction
He was comparing the cost to dead bodies. Cause you will always be able to trade out those bodies for oil. And we have an abundance of them as long as they are your.
Try building/transporting/maintaining a wind farm without hydrocarbons.
Ever wonder why you drive by a windfarm and of ten towers 4 are spinning fine, 2 are dogging it and four are not turning?
It's obvious when you think about it. The value of the power that can be sold is not worth the cost of timely maintenance.
Agreed. But, then again, I routinely pull 2000lb loads around our property using an all-electric tractor made by GE over thirty years ago that's charged via solar panels on the roof. That's decades of incremental innovation lost to the pursuit of oil.
I also wouldn't put massive wind farms constructed from giant pieces of equipment built in factories all across the world into the arena of "relocaling". As youo point out, it's largely just oil embodied in a different form.
Never heard of such a thing. Sounds cool. Any trouble finding parts? Is it powerful enough to pull a plow or run a baler?
He might be able to pull a 2000 lb load on the flat ground around his suburban estate for an hour or so. Rolling a trailer around takes only one kilowatt unless it has to climb a hill or work on a soft surface (i.e. field grass). Do this calculation: My 25HP Ford tractor will pull a two-bottom plow at about 3/4 throttle in the clay soil around my farm. One HP is about 750 watts, (round numbers). That's about 14 kilowatts. Find me a battery that will fit in my tractor, and deliver 14 kilowatts continuous for the 4-6 hours it takes to plow my cornfield. And find me a PV installation it will take to recharge that overnight. Right, I thought so.
What really burns my ass is the idea that somebody is going to create a magical plan for Government policy that will bring us to some fairyland where we never use another ounce of oil, and energy costs us nothing. Leave the damned market alone, and it'll do the job better than any sixteen dozen MIT/Harvard/Wharton graduate degrees ever will.
Oh, and I looked up that GE electric tractor. http://www.mrsharkey.com/electrak.htm
What a crock! Its' battery capacity is nominally 220 Amp-hours at 36 volts. At a continuous output of 10HP, it will last for just one hour before it needs a recharge. And that's assuming 100% efficiency; the actual efficiency of even the most modern motor/drive systems is only 80%. His is probably more like 50%. Yes, it would haul 2000 lbs up a hill, (albeit slowly) so I was wrong there. No, it won't plow my little field, or run a baler, or a brush hog, or any other PTO implement, for any useful time.
Swing and a hit.That ball is outta here!. I'd go back to horses before I would buy an electric tractor...
Of course alternative energy is too expensive. Oil is millions of years of stored solar energy. It can not be replaced. That's basic physics. You better be prepared to live on 15% of the income you live on now. Go ahead and throw away more resources on R&D, because ethanol worked out so well.
I'm all for leveling the playing field.
Stop federal funding for all of it, end the wars and cut defense spending by 70% and end any preferential regulation, tax treatment, etc. - there's a level playing field.
All without costing a dime.
O.K.
I'm posting here because, basically, I'm an idiot.
I have a design for a bumper sticker I'd like to submit to Tyler. I'm willing to donate the stickers for the cause.
Somebody hook me up.
Howard is the resident product development guy...
You seek Howard Beale.
I don't think that the issue is that alternative energy is not affordable, I think it is not viable at this point to meet energy requirements. The sun does not shine at night, the wind does not blow all the time, and there is not a viable storage technology to load level peak production to peak load in a 24 hour period.
Today, the only viable alternative to petroleum based transportation is NG. This is not the ultimate solution, but a doable step.
Sure there are, both pumped hydro and comressed air energy storge are fully capable and proven for load shifting. We will just need a lot more to handle higher renewable penetration levels.
I agree. A *rational* society would transition first to NG then to nuclear energy via fast breeder reactors, possibly supplemented by other forms of alternative energies.
Let's drop the subsidies for technologies that wouldn't otherwise be profitable and remove the tarriffs. A perfect example would be the tarriff on Brazilian cane ethanol and the subsidy for domestic ethanol. They produce it at the equivalent of about $20/bbl oil because it requires fewer cracking steps than corn/soy.
I agree, but I can also see grid type communities/streets etc. where you can have some sort of power hub that can distribute during night and other times through excess from the Jones being on vacation or the single guy that brings on more to the grid than he expends..
A scientist has figured out how to make and store energy by splitting water with sunlight. He says: "You've made your house into a fuel station [and we can get] rid of all the ... grids" [he's recently discovered an even cheaper way to do this]
Location is critical for wind and solar.Where I live, a mix of both is feasible.But the capital costs are high, and payback takes a long time.The biggest, easiest gain comes from reducing consumption.Better insulation, high efficiency lighting and more efficient appliances really help.But many lack the skills to maintain a battery bank, much less the other elements of a private system.This is a real expense seldom considered.
Most are better off maximizing effiency.Hopefully turnkey solutions will come down in price to enable more to dramatically reduce their use of the grid.
It is still hard to make the numbers work on wind/solar. Prior to installing wind turbine, and solar panels, my electric bill was $120 per month. I installed solar and wind system, and generate 150% per day of the energy I use. Excess energy goes back onto the grid. One might expect that I should be getting a check back from the utility company for $60 a month, but in the end, my electric bill is still $50 a month.
How could this be? Peak energy usage is early in the morning (oven, hair driers, ligths, etc) and evening (oven, TV, lights). During this time the sun does not shine, so power is being pulled off the grid, which I have to pay for. My peak production is at 2:00 PM, when I am using little electricity (maybe refrigerator is running). Energy is put back on the grid. The story about your meter running backwards is a myth. Utility companies require you to get an interconnect agreement to add solar and wind to your house. Part of the interconnect agreement requires you to purchase a new meter which separately records how much energy you are pulling off the grid, and how much you are putting back on the grid. Most utility companies will pay you 0 for what you are putting back on the grid. The belief that they are required to pay you is a myth. Most pay you 0, and those that do pay you something, usually pay you significantly less than what they are charging you.
Some parts of the country might have better requirements on utility companies to play fair, but what I am describing is typical.
To make matters worse, my utility company has added a $10 surcharge to my bill for not using enough electricity. So, not only are they steeling the electricity I put back on the grid, they are penalizing me for not buying high carbon footprint electricity from them.
The only way to get around this would be to go completely off the grid. This would require purchasing a large battery bank. The batteries are very expensive, and have to be sized such that they could sustain your house in the case of several cloudy, windless days in a row. The batteries have a limited lifetime, and can create explosion hazard from hydrogen outgassing.
Utilities should be required to offer true "net metering", where you are given full credit for energy put back onto the grid. Until this is mandated, home solar and wind systems will not be economically viable.
You should disconnect from the grid as soon as you can get a bank.
I will tell you what I am waiting for..the new ultra capacitors.Supposedly in the next 5 to 10 years, we can kiss the lead acid batteries goodbye.
From what I have learned, forklift batteries or rolls-surrette can last 50 years if sized properly.This addresses not at all the need to properly maintain them (with all that entails) or fun with outgassing.(not to mention price--YIKES!) I have a detached garage I could put a bank in, but I am waiting for ultra capacitors to become available and affordable.Then bye-bye grid!
A diesel genset might be nice in the garage too.
6-volt golf cart batteries from walmart are surprisingly affordable and reliable these days.
Desulfators have also come a long way. I have a friend who simply goes to auto shops, marinas, etc. and load tests their "dead" batteries. He offers to swap truly dead ones for ones that can be desulfated back to life. He continually adds to his battery bank this way and hasn't bought a battery in almost two years now.
I suspect that an investment in batteries today to offset your peak grid usage would more than pay for itself in a hyperinflationary scenario where your utility rates skyrocket. Like most practical planning these days, it seems to come down to whether you're in the inflationary or deflationary camp. Either way, you're in better shape than most...congrats.
Lasagna,
Your point is true . . . the real motivation for solar/wind home systems is a hedge against runaway energy prices in the future. Should that happen, one could change lifestyle to better load level usage to production (do laundry, cook while sun is shining/wind is blowing).
The bootstrapping technique you describe might work for a few people, but does not scale up well. Bartering for used batteries takes time that could be spent in other productive activities.
10 dollar surcharge: Kind of like Oregon imposing a special tax on hybrids because they didn't generate enough tax revenue off of gasoline sales. the system needs to decide what kind of behaviour it would like to reinforce...
Typical Left Coast insanity!
I swear, urban West Coasters are a whole different species, with their own special "logic".
Do not get me started on pseudo libs! Hippies....an extinct species. The specie homo-yuppiefinacous ravaged them decades ago! In the wake they built home after home after home, and bought suburu after suburu after suburu. Way to go libs!
It would like to reinforce the behavior of throwing capital at only people who will investigate alternative energy but not actually do a damn thing with it. While simultaneously obfuscating the true costs of everything so that you can't make informed decisions. IE. Don't give money to railroads. It's not fair to support them while simutaneously diverting billions into the road system to make trucking compete railroads out of existance.
It's called winners lose losers win.
+1
The problem isn't that these technologies can't produce sufficiently, it's that now everyone expects to have seven DVRs running 24 hours a day to watch Idol from last night while refilling their corner whirlpool tubs from the electric water heater, while the automated margarita machine in the "entertainment room" keeps the drinks slushy, and the robot cleaner dutifully scours the backyard pool where junior spends all summer updating his facebook profile every five minutes on his personal laptop via the dedicated backyard wifi hotspot.
Sadly, rather than voluntary lifestyle reductions now to prepare for the inevitable, most people are in for a rude awakening once it all hits home...and the awakening won't be from their bedside ipod dock with built-in light-sensing ceiling projector this time.
1 more decade, and there won't be a oil problem anymore.
Solar is gaining every day and is getting pretty cheap.
3 years ago, a installation costed about 25000 euro, now you have a full installtion for 8000 euro, and + the tax credit, you earn that back in 3 years.
It just needs to reach the tipping point where fossil fuels will become so exspensive because demand will keep going down and where alternative energy will be number 1.
The only "problem" now is that for installing these things, you have to pay for your energy needs 3 years in advance. And people are bath in math when it comes to money.
But it's comming.
Considering the Hirsh report said 20 years is needed to prevent chaos in energy share, and peak production is within a matter of a few years at most, I would say it is not too late to look for alternate energy. The EROEI for solar and wind is low as of now, but I think they will be our only hope. Hydro-electricity is the safest bet, but only if environmental concerns are taken into account; fish need love too. As far as nuclear, well, storing the waste makes EROEI negative in the long run.
Thanks for the article George. Energy consumption should be on the forefront of everyone's minds from here on out.
I will continue...shale is as good as shite, and natty gas is short on supply too. Also, natty gas will not last much longer than oil in the US, and the only way to get it here is by turning it into liquid. This process lowers the EROEI, and is extremely dangerous. Same goes for coal. The Nazis tried to run their military on the stuff, did not work too well. It will not work now either.
Natural gas offers a strong corollary to peak oil theories. It was just a few years ago that domestic NG reserves were down to just a few years, and the big debate was where and how quickly we would build the LNG terminals for all the NG we'd need to import. (Someone even tried to market a big chuck of land in Malibu as a site for an LNG terminal. F-ing hilarious) A couple technical innovations later, and presto the US has over a hundred years of NG supply, probably more if not for the fact that NG prices have collapsed.
Considering the technology at their disposal and intermittent 1000 plane B-17 strategic bombing raids, the Germans didn't do that badly with their coal to liquids programs.
Coal to liquids technology works. With some research, it would work better. Like everything, its about ROI.
MLH,
Where did you get we're short on Natty?
We have the largest known reserves in the world.
Enough to heat/cool over 100 million homes for over 100yrs.
That's just what WE KNOW about.
Bottom line, the Eco Nazi's have screwed US, and themselves, no reason we should not have built at least a 100 Nuclear power plants in the last 20yrs, we have NOT built a NEW refinery, in over 30yrs.( just stop and think about that......why?..Eco Terrorists).
Wonder why your gasoline goes up so much in Summer?.
The few refineries we have left, shut down for maintenace, or cut back production.
Basically, if we were not so close to Bamageddon, a new POTUS, would/could issue a PDD, or an EO, declare a National Crisis(which is a fact), and start pumping like hell, and building nuke reactors.
Also, start massive exploration on US Soil.
We have been lied to for years.........there is no reason we should import ONE drum of crude from the Middle East.............NONE.
It's all about da moneeee.
Why should we deplete ours when we can use thiers and then be the last people left with substaintial reserves? Chess not checkers.
Just build a nuclear plant next to the oil sands deposit.
And then we can make expensive oil out of the sands AND have waste that will cost us until the end of time.
<sarcasm off>
Sorry, this idea will turn EROEI negative.
Nuclear is not an option because the waste costs are massive and infinate and this dents EROEI; unless we can use thorium.
It's the least bad solution unless we tax motor fuel at its opportunity cost to society(think ten aircraft carrier groups), maybe $10 per gallon federal.
I know we are splitting hairs, as there is no saving grace.
We are currently using Natty Gas to mine tar sands, and that is stupid, but I think going nuclear would be no better and probably worse.
I think the gas tax should have been implemented 40 years ago, when US production peaked, then our societty could have been weaned off. Now taxing gas will be like taking a junkee off cold turkey. This as our economy falls into hades! I think we should at least remove the subsidies on gas.
Our biggest shortage will be motor fuel, which is why I think it makes more sense to use nuclear (which cannot be used as liquid motor fuel). and if you have to use nuclear, a remote area makes sense to me.
We agree, I think, that we are trying to figure out the least bad options with folks not ready for $10 motor fuel.
We agree. No good options from here out. Live in a hydro powered area, and buy an electric car in a few years. I think on a small scale, solar will be a feasible way to power a house. I know, it is expensive....
I can not see nuclear replacing oil. Nuclear driven cars? naw....and nuclear's eroei is negative in my book, with storage costs and all....nuclear is the last option in my book, but, it will have to be an option with oil running on fumes.
The backside of production is so close I can smell it....
actually the externalities argument is quite powerful and something which i did not consider previously....indeed the only reason the bush crime syndicate put us in the middle east was for oil (and a grudge fuck against saddam hussein - not be confused with barack hussein)....when considering the trillion+ dollar war amortized over 7.5 billion barrels per year of which 60% is imported, we are paying anywhere from 50-150 usd per bbl of oil on top of the nominal price.
+++++ the truth hurts, but not us.
To my mind the solution is easy - it just requires bold moves.
nearly all of the alternative energy systems have a very high capital construction cost and a lower running cost - nuclear fission is a classic example.
Simply supply zero or near zero interest money towards these projects and penalise consumption such as housing via very high mortgages and within a generation you will get a Industrial Renaissance in the west.