Climate Change

[Reddy]

Andy, I thorough enjoy reading your posts (although I'll have to admit I can't get through everything).

One problem with all this conservation is that the service providers (municipalities, power company, etc.) will still want/need to get paid. I don't have my bill with me, but I'm stuck with "base" charges whether I use anything or not. I think it's probably at least $50/mo (WSG+Elect, no gas). I recycle everything, sometimes only putting one or two small trash bags in a huge 50 gal bin. I could probably go two months between garbage pickup if the city allowed it. My monthly bill is mostly base charges, 911+ambulance and taxes (how's that for the conservatives on the forum).

Regionally here with $0.07/KWH and 200% hydro, 50% wind, 20% nuclear, 20% gas, 20% coal (obviously the excess is exported to CA), I have a hard time worrying about my energy use. I'm still pretty good with minimizing consumption (higher summer house temps, lower winter temps, CFLs, bicycling or EV to work, mega-gardening, zeriscaping, harvesting the nearly non-existent rainwater doesn't make sense). I've added more insulation and high efficiency windows (which were really needed). Last winter I read an article about a super high efficiency new build in Iowa (12" walls, triple pane Ar-fill, 24" roof insulation, etc). They got their electric consumption per sq.ft. "down" to the same as mine. Since they heated with natural gas, and I am full electric with an old heat pump, I'd say I'm doing ok. Turning down the thermostat really makes a difference in the winter. I can go for days, sometimes weeks, without heat if I leave the setting at 60 F.

I've looked into PV, but the city wants $200+ initially to permit and then an annual fee (maybe $50), though I'm not sure what it's for. Working through the numbers, the "payback" in purely financial terms would be three or four decades.

My biggest hang up right now is throwing away perfectly good (although older and less efficient) appliances to save a modest amount of energy (which is already some of the "cleanest" in the country). The electric water heater will eventually need replacement, so that is next on the efficiency list. However, I was laughed at by the only plumber around who advertises "solar", saying he only installs that for the "richies" and it doesn't make any sense and costs over $5K-10K.

I've added the EV (which I didn't really need and certainly isn't more environmentally-sound than bicycling or walking). I mostly purchased it to help support the industry and show there is a market. I suppose the best thing for me to do would be to EVangelize to others about reducing their consumption. So watt's next? Any suggestions?

Reddy

 

[AndyH]

Amazing Reddy! The first (hopefully comical) comment I have after reading your post once is:

Dude - bell curve - you're not on it. :lol:

I'm not an engineer or scientist, just an information broker trying to figure out my next best move. I agree completely that utilities want to get paid and it's not in their best interest to have everyone go off-grid (and I'm certainly not suggesting that's in anyone's best interest).

edit...
Personally, as the CEO of my 'own business' (my own finances), I no longer feel obligated to support industries with which I don't agree. I looked into building my off-grid Earthship within the city limits but the way the rules and codes are written and/or enforced here, it would cost more in time, energy, and dollars to get variances for everything than the house is worth (must be connected to sewer, must be connected to water, must must even if you're not going to use it...etc.). Those, along with things like sirens, motorcycle racing at 2AM, city heat island effect, and desire for a couple acres of permaculture gardens, helped me decide to head for the open spaces out of town. Once I'm out of town, I'll get to reinvest part of my utility savings in Motrin for as long as it takes to pound all those Earthship tires. :lol:
/edit

Expand your post and submit it to Homepower magazine - people need to know how to do what you're doing!

 

[Reddy]

Actually, that's where I read about the Iowa house.

 

[AndyH]

There is plenty of proof that wind and solar can and currently is providing baseload power

Baseline power has a technical defination, and wind or solar power isn't baseline power. Rather that arguing definations, consider this:

What provides power on nights when the wind isn't blowing?

Baseload definition - thanks. Not my area of expertise. These suggest to me that there's room for a shift, but I may be wrong:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf
http://www.energyscience.org.au/BP16 BaseLoad.pdf

Wind must be a daytime resource in some places, because you're not the only person that's asked that question. I can't answer because I'm only familiar with one area - and here in Texas we get more wind at night than during the day.


http://www.uwig.org/AttchB-ERCOT_A-S_Study_Final_Report.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'll watch this for a few nights and see how things look in other parts of the country:
http://hint.fm/wind/

 

[Reddy]

Here in the PNW, BPA did a multi-year statistical study and showed that the wind was completely random (for time of day). I couldn't find the link.

However, there are seasonal differences as shown below:
http://www.bpa.gov/Corporate/WindPower/docs/WIF_SC_Presentation_6-11.pdf

Notice, the increase from April to August which corresponds nicely with the normal, summer-time increases in automobile driving (and higher gas prices). As I've said before: Give us more EV's, and DC QCs and we will try our best to consume that excess wind power.

Reddy

 

[GRA]

The biggest problem with energy efficiency and conservation (as someone who's been practicing both for a couple of decades) is that it runs into Jevons' paradox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You've got to raise the price of that energy you're using more efficiently, or you just wind up using more. You can see evidence of that in this forum, where several BEV owners have stated that because it's so much less expensive to drive their BEV, they're now driving more each year.

I take a back seat to no one in my admiration for Lovins' and RMI* , but in the case of nukes I believe he's wrong and Brand's right. YMMV.

*If you're ever in the Aspen/Old Snowmass area be sure to tour Amory's house (which was still the RMI HQ when I visited in 1992); it's a hoot. I wonder if they've still got the banana tree with its resident lizard.

 

[WetEV]

Greenland is having yet another bout of surface melting.

http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=691" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hard to figure odds, as there probably is a fair amount of persistance during a year. In other words, if you get one melt you have a much higher chance of getting a second melt the same year.

 

[AndyH]

The biggest problem with energy efficiency and conservation (as someone who's been practicing both for a couple of decades) is that it runs into Jevons' paradox:

Gack. Someone shoot Jevons already. Oh, he's dead. Good.

You've got to raise the price of that energy you're using more efficiently, or you just wind up using more. You can see evidence of that in this forum, where several BEV owners have stated that because it's so much less expensive to drive their BEV, they're now driving more each year.

Here I have to say that "it depends." Raise the price for carbon, but if one is driving an EV charged with renewables at least and from their own solar, do we really care how much they drive? Isn't it the same zero carbon whether it's 1000 miles a year or 20,000 miles?

This one shocked me when I started learning about off-grid planning, but it's clear that when folks are on-grid, the mentality is 'use less.' When off-grid, however, there are 'use less' times of the year - like solar PV in December - but there are plenty of times when the batteries are full and the charge controller has gone to sleep at 11:30 in the morning and sky is 'severe clear.' Charge everything! Today it's waffles for breakfast and we're going to fire up the electric clothes dryer just because we can - Jevons be damned!
https://homepower.com/articles/toast-pancakes-and-waffles

I take a back seat to no one in my admiration for Lovins' and RMI* , but in the case of nukes I believe he's wrong and Brand's right. YMMV.

(snark alert...sorta) If Nukes are good, let Brand pay for the unobtainable insurance and required loan guarantees. While some choose to blame anti-nuke folks, I think it's pretty clear that if 1. nuclear companies had better planning/budgeting skillz and 2. insurance companies saw nuclear as an acceptable risk and 3. investors saw an ability to profit, that we'd have nukes everywhere. But they don't and we don't - except where the Federal Government (AKA US) is on the hook for loan guarantees and insurance coverage.

*If you're ever in the Aspen/Old Snowmass area be sure to tour Amory's house (which was still the RMI HQ when I visited in 1992); it's a hoot. I wonder if they've still got the banana tree with its resident lizard.

They still have the bananas but I don't know about the lizard. Haven't been there - all I know of it is from his talks and the tour guide.
http://www.rmi.org/Amory's+Private+Residence
http://www.rmi.org/Content/Files/Locations_LovinsHome_Visitors_Guide_2007.pdf

Bananas are a fixture in the Earthship greenhouse as well - my pair of dwarf Cavendish plants are on the porch waiting...

 

[WetEV]

(snark alert...sorta) If Nukes are good, let Brand pay for the unobtainable insurance and required loan guarantees. While some choose to blame anti-nuke folks, I think it's pretty clear that if 1. nuclear companies had better planning/budgeting skillz and 2. insurance companies saw nuclear as an acceptable risk and 3. investors saw an ability to profit, that we'd have nukes everywhere. But they don't and we don't - except where the Federal Government (AKA US) is on the hook for loan guarantees and insurance coverage.

Are coal plants or for that oil burning cars required to have insurance coverage for melting down the planet? No? Really??

The risk isn't zero. Go look at Arctic sea ice currently. Think about all the methane frozen in the Arctic. The horror show would be a rapid release of all that methane into the air, which might warm the climate by 10C or more in decades. Can you say "mass extinction and collapse of civilization"? I knew you could.

Trading snark about the risks of nuclear without considering the risks of the alternative isn't useful. I don't mean wind and solar, we need to expand those as fast as reasonable as well. I mean fossil fuel power.

 

[AndyH]

(snark alert...sorta) If Nukes are good, let Brand pay for the unobtainable insurance and required loan guarantees. While some choose to blame anti-nuke folks, I think it's pretty clear that if 1. nuclear companies had better planning/budgeting skillz and 2. insurance companies saw nuclear as an acceptable risk and 3. investors saw an ability to profit, that we'd have nukes everywhere. But they don't and we don't - except where the Federal Government (AKA US) is on the hook for loan guarantees and insurance coverage.

Are coal plants or for that oil burning cars required to have insurance coverage for melting down the planet? No? Really??

The risk isn't zero. Go look at Arctic sea ice currently. Think about all the methane frozen in the Arctic. The horror show would be a rapid release of all that methane into the air, which might warm the climate by 10C or more in decades. Can you say "mass extinction and collapse of civilization"? I knew you could.

Trading snark about the risks of nuclear without considering the risks of the alternative isn't useful. I don't mean wind and solar, we need to expand those as fast as reasonable as well. I mean fossil fuel power.

I'm with you here across the board - truly. I wish that all externalities were put on the table. While I may be wrong, I have to assume that all of the big energy companies/supporters/etc. have access to lobbyists and have tweaked the system to fit** - and all I'm suggesting is that even in a relatively favorable environment, companies can get venture capital and insurance for everything but nuclear power. (**The loan guarantee program that Solyndra has brought to light, for example, was created specifically by and for the nuclear power industry because they didn't have support anywhere else but from the taxpayer.)

I personally don't care any longer about the nuclear power issue (nothing personal or snarky at all), though, because we simply cannot get enough on-line inside of 10-20 years to make a dent in our climate change emergency -- and that suggests to me that our energy is best directed elsewhere. I may be wrong, so start inserting tab A into slot B on those thorium boxes.

 

[GRA]

The biggest problem with energy efficiency and conservation (as someone who's been practicing both for a couple of decades) is that it runs into Jevons' paradox:

Gack. Someone shoot Jevons already. Oh, he's dead. Good.

You've got to raise the price of that energy you're using more efficiently, or you just wind up using more. You can see evidence of that in this forum, where several BEV owners have stated that because it's so much less expensive to drive their BEV, they're now driving more each year.

Here I have to say that "it depends." Raise the price for carbon, but if one is driving an EV charged with renewables at least and from their own solar, do we really care how much they drive? Isn't it the same zero carbon whether it's 1000 miles a year or 20,000 miles?

The problem, of course, is that a full transition to renewables and low-carbon sources isn't going to happen for at least another 50 years, which is about how long it takes for a new energy source to achieve 50% of total capacity. Sure, we'll (hopefully) have been transitioning to low carbon all the time, but as the majority of the world's electricity will remain largely coal-generated for at least the next 30 years (China continues to bring on line a new coal plant roughly every week), using more renewables for EVs means there's that much less available for everything else. And you're also ignoring the economics of all this. Right now, of course, fracking has altered the balance of costs between coal, nukes, NG and renewables out of all resemblance to what it was just 3 years ago.

This one shocked me when I started learning about off-grid planning, but it's clear that when folks are on-grid, the mentality is 'use less.' When off-grid, however, there are 'use less' times of the year - like solar PV in December - but there are plenty of times when the batteries are full and the charge controller has gone to sleep at 11:30 in the morning and sky is 'severe clear.' Charge everything! Today it's waffles for breakfast and we're going to fire up the electric clothes dryer just because we can - Jevons be damned!
https://homepower.com/articles/toast-pancakes-and-waffles

Seeing as how I used to design and sell off-grid systems, and my collection of Homepower starts with #2 (and ends somewhere in the 30s IIRR), it's not a mystery to me at all. Conserve when your generation is low, and delay your major energy usage for when you'd otherwise be spilling it. Off-grid people tend to be very focused on using as little as possible; they have to be, because their BoS costs are a lot more expensive than Grid-intertie systems, as they provide their own back-up. It is just maximizing the efficiency of the system to use what would otherwise be wasted.

I take a back seat to no one in my admiration for Lovins' and RMI* , but in the case of nukes I believe he's wrong and Brand's right. YMMV.

(snark alert...sorta) If Nukes are good, let Brand pay for the unobtainable insurance and required loan guarantees.

I absolutely agree and support the abolition of the liability cap. Nuclear should be required to cover their own liabilities instead of the government assuming the majority of the risk. Until they are willing to do that, they can't make a 'adequately safe' claim that will convince anyone.

While some choose to blame anti-nuke folks, I think it's pretty clear that if 1. nuclear companies had better planning/budgeting skillz and 2. insurance companies saw nuclear as an acceptable risk and 3. investors saw an ability to profit, that we'd have nukes everywhere. But they don't and we don't - except where the Federal Government (AKA US) is on the hook for loan guarantees and insurance coverage.

Or, in other countries, where standardized designs are used so that no ridiculously long delays in construction and financing, with their attendant uncertainties, result. Such as the case in France, where they've gone 80% nuke in about 40 years. And despite the fact that Amory has been claiming for the past 35 years at least that nukes are uneconomical (and in the U.S. since TMI he's largely been right), that certainly isn't the case around the world. With countries such as the U.S. with large gas reserves due to fracking, that's still probably correct.

Edit: Corrected formatting, which buried a statement of mine among previous quotes.

 

[Nekota]

There is plenty of proof that wind and solar can and currently is providing baseload power so I can no longer make the jump that nukes are required - they were but no longer. I see the push for nukes the same as the sales pitch that natural gas is cleaner to burn. Sure - but when we bring the externalities on-line it's got a similar CO2 footprint to coal yet carries additional risk. But - I certainly could be wrong.

I've read Mackay's book a couple of times and use it as a reference. While I like the work he's done, I don't agree with his conclusions. Maybe I'm wrong here too.

I truly believe at this point that the Rocky Mountain Institute's Reinventing Fire lays out the best plan currently on the table - because they don't pen themselves in with assumptions - they start with our current situation and the destination on a clean sheet of paper, and then draw a line between the two. And they make it clear that efficiency is a critical component - and show that when we rework efficiency it completely changes the nature of the power supply problem.

And because we can do this today:
http://www.absoluteefficiency.com/LEAF/NetZero.pdf

RMI has been playing the conservation and now "re-branded conservation" as efficiency for 30 or 40 years. Conservation or efficiency does not make energy, it is the wise use of energy. An example of wise energy use is getting cars to slow down from an average of 70 to 55 (60% energy savings) but good luck on getting drivers to slow down! A. Lovins is pretty amazing - look what he did to S. Brand with his boring 4 facts deluge.

Thanks to A. Lovins and his ilk we have a very warm planet arriving sooner than later.

Right...Shoot any solution that doesn't call for a massive expansion of nuclear power. Bzzzt - thanks for playing.

Did you look at the article I linked, by the way? Efficiency works - RMI recently participated in an energy retrofit for the Empire State building - and it resulted in a payback in 'negative years' - it was less expensive to do an energy saving retrofit compared with the traditional required refurb that would not provide future energy savings.

Here's a look at conservation and redesign in the real world. I'm intimately familiar with the data because they are for my house.

1600 sq ft all electric house. Three bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, two story, built in 2000 or 2001. San Antonio, TX.

Average monthly electricity bill over four year period from July 2008 through July 2012: $157.94
Average monthly water bill over same period as above: $29.00
In the event of a power outage, the house is habitable in the spring and fall. Temperature drops to freezing on winter nights and over 100 on summer days. House is not habitable without water and sewer connection.

1600 sq ft passive solar house. Three bedroom, 2 bath, one story, also in San Antonio (estimated from exact building located in Nrn New Mexico and a 2nd in East Texas).

Average monthly electricity bill: 0
Average monthly water bill: 0
Average monthly propane bill: $8.33

All electricity is provided by PV panels. >90% of hot water supplied by solar thermal collector; remaining propane-fired on-demand water heater. Cook stove is propane. Water is harvested rain. All systems are included in price of building, and build costs are the same for the conventional and passive solar building.

Temperature in this building does not depend on electricity or water. Water is still available without electricity. Greywater is cleaned in manufactured wetland in attached tropical greenhouse and provides some % of annual food requirement.

This comparison suggests to me that designing from an efficient standpoint first will provide a superior product for the same amount of money, and a product that does not require any ongoing connection to any energy supply system.

If you don't mind, I'll agree to disagree with your assessment.

So you disagree that the earth is getting warmer?

Or that conservation is not an energy source?

I never said not to conserve, I said it's not an energy source.

I'm well aware of the ability to get by without electricity - the county where I grew up with did not have any electricity until the 1950s. I'm sorry I responded to this thread - I feel so dumb.

 

[ztanos]

So you disagree that the earth is getting warmer?

Or that conservation is not an energy source?

I never said not to conserve, I said it's not an energy source.

I'm well aware of the ability to get by without electricity - the county where I grew up with did not have any electricity until the 1950s. I'm sorry I responded to this thread - I feel so dumb.

Isn't the climate change cyclical? Not trying to stir the pot, just trying to understand better.

 

[Herm]

You sure nuclear plants are not economical?.. an AP1000 reactor generates about $500 million worth of electricity every year, and utilities have 2-3 of those on a site. Get free insurance, legal immunity and low cost loans and they are very economical.

Nukes are too profitable, they should be owned by governments and run by bureaucrats so the wealth is spread.

 

[WetEV]

So you disagree that the earth is getting warmer?

Isn't the climate change cyclical? Not trying to stir the pot, just trying to understand better.

Yes, but on what time scale?

On the 300 million year cycle driven by plate technonics? (Strictly speaking, only quasi periodic.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent_cycle" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or on the 23,000 year cycle (and 100,000 year, and others) driven by orbital changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or on the sunspot cycle, which is about 11 years, with a Mauder pattern of a hundreds years on top of it? (Also quasi periodic.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or the ENSO (El Nino/La Nina), which at ~5 years cycle is almost weather? (Also quasi periodic)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o-Southern_Oscillation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And various and sundy others.

What we are seeing in climate change isn't caused by any known cyclic pattern. ENSO has been at a minimum, this is the one of the weakest sunspot cycles in recent history (Mauder maximum seems to have been 1950's, sunspot cycles have been getting weaker since then), orbital forcing is both too slow and is in the cooling phase now, as is the supercontinent cycle.

 

[AndyH]

So you disagree that the earth is getting warmer?

Or that conservation is not an energy source?

I never said not to conserve, I said it's not an energy source.

I'm well aware of the ability to get by without electricity - the county where I grew up with did not have any electricity until the 1950s. I'm sorry I responded to this thread - I feel so dumb.

I didn't say 'conservation' was an energy source - but can you not recognize that our demand for energy is at least tangentially related to our need to generate electricity? And dear heaven - I didn't say a thing about 'going without' electricity. Express your ideas as you wish, but please don't try to put them in my mouth - I don't like the taste.

Damn Nekota - had I realized expressing an opinion contrary to yours was going to put you fully into passive-aggressive mode, I'd have gone to pay Nerf tag with my son instead.