New Zealand Bans New Fossil Fueled Power Plants

Sometimes people agree with me.  Earlier today I made this comment on a previous post:

"If it was possible I would place a moratorium on building coal plants without CCS."

I swear I had not read or heard about this story.

From Bloomberg:

New Zealand electricity producers, including Contact Energy Ltd., will face a 10-year ban on the construction of new gas- or coal-fired generators to help the nation meet its Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets. . . .

State-owned generators will be barred from building new gas-fired plants, and a decision on whether to extend the ban to Contact and other private generators will be made this year, Energy Minister David Parker said today.

New Zealand already produces about 70 percent of its power from non-polluting wind, hydro-electric and geothermal generators. The government wants to raise that to 90 percent by 2025 and is blocking construction of cheaper gas-fired power stations to speed investment in wind turbines and steamfields. (another word for geothermal I believe)

Comments

[Ben Jovees]

Let get this into prospective. New Zealand’s much bigger greenhouse problem is her 100million farm animals producing (burping, farting and enteric fermentation-manure fermentation) effectively more CO2e gases (Methane is 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas) than all of its old beaters put together.

[Ben Jovees]

Let get this into prospective. New Zealand’s much bigger greenhouse problem is her 100million farm animals producing (burping, farting and enteric fermentation-manure fermentation) effectively more CO2e gases (Methane is 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas) than all of its old beaters put together.

[averagejoe]

"New Zealand’s much bigger greenhouse problem is her 100million farm animals producing (burping, farting..."

Not to worry, they have a pill for that now:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/mar/23/climatechange.climatechange

[marcus]

Lets get this in perspective. How many cows does the US have?? Shouldn't New Zealand be congratulated here? I think so!

[Cervus]

Well, I wish them luck on keeping the lights on, anyway.

[averagejoe]

Last time I checked, the U.S. had about 104 million cattle. As a reference point, India has about 400 million.

[Jim Holm]

Time to convert their coal burning power plant boilers to small, underground pebble bed nuclear.

[greg]

Seems to me they should make lemonade out of the lemons. They may already be doing it, capture the methane gas from the farms and burn it. The output may not be big enough for selling , but should be enough for the milk and beef industries needs.
70% clean energy, that's pretty good!

[bigTom]

I was rather astounded when I read the headline. But New Zealand has a low population density, and is mountainous, which means the hydro potential per capita is quite large. Add in the geothermal resources, and it doesn't seem like a big stretch. NZ is also an important eco-tourism destination so a little money spent burnishing their eco-friendly image can be well spent.

The most important reason for capturing methane from animal waste, and landfills is to burn up the methane. Even if it is simply burned, the CO2 is far less harmful than the methane from which it came. I believe worldwide methane emissions/atmospheric concentrations have more or less been stabilized -but they are still much higher than pre agricultural times.

[Amsterdamned]

Cattle CH4 "emissions" have a much smaller effect on the climate than fossil fuel burning.

[averagejoe]

Actually, large hydro power projects (reservoirs) are the single biggest source of manmade methane emissions. Vegetation in the flooded areas rots and gives off methane. Some hydro power projects give off more greenhouse gases than an equivalent fossil fuel plant.

[Kit P]

Seeing coal trains is a everyday (if not hourly) occurrence most places in the US. In New Zealand, they have milk trains.

Cheese is a great way to store energy. In the US most milk for cheese is produced by cows living on mega concentrated feeding operations (CAFO) where a careful diet is provided and the milk is trucked to nearby mega processing plants. In New Zealand, diary cows still walk around and eat grass on small farms. Milk is gathered and eventually put on large trains to go yo far away mega processing plants.

AGSTAR is a very successful program http://www.epa.gov/agstar/accomplish.html to reduce ghg and produce energy. It is interesting that the Energy Blog has no category for this topic when is the same order of magnitude as solar that has 6 categories.

The most important reason to properly handle manure is to protect the environment not produce energy. That is the problem. A dairy farmer is better off to let manure dry up and blow away. CAFOs are regulated to for water discharges but there are no regulation that cover odor.

I happen top think a 'moratorium on building coal plants' is stupid because I have yet to find a coal plant that has a discernible effect on air quality. However, a 100,000 head CAFO can be detected 30 miles away. It is enough to make your eyes water.

[Amsterdamned]

Some hydro power projects give off more greenhouse gases than an equivalent fossil fuel plant.

This may only be true for the most extreme cases. For example, comparing the worst hydro (poorly designed, shallow resevoir, poorly operated leading to greater variations in water level) with the most carbon lean fossil (latest GTCC).

However, there's a heck of a lot more fossil power than hydro power in this world, and most fossil is more carbon intensive than natural gas (pulverized coal). After all, there's 4H for every 1C in natural gas, so a relatively large part of the energy comes from oxidizing hydrogen rather than carbon. And then there's the higher combined cycle efficiency too.

There's also the fact that methane is short lived in the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide lasts for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years.

It's difficult to quantify the effect of one particular GHG on total anthropogenic global warming, as the interaction with other GHG's has to be taken into account as well, but it's pretty much certain that fossil burning is responsible for most of it.

[bigTom]

Im impressed with amsterdamned knowledge. I have seen a paper that claims Methane is 40x as bad a CO2, because of its effect on stratospheric chemistry (ozone layer). But he is correct that its atmospheric lifetime is shorter than CO2. I suspect it mostly oxidizes to CO2.

In a country with steep terrain like New Zealand, I suspect most hydro projects are relatively small scale, and don't create huge lakes.

[averagejoe]

I'm not a big believer in the theory of man made global warming. I mentioned hydro power to point out that a more objective consideration of the pros and cons related to various industries is required. Hydro power is often touted as "green", but puts out quite a lot of methane, a gas that supposedly has over 20 times the warming effect of C02. On the other hand, the mere mention of a coal fired power plant is enough to start some tree huggers frothing at the mouth. However, it's a lot easier to sequester carbon from a power plant, than it is to remove methane from lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands. On the other, other hand, hydro power doesn't require ongoing fossil fuel inputs (or at least not much).

The point that I'm trying to make is that a little perspective is required. Knee jerk reactions without enough data are prone to error. For example: even the high priests of global warming, the beaurocrats at the IPCC, estimate that the lifetime of an atmospheric molecule of carbon dioxide is somewhere between 5-200 years, not thousands. (2001 IPCC report, pg. 38)

[Amsterdamned]

For example: even the high priests of global warming, the beaurocrats at the IPCC, estimate that the lifetime of an atmospheric molecule of carbon dioxide is somewhere between 5-200 years, not thousands.

These kind of things are what brings so much confusion in the global warming debate. There are two confusing matters in particular. First: it varies. There are many processes that capture carbon from the air. One molecule might get absorbed by plants or the ocean in a few days. Another might persist for tens of thousands of years. There are also many processes that release carbon back into the atmosphere.

The problem is, these processes are natural, and what mankind is doing, is simply disturbing the balance, making the net effect an increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

So what's relevant is the average lifetime of the carbon dioxide that we're putting into the atmosphere. For most of the carbon, this appears to be a few hundred years.

But this gets us to the second confusing matter: the decay is exponential and that means that the remainder is going to take a longer and longer time to be removed from the atmosphere.

If you want any more information, Archer 2005 has done some modelling with this.

The last line is comprehensive:

A better approximation of the lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 for public discussion might be "300 years, plus 25% that lasts forever."

Regarding methane: typical lifetime is about a decade or so. Again, that doesn't mean they all suddenly go "poof" after a decade or so. Some methane will degrade sooner, some other methane might take much longer. And that also explains it's differing global warming potential: that it also diminishes with time, as the methane degrades relatively quickly into carbon dioxide, as bigTom has mentioned, and the hydrogen of course also oxidizes creating water vapor.

[averagejoe]

Amsterdamned, I suspect you've been placing too much faith in the wikipedia entry for "greenhouse gas". Find the Archer paper in footnote 23, did you? As a matter of fact, I did read his paper. His theory is based on assumptions and blue sky computer models. For example:

"At present, the terrestrial biosphere appears to be a net sink of carbon...Long-term modeling studies predict a reversal of presentday carbon uptake, resulting in net release of carbon by the end of the century"

His theory is predicated on a set of assumptions that are then extrapolated 100 years into the future. He assumes that C02 emissions in the near term will cause climate changes that will release extra C02 a hundred years from now. Thats how he arrives at his theory of C02 lasting for thousands of years in the atmosphere.

Here's another assumption he makes:

"Although any projection of carbon release beyond the usual window of the year 2100 is extremely speculative, the worst case we will consider is a net anthropogenic
release of 5000 Gton C..."

He assumes that nations will burn through their entire stocks of fossil fuels, essentially business as usual projected out to the year 2100. He neglects to consider the effect of increased use of alternate technologies like nuclear, PHEV's, solar, carbon sequestration, etc.

Even his estimates for the projected behavior of various carbon sinks are based on other people's models. There are as many theoretical models as there are researchers out there.

Archer's theory of a long C02 "tail" is based on circular logic. He assumes that a certain level of atmospheric CO2 will cause a certain level of global warming. He then assumes that the assumed level of future warming will cause a further projected level of greenhouse gas release from natural sources:

"Hundreds of Gton C are frozen into methane hydrate deposits in permafrost...Carbon
release from these deposits by the end of this century have been projected to be of order 100 Gton C...but it has been projected that the ultimate methane carbon release could be comparable in size to the fossil fuel carbon release that initiates it"

Notice the words phrases "could be" and "has been projected" ? There are a lot of reasons to transition away from reliance on fossil fuels, but this kind of global warming hysteria is not one of them.

[Amsterdamned]

Well I don't put much stock in Wikipedia, although I admit I did read the page and Wikipedia has become a lot more academic lately (but don't quote me on that!). But now you've revealed yourself to be a Wikipedia visitor as well!

However I was already familiar with the university of Chicago and had previously read some of Archer's (combined) work and I think that some of the assumptions weren't that unreasonable, not that there is such a thing as a completely reasonable assumption.

And you're saying PHEV, nuclear, etc. may dominate quickly, but that is in itself an assumption. That said, it's fairly reasonable to assume a more radical global GHG emissions reduction, considering the recent development trends worldwide. Ask yourself this question: if it wasn't for global warming 'hysteria', then do you think that carbon lean developments would have advanced so quickly? I don't agree with all of the climatologists' modelling, and certainly not with Al Gore's speeches, but you've got to admit that they have been, and still are, important catalysts for carbon lean and clean developments. It may be called a "self-negating prophecy". Contemplate on that for a while. I feel that if it wasn't for Al Gore et al, the whole clean and carbon lean energy revolution wouldn't have taken off at all, or at least not on the scale we're witnessing right now. They are at the very least means to ends such as cleaner air, energy security, stimulating domestic economies etc.

However, how much more carbon do you think the biosphere can absorb? It took millions of years for the biosphere to create the vast coal reserves, and that was in a wealthy biosphere environment (dominated by lush tropical forests). We don't have such a large absorbing biosphere now, and the fossil carbon is brought back into the atmosophere at least three orders of magnitude faster than it was absorbed at that time. Also, the sun's output is thought to be slightly higher now, which may also have some effect.

He assumes that C02 emissions in the near term will cause climate changes that will release extra C02 a hundred years from now. Thats how he arrives at his theory of C02 lasting for thousands of years in the atmosphere.

No, you've got it backwards. The decay itself is exponential, which can be verified analytically, and this implies that the remainder will persist thousands of years, thus creating more warming. It's difficult to quantify this effect though. Suffice it to say, it's not going to cause less warming.

And there are recent findings about methane that can only make things worse. Although I agree with you that there are too many assumptions and worst-case scenarios here for it to really mean something, especially in the near-term. Archer's recent work (2007) is basically that.

[Nucbuddy]

Amsterdamned wrote: I feel that if it wasn't for Al Gore et al, the whole clean and carbon lean energy revolution wouldn't have taken off at all, or at least not on the scale we're witnessing right now.

That is probably true. The resources thusly-wasted might instead have been put to productive uses.

Amsterdamned wrote: They are at the very least means to [...] stimulating domestic economies

Wasting resources does not stimulate economies. It destroys them.

[Paul Dietz]

Thats how he arrives at his theory of C02 lasting for thousands of years in the atmosphere.

There are very good physicochemical reasons for thinking the CO2 absorption capacity of the environment will saturate. Currently, a fraction (40%?) of emitted CO2 is being absorbed into the ocean. However, the capacity of the ocean surface waters to hold this CO2 is limited. As CO2 is absorbed, the pH falls, the natural buffering capacity is overwhelmed, and the rate of net CO2 absorption declines.

Ultimately, surface water circulates to the deep ocean, and buffering also is restored by dissolution of calcium carbonate in the more acidic water, but this (particularly the second effect) will take a long time.

[averagejoe]

"It's difficult to quantify this effect though..."

You're right, it is difficult to quantify. I've read papers where the theoretical "half-life" of a given quantity of atmospheric C02 was calculated to be around 38 years. If that figure can be believed, then in 380 years the CO2 from the original sample would be halved ten times. There might be a long lived CO2 residue, but I sincerely doubt that it will amount to "25% that lasts forever" as Mr. Archer contends. In order to arrive at a 25% figure, he very definitely relies on assumptions of future events.

As far as the capacity of the ocean to absorb CO2, that is a valid question. The answer is a complex one that depends on ocean currents, the pH buffering capacity and rate of natural oceanic mechanisms, the rate of solubility of C02 into ocean waters at different atmospheric concentrations, etc. I'm not a scientist, but I can draw some conclusions from past epochs. Atmospheric C02 concentrations have been far higher than today during some periods in the earths history. The oceans didn't turn into battery acid, sea life survived, and there have even been ice ages during periods with 16 times as much C02 floating around. I'm not advocating that we push our luck that far, just that we gain a bit of perspective when planning for the future.

As I said before, there are a lot of good reasons to move to cleaner, more efficient technologies: energy independence, reducing the truly nasty types of pollution(particulates, NO2, S02, mercury, etc.), balance of payments, etc. I'd be willing to concede that the Al Gore type of "immediate doom" propaganda, along with higher energy prices, has hastened the adoption of some useful technologies. However, blind faith in the current anthro warming model could also lead us to make bad decisions. Again, all I'm advocating is a sober, rational transition to a cleaner infrastructure.

[George]

Kit P wrote: I happen top think a 'moratorium on building coal plants' is stupid because I have yet to find a coal plant that has a discernible effect on air quality.

Haven't looked very far, eh Kit? I mean, my god, this is one of the dumbest things I've read from you, and there's a lot to choose from there...

[marcus]

Astounding, especially at this site, the number of people that think they know better than the professional scientific community. Would it be the same if this was a molecular biology issue or quantum physics? Everyone seems to be an expert, at least in their own mind. Take it to realclimate.

[Amsterdamned]

Nucbuddy, what resources have been wasted on the account of Al Gore et al? Do you think that the allocation of resources to Iraq was very productive?

Wasting resources does not stimulate economies. It destroys them.

First, you have to explain that wasting resources part, and second, it's stimulating domestic economies. For example, a solar thermal plant in California gives more employment per unit of energy generated then a gas fired plant, and gas fired plants also use imported natural gas. Sending money to foreign countries isn't stimulating domestic economies as much as keeping most of the money in-state. Not to mention the dependence issues.

I realise that the climate hysteria can cause bad decisions, but don't think that this is a big problem. Almost all climate mitigation goes hand-in-hand with environmental gain, and often security enhancement as well. Think plug-in hybrids. But CO2 sequestration as well; this requires a high purity stream of CO2 and thus cleaner coal burning. Also, think about the economic gain of commercializing these technologies and exporting them to other parts of the world. There may be other spin-offs as well. And think about the oppertunities for international cooperation.

And you need a crisis for people and businesses to be mobilized. Al Gore knows it well, as does any other politician.

One of the biggest problems with the climate gemstone is that a lot is known about the individual facets, but why it scintillates precisely as it does is subject to debate.

[BILL HANNAHAN]

[For example, a solar thermal plant in California gives more employment per unit of energy generated then a gas fired plant,…]

Ralph Nadar used to say in every speech, ‘Wind power is superior to nuclear because it provides more jobs per MWh.’ I had to chuckle every time.

Unfortunately most people took him seriously.

[Try to thread this £166,000 Aston Vanquish down a quiet, sinuous country road as quickly as thirty grand’s worth of Mitsubishi Evolution VIII and you’ll realise the old order has gone for good…. Staggeringly, its body panels are still shaped in part by men wielding hammers, one reason a Vanquish takes 800 hours to assemble]

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/new_car_reviews/article458022.ece

[Honda led all multi-plant companies in assembly performance with 21.13 hours per vehicle, but CAMI Automotive, which produces the Chevrolet Equinox, Pontiac Torrent and Suzuki XL-7 in Ingersoll, Ontario, achieved a 17.85 HPV and the New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, Calif., posted an impressive 19.34 HPV.]

http://www.harbourinc.com/media/31May07_1.aspx

Congress can restore prosperity and full employment to Detroit by requiring Ford, GM and Chrysler to discard their robots and build cars by hand.

You better get your name on the wait list for your $100,000.00 Chevrolet Equinox now, the build rate will be quite low.

I agree that the global warming debate has stimulated the desire to get off fossil fuel, but our response is still too small. The average American spends about $4,000 per year on energy, yet the DOE budgets less than $3 per person per year on R&D for non fossil energy sources.

I would like to see it up around $200 per person. The U.S. should be developing and selling the technology to allow it and other countries to follow in New Zealand’s footsteps.

So hype global warming to the max, if it increases R&D for non fossil energy sources we will be better off, even if global warming is a hoax.

[Nucbuddy]

Amsterdamned wrote: explain that wasting resources part

Poor investments represent wastes of resources that might instead have been applied as good investments. Resources are essentially units of inverse-risk. Good investment of these resources returns additional inverse-risk. Conversely, poor investment of these resources costs inverse-risk.

What is at risk depends on what is valued most. Generally, what are valued most are intellectual energy, emotional resolution, and human health. (Human health will become less-valued over time as more people come into being who exist only in silico.)

Amsterdamned wrote: For example, a solar thermal plant in California gives more employment per unit of energy generated then a gas fired plant

If that is the case, then the gas-fired plant is a better investment. The less employment needed per unit of inverse-risk returned, the more-efficient the plant.

Amsterdamned wrote: Sending money to foreign countries isn't stimulating domestic economies as much as keeping most of the money in-state.

If the foreign-investment is profitable, then the opposite of what you said is the truth. Menial-laborers may be cheaper in foreign economies, because domestic would-be laborers are able to do more-important work. In that case, foreign-investment benefits both the domestic and foreign economies.

Human laborers are essentially robots. There is essentially no difference between investing in robots to save intellectual energy, and hiring humans -- either foreign or domestic -- at cut-rates to save intellectual energy. The investor comes-out ahead either way, and the economy he is a part of benefits. If he instead spends more to hire domestic labor simply on principle, he comes out worse, and his own domestic-economy suffers -- the reason for latter-which is that the labor he hired either is incapable of providing positive economic return, or would have had the opportunity and incentive to create real value as managers and entrepreneurs had their intellectual-energy not been consumed as biorobots and had they not been overpayed for their biorobot services.

If foreign economies can provide biorobot-services at discounts, then foreign-investment stimulates domestic economies. Any domestic laborers who cannot match the prices of any other robots/biorobots -- foreign or domestic -- should be fired. Otherwise, the domestic-economy suffers.

Amsterdamned wrote: Almost all climate mitigation goes hand-in-hand with environmental gain

Then you have have non-shared investment for a shared resource. It never benefits local economies to invest in preserving non-local shared resources. See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Such conflicts are resolvable by shared (in this case, global) government.

Amsterdamned wrote: climate mitigation goes hand-in-hand with [...] security enhancement [...] plug-in hybrids.

There you have government-investment picking techonological winners. How many individual actors would choose plug-in hybrids if energy security were directly-presented as a real issue? (Personally, I might favor a nuclear-electric hybrid -- a ~500-watt radioisotope-electric generator (NEG) continuously-charges the on-board battery of an electric vehicle. No refueling or plugging-in would be necessary.)

Given that the essential role of any goverment is to resolve conflicts shared by its constituents, the most-effective way for the government to enhance energy security would be to periodically cut the energy-supply off.

Amsterdamned wrote: Do you think that the allocation of resources to Iraq was very productive?

Reductio ad Iraqum.

[Kit P]

Bill I agree that we should be building renewable energy projects 'even if global warming is a hoax' and in case you did not get the memo the US is building projects at the capacity of the renewable energy industry.

While the purpose of a generating plant is to produce electricity, if the cost of the electricity is marginally more expensive because jobs are created, I think that is a good thing.

Look at what has happened in the US since natural gas became a major source of fossil fuel for electricity. Natural gas in North America has gone being the cheapest in the world to the most expensive. Many manufacturing jobs were lost that depended on cheap natural gas.

[Nucbuddy]

Kit P wrote: if the cost of the electricity is marginally more expensive because jobs are created, I think that is a good thing.

Does your car look like this?

[Kit P]

Using 20/20 hindsight, 10 years ago I was developing renewable energy projects for a company that was also the largest developer of natural gas projects. The strength of this company has been excellence in all forms of electricity generation. At the time, natural gas projects had a high rate of return. However, the renewable energy projects would be producing electricity cheaper today.

This company sold off all the non-natural gas engineering talent. Now the company is building nukes and coal plants again, but has to hire outside companies.

The point here is that the cheapest lowest risk choice turned out to be the worst choice long term. Furthermore, designing, building, and operating power plants are not jobs for robots.

[Amsterdamned]

Poor investments represent wastes of resources that might instead have been applied as good investments.

And yet not making one poor investment does not guarantee the money will facilitate good investment(s) elsewhere, as I will explain below.

Also, not all of the investments were poor investments. A friend of mine has a company that provides isolation retrofits to buildings, and has tripled his revenue over the last decade. This is just one example. Clean technologies, just as any other technologies, can be developed, and exported to make for an excellent long-term income. Odds are that the climate doom-prophets have stimulated these developments.

Resources are essentially units of inverse-risk. Good investment of these resources returns additional inverse-risk. Conversely, poor investment of these resources costs inverse-risk

No, resources are oppertunities for investment, and in general, a higher risk demands a higher return on investment. By laws of economics, the risk can never be determined exactly up-front, but always has to be (gu)estimated to determine the required rate of return. Obviously, the investors think the risk of, say, PV - in particular as a long-term investment - is sufficiently low enough to invest large sums of money under reasonable discounting rates.

Generally, what are valued most are intellectual energy, emotional resolution, and human health.

Whether or not intellectual energy will be wasted depends on subjective priorities. The same is true for emotional resolution, and it is not plausible that climate mitigating related investments cause an unacceptable relative disinvestment in human health.

The less employment needed per unit of inverse-risk returned, the more-efficient the plant.

And the less beneficial the plant will be for the local economy. Replacing for example imported fuel costs with an equal amount in employment costs makes for the same levelised cost of energy while keeping the money in-state, thus providing additional stimulae for the local, and by logical extension, some of the national economy.

Menial-laborers may be cheaper in foreign economies, because domestic would-be laborers are able to do more-important work

But they may not always be able to, or perhaps want to, do such work.

Human laborers are essentially robots.

No they are not, and that is where your story caves in on itself - human intellect, and other capacities for that matter, are not homogeneously divided over all humans, which is where they differ from robots. The rest of your section draws on this assumption, but it is a flawed one, which is why it cannot work in the real world.

Such conflicts are resolvable by shared (in this case, global) government.

This is true. That's why we need global entities to manage CO2 trading/taxing, and other things as well. I think there are going to be some problems, as some nations won't participate. If enough nations do go along, this may be solved by threatening to boycot the nations that refuse.

There you have government-investment picking techonological winners

You do realise this is the case for nuclear power as well? The two new plants proposed will get up to 80% of total project cost covered by the government. One could argue that such a relatively mature industry does not need such large amounts of subsidies, and even if it did it would still be government picking technological winners.

Reductio ad Iraqum.

Killing the debate does not answer my question.

[BILL HANNAHAN]

[Bill I agree that we should be building renewable energy projects 'even if global warming is a hoax' and in case you did not get the memo the US is building projects at the capacity of the renewable energy industry.]

Kit P, I did not specify it had to be renewable, just non fossil.

Can I point to an R&D facility with 5,000 scientists and engineers sitting around waiting for an assignment? No. But that was also true the day before the president signed the order starting the Manhattan project, and the day before the president announced we were going to the moon.

Once the floodgates of the U.S. treasury opened, teams were assembled, facilities were built, problems were analyzed, solutions were invented, and in a short period of time massive facilities were built to accomplish the desired goal.

The world’s energy problems are ripe for a similar approach. Where in the DOE budget is;

the space solar demo plant?

the Integral fast reactor demo plant?

the direct solar to hydrogen demo plant?

the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor demo plant?

the coal to nuclear conversion demo plant?

the deep ocean thermal demo plant?

the Pebble Bed reactor demo plant?

the floating windfarm demo plant?

the floating reactor demo plant?

the deep well geothermal demo plant?

I don’t mean to imply that everything will work. If we spent $200 per person on new non fossil energy sources and wasted 90% of the money, the $20 well spent on successful technology would pay back our total R&D investment many times over in the years to come. Just a 5% reduction, or avoided escalation, in energy cost would get us to break even.

Think of the wasted money as an insurance premium to guarantee that the best technology gets developed in the shortest possible time.

[Natural gas in North America has gone being the cheapest in the world to the most expensive. Many manufacturing jobs were lost that depended on cheap natural gas.]

Good point, we are importing huge amounts of fertilizer formerly made at home from natural gas, to acquire its energy content, and using it in part to grow corn ethanol.

If we developed a huge supply of cheap electricity we could convert most fixed consumers of gas and oil to electricity, and use our domestic gas and oil to prop up transportation until better technology has matured, thus reducing oil imports.

[Kit P]

Bill, did you check the 2005 energy bill and DOE's budget to see how many things of the things that were on your list were included. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

The US does have a huge supply of cheap electricity generated by coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric. If live somewhere that has high priced electricity you may want to examine state and local polices. Chances are you will find anti-nuke, anti-coal, and anti-renewable energy in their back yard preaching the merits of cheap, 'clean' natural gas.

R&D is fine, but now is the time to be building power plants as fast as we can.

[Nucbuddy]

BILL HANNAHAN,

Instead of increasing government-sponsored energy research, why not just decriminalize nuclear-energy? Entrepreneurs would take care of the rest.

[Nucbuddy]

Amsterdamned wrote: Replacing for example imported fuel costs with an equal amount in employment costs makes for the same levelised cost of energy

It does not. You neglected the local intellectual-energy lost when you hired locally. When the costs of imported vs. local products are the same, the economic effect of choosing one kind over the other is nil -- just as it would be if robot-labor could be obtained inside your own facility at the same cost as that of hiring locals.

Amsterdamned wrote: human intellect [is] not homogeneously divided over all humans

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Amsterdamned wrote: which is where they differ from robots.

An essential distinction cannot be drawn between a human and a robot -- for a human is a type of robot. Robot ability is not homogeneous.

Amsterdamned wrote: The rest of your section draws on this assumption

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Amsterdamned wrote: That's why we need global entities to manage CO2 trading/taxing, and other things as well. I think there are going to be some problems, as some nations won't participate. If enough nations do go along, this may be solved by threatening to boycot the nations that refuse.

So, you are meaning to imply that when you are caught speeding in your local town, the police and the courts boycott you? Perhaps you did not understand what I meant by "global government".

Amsterdamned wrote: You do realise [government-investment picking techonological winners] is the case for nuclear power as well?

Nuclear-energy scales better than any one particular type of (possibly) automobile-fuel-saving technology. Constrained markets at latent levels can enable free markets at discrete levels. Electricity-supply happens to represent a very latent level of the economy -- ripe for picking winners through biased and massive government investment. If a government picks wrong, feedback tells us so in the form of better-pickers -- such as France -- getting ahead, and worse-pickers -- such as Denmark -- falling behind.

[Amsterdamned]

You neglected the local intellectual-energy lost when you hired locally. When the costs of imported vs. local products are the same, the economic effect of choosing one kind over the other is nil

Only because you neglect things such as multiplier effects of keeping more money in-state (or at least keeping more money within the US).

However, your assertion that intellectual energy is 'lost' is value-laden and thus cannot be quantified objectively.

Also, keep in mind that there are other considerations than purely economical ones.

if robot-labor could be obtained inside your own facility at the same cost as that of hiring locals.

You appear to be under the impression that robots can fully substitute humans. Which is not true, they can only substitute to a certain degree. One of the main reasons for this is that robots cannot improvise or take initiative.

There are also strategic-financial considerations. Robots are often long term commitments. If the market or production process changes, the robots cannot re-learn themselves to aquire the new skills that are needed, which can be an impediment for flexibility and adaptability for certain industries.

Amsterdamned wrote: human intellect [is] not homogeneously divided over all humans

Nucbuddy replied:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Let's see, a strawman fallacy is "based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position". Your position is literally

Human laborers are essentially robots.

To which I responded:

No they are not, and that is where your story caves in on itself - human intellect, and other capacities for that matter, are not homogeneously divided over all humans, which is where they differ from robots

It appears you do not understand what this implies. Human laborers are not robots because they cannot all be designed or made exactly the same. Because they do not have consistent (=homogeneous) intellect/capacities. Robots can be made consistently, but as mentioned above, cannot improvise/take initiative because they can only do what is programmed. So that's another reason why they aren't the same.

An essential distinction cannot be drawn between a human and a robot -- for a human is a type of robot.

That is incomplete. It should be added that humans are a type of robot that no one has yet been able to re-create in mechanical form, and that this isn't likely to change anytime soon.

So, you are meaning to imply that when you are caught speeding in your local town, the police and the courts boycott you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

I mentioned neither individuals, nor intra state legal issues. It was all macro-level. I could ask you if you were trolling, but that would be a rhetorical question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question

Perhaps you did not understand what I meant by "global government".

Perhaps you have forgotten that you said shared global government?

True (non-shared) global governance is prohibited by certain aspects of sovereignty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty

Nations can be forced to do what is wanted either by threat of violence (war) or economical sanctions, such as boycotts. Economical sanctions should be preferable IMVHO.

If a government picks wrong, feedback tells us so in the form of better-pickers -- such as France -- getting ahead, and worse-pickers -- such as Denmark -- falling behind.

France is not getting ahead more than Denmark. Saying that it does, as you do, is again value-laden (subjective).

[Kit P]

Let me try to focus Amsterdamned and nucbuddy back to energy choices. Electricity provides an opportunity to escape from muscle power to carry water. With cheap electricity, more can afford to cook and heat without spending hours gathering firewood.

Cheap electricity therefore allows us to have time to worry about the environment. Did France make a better choice going with nuclear instead of wind to keep from importing fossil fuel?

[Amsterdamned]

Kit P is right, we're getting OT.

Just looking around, France still uses a lot of fossil fuel, much more than nuclear actually:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/France/Background.html

[Those are 2004 stats but they can't have changed that much in a few years.]

Oil is a large part of the energy use, and a large part of oil use is for transportation. If France electrifies most transportation, they can be much more carbon lean.

The same would probably be true for New Zealand.

[Kit P]

Generally, I do not like mixing transportation and electric generation when discussing energy use because it is confusing and is generally part of political debate where the only thing you learn is that the speaker is a lier or stupid.

France is an exception. Since France uses nuke plants in load following and is building more, electricity could be used for transportation without increasing fossil use. However, this would not likely be true for New Zealand.

[Amsterdamned]

Well according to the ministry of economic develoment of New Zealand there's plenty of unused hydroelectric and geothermal left:

Renewables potential New Zealand

[Richard]

Have people suddenly forgotten about the underlying issue of peak oil here? It seems all people are doing is talking about global warming, and the so-called effects hydro has on it. What about the fact that it does away with that damn liquid that we're all still obsessed with: Oil?

It also cracks me up how these people have wheeled themselves out of the woodwork to bitch about how hydro supposedly produces more methane than yadda yadda yadda. Wind turbines are noisy and unattractive, solar panels are ugly, heat towers are eyesores as well, geothermal is...... well it's got to be bad too somehow... let's see if I can clutch at straws and find a way to bitch about that too.....

It seems every renewable energy source produces enough energy to power 500000 people who will whinge about it.

[Kit P]

Richard is confused. Peak oil is about transportation fuels.

Furthermore, making electricity for 500,000 is no big deal. The problem is making power for 5,000,000,000. That leave only about a billion or so poor souls living without electricity. Pretty sure those folks are not too concerned with peak oil either.

[Richard]

Peak oil is about failure to produce enough energy to meet the world's needs, as a result of the inability for oil supply to meet global demand. It's more than just transportation.

[Kit P]

Oil would have little value if not for transportation. There would be no global demand for oil with the transportation demand.

Uranium would have little value except for making electricity.

Water at higher elevation would have no value except for making making electricity and irrigation.

Peak oil is nothing less fear mongering.