"Alternative" Energy

[Ziggy Stardust]

Since it's inspired by James May's Big Ideas (3rd episode)

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/whats-on/ou-on-the-bbc-james-mays-big-ideas-power-the-people

(Article from BBC merely summarises the episode, so I assume it's not breaking the rules to post it. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry)

Goodbye to burning dead plants and animals, hello to forward-thinking sources of energy in Power to the People.

In the last of his Big Ideas journeys, James May sets off to find smarter, brighter and bolder ways of powering the planet for future generations.

James begins his journey by looking at the energy produced by the sun. In a unique experiment, he tries a solar-powered car. It might have raced thousands of miles across the Australian desert - but just how far will a solar car travel in Guildford at night?

In Seville, James visits the world’s first solar power station. This extraordinary cathedral of lights towers over the Spanish countryside, but for all its high tech glory, James discovers a curiously low tech Achilles’ heel. me: dust

Continuing his journey to the US, James encounters a group of dedicated aerospace engineers who are planning to make a lift that will reach 20,000 miles into the skies. Their idea is to build a power station in space. James watches enthralled as they take their first tentative steps towards their goal - and a crack at a $2million [£1million] prize.

While in Holland, James meets the first Dutchman who once travelled into space. This man has now put away his rockets and spacesuit, swapping them instead for kites in an attempt to harvest the powerful winds of a high-altitude jetstream.

And finally, James heads off into the deserts of New Mexico to seek out some modern-day alchemists. This group of scientists are hoping to conjure petrol out of thin air, with the help of only a few mirrors.

The gist of the show was that the way we currently get our energy, burning dead plants and animals, is as sophisticated as a rhinoceros' horn up the bum. It's still up to some visionairs with money, or burly men in sheds who are coming up with some of the best ideas to tap into the vast amounts of tappable energy which is untapped but seem very tappable given a little development.

Which idea for "alternative" energy do you believe is most promising?

 

[Tee Kay]

Which idea for "alternative" energy do you believe is most promising?

All of them. In combination. Solar power plants in orbit sounds especially cool though.

We as a species need to disenthrall ourselves from the idea of a single uber energy source, because after coal and oil there won't be any unless we can get solar to work at very high efficiencies. More potential energy sources the better, I say.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Fussion has the potential to be THE uber energy source. However it still seems 50 years away at least.

 

[Synobun]

One day I'd like to see Mercury turned into a massive solar panel with battery tanks that can be shipped back to Earth. However that is several hundred years away so... I'm not hopeful. Until we can fully utilize fusion and the other high output potential sources, solar is our best bet.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Well wind is already working and generating large amounts of energy in some countries, for instance in Spain. Much more than solar btw.

 

[Tee Kay]

Fussion has the potential to be THE uber energy source. However it still seems 50 years away at least.

And even so, it will probably be quite expensive. Certainly won't be commercially viable for another 50 years. And, even then fusion need not supply all of our energy needs; why build expensive plants if rooftop solar works well enough?

 

[Leoreth]

I think the success of alternative energies mainly depends on secondary technologies like smart grids (feasible) and sufficient storage devices (not so feasible). Which form should be chosen depends on environmental factors: photovoltaic works better in Southern Spain than it does in Southern Sweden, for example. But I agree with taillesskangaru that diversity is key here, and intelligent intracontinental networks can provide the right circumstances for the right form of energy in almost every situation.

Solar power plants in orbit sounds especially cool though.

How's that supposed to work?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think the success of alternative energies mainly depends on secondary technologies like smart grids (feasible) and sufficient storage devices (not so feasible). Which form should be chosen depends on environmental factors: photovoltaic works better in Southern Spain than it does in Southern Sweden, for example. But I agree with taillesskangaru that diversity is key here, and intelligent intracontinental networks can provide the right circumstances for the right form of energy in almost every situation.

Agreed on diversity. And aren't hydrogen cells perfect storage devices? The biggest problem with them is that hydrogen takes more energy to harvest than it delivers, but you could couple that with energy from wind or solar power to harvest. Then you could redistribute the cells to where the energy is needed.

How's that supposed to work?

It would need a space elevator type of construction to be effective. The big advantages are of course no weather and close to 24 hours of sun a day.

 

[El_Machinae]

I've changed my mind on a bit of the Alt.E story. The opening statement agrees with tailess, all Alt.E has its place, and an eye should be kept open to use each one where appropriate.

My second statement is that in the year 2200, we're going to be 90% solar. Now, whether it's grazing our horses on grass or orbital solar satellites really depends on how you, me, and our parents spend our money. It really matters what we endeavor to turn our current fuels into, when we burn them.

I used to think that ethanol would be big (eventually). The idea was that the corn ethanol would create a market supply of ethanol that could be used as fuel, and then the corn subsidies would drain off and we'd use alternate sources (developed by 'the market') for ethanol. Since then, I've seen that biomass is not a good source of energy when turned into ethanol, and it's more efficient to burn it to produce electricity.

I don't think that ethanol can appreciably upset gasoline for transport. I do think that electric cars are going to be more and more popular, though. There're too many ways to produce electricity (using alternative energy) and too few ways of making liquid fuel in a way that competes with gasoline. I think butanol (or somesuch) will be a specialty market to supplement gasoline.

That said, I think that all the progress is going to be in solar. It's easy to scale up, and we're basically waiting for an easy way to store it. As soon as my house gets a fuel cell that can store two weeks of electricity, the grid becomes incredibly flexible and resistant to disruption. Excess generation in the good times, and a drawing on reserves in the bad times.

Like I said, though, how we spend our money matters. If we continue to spend on luxuries, and then just become increasingly poor as life gets more expensive, we might be herding horses in the year 2200. Each litre can be leveraged by how we use it.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

What do we think about the idea of flying a kite into the jetstream?

The idea was a 'smart' kite being able to pull a tether up by the force of the jetstream, which could power a generator, and then coasting down again to repeat the process.

 

[El_Machinae]

You don't even need to have it that complicated. The generator could just be based on a ratchet system, so that even tugging it with a rope could generate power. My super-duper-addition to the idea would be to pipe electrically-produced hydrogen up the cord (through a hole in the middle?) so that the buoyancy of the kite was maintained by making it akin to a balloon as well.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I googled ratchet system, but don't see how it actually works. (your idea. I can see how a ratchet system works )

 

[Thorgalaeg]

And even so, it will probably be quite expensive. Certainly won't be commercially viable for another 50 years. And, even then fusion need not supply all of our energy needs; why build expensive plants if rooftop solar works well enough?

We dont know. It could be much cheaper than to cover half Europe with solar panels.

And anyway a secure energy source is necesary to backup solar and wind which gives a very discontinuous output (for instance in Spain in 2010 there were some days when wind gave us +50% of our electric comsumption, however other days it was under the 3%)

 

[Tarquelne]

Which idea for "alternative" energy do you believe is most promising?

Dark energy.

People who have massive black-holes for brains will be thrown off the earth's surface.
After that everything else should be easy.

Short of that: I think taillesskangaru nailed it. Another "uber" source may come along. But we shouldn't count on it, and - unless its extremely uber - even then alternate mature energy technologies would greatly lower costs and be much greener. Next-gen batteries/fuel cells for transportation, for example.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I think nuclear energy should be our stopgap while we're waiting on solar to become more efficient or cold fusion arrives. I rather like Isaac Asimov's idea of there being solar plants in space which send energy down to earth, but that's a long way off. It would require interglobal cooperation and the kind of forward thinking that people in government seem to have surgically removed once they get into office. Although the media has a field day with nuclear accidents, I would urge those who are on the fence about nuclear energy to look at France, which has operated them safely for decades. Wind energy also has its place, but it will only ever be a marginal one, I think.

I for one attempt to minimize my need for electricity. I keep lights turned off during the day, wash dishes by hand, and even toying around with idea of putting up a clothesline come summer, so I won't need a dryer.

 

[Cutlass]

Solar, wind, or geothermal could easily produce 100% of electric capacity for the US. And that included switching a lot of things to electric that are currently oil and gas.

All it takes is the proper investment and incentives to change by no longer subsidizing oil and coal and pollution.

 

[Monsterzuma]

I like High Altitude Wind Power because it's reasonably feasible, doesn't involve any crazy future physics and has a realistic promise of rewriting the rules where energy production rates are concerned. It also doesn't suffer from any intermittency deficiencies.

There are also stories going around about biofuels that can be grown in the deserts on seawater. These could potentially alleviate most of the strain on the transportation fuels market, since upscaling it is ridiculously easy. You just grow the stuff on dirt-cheap otherwise unused land.

 

[Leoreth]

I think nuclear energy should be our stopgap while we're waiting on solar to become more efficient or cold fusion arrives. I rather like Isaac Asimov's idea of there being solar plants in space which send energy down to earth, but that's a long way off. It would require interglobal cooperation and the kind of forward thinking that people in government seem to have surgically removed once they get into office. Although the media has a field day with nuclear accidents, I would urge those who are on the fence about nuclear energy to look at France, which has operated them safely for decades. Wind energy also has its place, but it will only ever be a marginal one, I think.

The more I think about nuclear energy the more conflicted I get. I think the risk is overestimated, especially in locations that aren't threatened by seismic activity. I also think that nuclear energy is preferable to almost every form of fossil fuel, so I think (especially Germany's) efforts to reduce nuclear capacity when there's still gas and coal burnt doesn't make a lot of sense.

But that rests on the fact that the investment for building the nuclear plants has already been made. I don't think it would be right to invest our money into building new ones, that would be wasting time on our way to expand the renewable energy sector. And even current nuclear plants don't last forever. France has recently decided to extend the retirement age of their facilities from 45 to 60 years, which is quite long (we're talking about 60 years old technology here). At some point even I get my doubts if they can maintain their security for so long.

Another point is the high costs of activating / deactivating nuclear plants to offset fluctuations in the energy grid. Something like that will be necessary until we can efficiently store electricity, and nuclear energy is not capable of that. That's a niche gas (or if you don't care about CO2, certain coal plants) can fill. While 25% nuclear energy is not a problem then, 80% is quite a hindrance to effectively change gears to renewable energy.

I for one attempt to minimize my need for electricity. I keep lights turned off during the day, wash dishes by hand, and even toying around with idea of putting up a clothesline come summer, so I won't need a dryer.

These things all sound pretty self-evident to me. I didn't even turn on my heating for most of the winter, and we had weeks of below -10°C recently (my flat is well isolated, though).

It would need a space elevator type of construction to be effective. The big advantages are of course no weather and close to 24 hours of sun a day.

Oh, and I imagined some kind of remote energy transfer like microwaves (but that would be too inefficient). But wouldn't a space elevator like construction require a geostationary satellite, and thus no 24 hours of sun a day?

(By the way, I hope we'll get some results out of carbon nanotube research soon, so we can actually get close to have the required materials for this.)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

We could always have satellites which reflect the light towards the solar station.

Or something.

 

[Leoreth]

Right. But I'm kind of wary about having lots of mirrors in space after the trouble we had with Hubble