A well-intentioned friend sent me a correspondence that endorsed industrial wind power as an electrical power source that he thought might meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions.
In his polemic he repeatedly characterized the developers as "investors," and stated that if wind power didn't perform as advertised that it would soon fall by the wayside.
There were so many holes in his position that it was hard to know where to start, but the implications that there are normal free-market forces at work here, and that only the best (most effective) products will survive and prosper, and that the public will benefit from this process, are unsupportable and patently false.
The reality is that we have a completely artificial environment where enormous sums of money are being doled out for "products" that have zero independent and objective proof that they really work.
Let's try an analogy to see if my limited communication skills can get this point across. Remember that I'm just a scientist, not a wordsmith.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I'm a big believer in the adage about "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." When we see western movies with charlatan doctors peddling rip-off remedies, one of our first reactions is to think "how could those people be so gullible?" In fact I've often heard someone say something to this effect: "if I was there then I would speak up and expose those frauds." Right.
In reality the scams that happened back then were actually quite sophisticated. Most people were taken in, and it was due to a series of clever tricks and stunts used by the swindlers.
For instance, the larger traveling shows employed smooth talking advance men to herald their arrival. They often entered town with circus-like fanfare, typically with a band leading a procession of professionally decorated wagons. Skits and other diversions were used to attract audiences, and to lower sales resistance.
Clearly this cost a lot of money, so one of the initial subconscious impressions was that they must be successful to afford all this extravagance.
The gathering was eventually treated to the spiel -- which was carefully given the academic name, the "Lecture." [Interestingly, when medicine shows eventually expanded into radio, these pitches became the commercial.]
During all this, some assistants moved through the crowd garbed as Quakers to lend an air of moral respectability to the affair. Shills were paid people who stood up and gave enthusiastic testimony as to the effectiveness of the phony product.
Native Americans were frequently recruited to promote the notion of "natural" or environmentally friendly medicines, which were given names like Wright's Indian Vegetable Pills, Seminole Cough Balsam, or the Amazing Kickapoo Juice.
Now we'll go back and add today's reality to that historical era.
Let's say that at that time there were well-intentioned organizations (e.g. the Sarah Club) that expressed concern for citizens' health.
There was a legitimate basis for this anxiety as there were few health facilities then, no regulation of such matters as drinking water quality, and people were indeed susceptible to a wide variety of diseases where we had little in the way of real cures.
Manipulating that information, these organizations goaded the government into classifying this as a national crisis. The Sarah spinmeisters characterized the situation as a threat to our survival as a young, growing, but vulnerable new country.
The lobbyists said that immediate action was needed, so there was no time to waste on a scientific assessment of the options. (The idea that haste makes waste was a foreign concept.) In response to incessant political pressure, the government did step in.
The political quick fix was that each and every citizen was MANDATED to buy and use at least five "medicinal" products a year, for the next ten years. The legislation was called Robust Physical Shape or RPS. Wags labeled it as five & dime.
As if the absurdity of that wasn't enough, the government then declared that for every new "health" product introduced, that it would subsidize the "developing company" $10,000 (a windfall amount for those days).
[Note that in this irrational and artificially created market, that the government introduced zero controls to assure the validity or effectiveness of any of this snake oil. Amazingly this omission was endorsed by the same organizations who professed to be concerned for citizens health (under the guise of "not wanting to increase the size of government").]
One end result was that essentially anyone could simply put a label on bottled swamp water stating that it was an elixir of good health and they were good to go.
Soooo --
1 - would it be an "unexpected consequence" that bogus products would proliferate in such a scenario?
2 - would one call that situation a "free market" environment?
3 - would marketers of Kickapoo Juice really be "investors"?
4 - would better products succeed more than poorer products -- or would marketing, bribery, etc. be the dominant factors?
5 - would citizens be able to make competent choices as to which "medical" products were truly worthwhile?
6 - would US citizens -- and the country -- have genuinely benefited from such a one-sided government intervention?
Is there any serious person (outside of UCS) who would truly believe that all this would have made good sense?
Once you get a firm grasp on the insanity of that situation, you will have a clear idea of exactly what we are currently experiencing with our indiscriminate support of renewable energy (esp industrial wind power). See http://tinyurl.com/abb4x8 for a proposed solution.
In fact the whole New Deal package could/would have gone down the tubes if not for the Second World War and the increased war production. Similarly Presdient Jimmy Carter's stimulus plan in 1979 also didn't fare very well. So yes, if such a plan is to succeed (a) it has to be better thought out, tax relief should be linked to incentives, which will help the economy such as savings (b) it is necessary for integrity and values play a part so that schemes such as incentives for green energy are not misused. Of course above all, luck also has a large role to play.
Your article above insinuates that renewable energy generation sources of all kinds are absolutely useless, and funding it with massive government backing is a complete sham. This type of tripe is just as bad as the medicine horror stories you're describing.
The ONLY thing debatable about renewable energy sources is whether they are economical enough and practical enough to afford on a large scale to compete with conventional sources. They cannot be labeled useless because they DO provide energy, the only questions are how much can they reliably provide for a given cost, including using storage if it makes them more reliable. The federal government recognizes that their current costs are not as competitive with conventional sources, and that substantial research and development, together with mass commercialization, are needed to bring costs down. But just like any other commercial business product, without mass market commercialization, the investment in R&D won't happen period. There may be no guarantees that their costs will come down and that R&D breakthroughs are a given, but it's like playing a lottery - if you don't buy a ticket you are guaranteed not to win. Finally, massive government backing of any new technology typically results in substantial new industry and employment, which are now badly needed to pull the US economy out from being on the verge of a depression-era catastrophe.
I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my article. What I said that I oppose is "indiscriminate" support for renewables -- in other words renewables automatically getting a free pass from scientific scrutiny.
At no time did I say (or believe) that all renewables are useless. In fact, from what I have seen (e.g. MIT's 2007 report) Geothermal has great promise -- and for many more locations than just hot springs.
Whether renewables provide energy or not is NOT the issue, as we are not in need of energy sources for electricity. With current sources we have enough to last us 100+ more years.
I support ANY renewable that has been subjected to scientific methodology as being a worthwhile addition to our power sources from TECHNOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC and ENVIRONMENTAL perspectives.
Note that this is considerably MORE than your statement that this is just a matter of economics.
The bottom line is that the government has no business infusing "massive" amounts of money into solutions that have no scientific proof that they are technologically, economically and environmentally sound.
To do so is no more than funding charlatans from the Wild West.
Most renewable sources are already being harnessed to some level for energy production, so I think their technologies are already proven to be technically sound. And as the world's climate change problems grow, they are increasingly being favored over conventional energy sources, although I will admit they do have other potentially bad environmental foot prints not yet fully appreciated. My point is their biggest uncertainty is predicting how economical they will be in the future, particularly on a much larger scale of imployment. Predicting future economics of anything related to energy production has a habit of changing like the wind (pardon the joke), so it is unrealistic in my humble opinion to base renewables' future potential competitiveness on their costs measured today.
Thank you again for the opportunity to further clarify.
When I say "technologically sound" I don't mean "do produce electricity?" What I mean is "are they an asset to our electrical grid system?" That question is of no small import, as many believe that our electrical grid system is a major reason we have achieved the successes we have as a nation.
All evidence that I have seen (and it is considerable) is that adding wind power (for instance) is detrimental to the our electrical grid system. So why do it?
And, as the world's climate problems grow where is the <strong>scientific evidence</strong> that they should be favored? It seems to me that this "favoring" is a political (i.e. not scientific) choice. Considering the massive amounts being spent, and the environmental risks that are in play, we should not proceed until we have scientific proof that this will do what the lobbyists say it will do (e.g. consequentially reduce CO2). So far there is none.
The detriments are reliability, etc. related, which (of course) can usually be assigned a cost.
But the key part is your final statement: that we are pounding this square peg into a round hole for "environmental benefits."
Please show me the objective, independent scientific proof of exactly what "environmental benefits" there are.
From what I know these are lobbyists promised benefits, which are akin to the claims of the wild west snake oil salesmen.
I am not a lobbyist or an environmentalist myself, just an electronics engineer, so I am no expert on the subject of renewable energy sources. But common sense suggests to me that the lobbyists and ennvironmentalists proclaim environmental benefits from the simple fact that for every megawatt-hour of energy produced from renewable sources is one less megawatt-hour from buring fossil fuels, and hence less GHG and other pollutant emissions into the atmosphere. They may not always be on line as in when the wind doesn't blow or sun doesn't shine, but when they are active they displace fossil use, period. Is this not a scientific fact?
In your comment posted January 13, 2009 responding to a comment by Dilip James, in the 3rd paragraph, you say (and I quote you to save everyone having to go back looking for the reference),
"I am against us spending literally trillions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars on products that have no independent, objective proof that they actually work. That's it."
I endorse, in principle, what you are saying.
^Then in today's thread (2-18-2009) you state a similar view in your first comment, 4th paragraph, responding to a comment by Bob Ambrosi. In the interest of clarity, I quote,
"I support ANY renewable that has been subjected to scientific methodology as being a worthwhile addition to our power sources from TECHNOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC and ENVIRONMENTAL perspectives." Again, I endorse your view in principle.
But I have a question. How does one go about obtaining this "independent, objective proof that they actually work" and, by inference, I would assume by and from what credible source? And the same question would apply to your view expressed in the second comment.
On the one hand such action would reflect sound business practice, but on the other might this not constitute a big hurdle, quite unintentionally, to the small business or even to the individual inventor lacking financial backing, resources, and credibility? Should these non-scientific issues stand in the way of new and innovative concepts, preventing them from ever being adopted?
I think we all agree that any new and unproven technology should be subject to the most stringent scientific examination possible, but how do we ensure a level playing field so as not to discriminate against underfunded, unknown, unsupported outsiders who have come up with promising concepts? And my concern gains strength when one recognizes the very capital-intensive nature of the power industry.
In short, how do we ensure that any new technology is accepted on the purely scientific merits of the technology proper, rather than on the particular status of its author or originator?
Every 1 MWH of wind power categorically does NOT replace 1 MWH of fossil fuel use. The technical and real world reasons are too long to go into here, but I would recommend that you take a look at my online presentation for a good start on the answer: "http://www.slideshare.net/JohnDroz/energy-presenta...".
Alan:
Thank you for your support.
You say that providing proof might amount to a "big hurdle." Yes there would be a hurdle involved, but considering the extraordinary dollar amounts we are talking about -- and the threat to our very existence -- so what? Don't we want to be absolutely sure that this will work? Asking for independent proof that something works is unreasonable?
Right now we have the opposite situation: NO hurdle at all. That makes sense?
There is a very reasonable way to do this, and I explain it in my suggestion of an EEA: "http://www.energyblogs.com/WiseEnergyDecisions/ind...
Anyone who wants further information is free to email me at "aaprjohn@northnet.org".
Many thanks for your response. I like your slide presentation but I shall return to it when I have time to absorb it properly. The opening slide showing Don Quijote astride Rocinante, together with his side-kick, the faithful Sancho Panza, is most appropriate!
Regarding my contribution to the thread, I fear that I may have not communicated properly. What I was trying to do was to focus attention on the presence of a hurdle, if indeed one does exist and is not merely a figment of my imagination. I am really asking, "Are there any paths around the hurdle that would allow the "dispossessed" scientists to have their work properly vetted by competent peers?". I haven't discovered any as yet, but others out there might know better.
I most certainly do not wish to convey the notion that obtaining independent proof is unreasonable. Quite the contrary, I feel it is absolutely essential and I support this view wholeheartedly. But the question remains. How do those among us with flawed resumes, fractured career paths, etc, etc, go about getting this independent proof?
In closing, I think your idea of creating an EEA would be an excellent path to follow and one deserving further research. I feel that one of the more difficult challenges here would be to make sure that the entity be given "teeth" capable of commanding a modicum of respect, at the very least.
I viewed your slide presentation this morning and you have clearly put a lot of work into it. As an electrical engineer I understand all of what it says, and for the most part I agree that our conventional sources of power generation have been used historically for clearly stated big advantages over wind or other renewables. The only one I take issue with, a bit, is that 1MWH produced and used from wind does not necessarily displace (equal) 1MWH of other conventional sources. The reality of the grid is that all sources are combined into complex power flows throughout its web, so replacing some of the energy consumption with a given amount of wind supply will not guarantee that it displaces the equivalent amount of any one kind of conventional source. It obviously displaces a blend of the other sources depending on your location in the grid. It could displace just nuclear, or natural gas, or some combination of these plus coal for example. You get my drift here.
What your slide show correctly points out is that the capacity of wind turbines can never replace all the other conventional sources, but many recognize it has the potential for being a substantial contributor in distributed generation. So does solar. My vision of the ideal future is for large-scale privately-owned micro generators using wind and solar. The owners can be energy self-sufficient and even sell power back into the grid while their generators are up and running, and at night or when the wind doesn't blow, the owners would tap into the general grid supply as usual. This could lower consumption from the general grid supply part of time especially during daytime hours when demand reduction is increasingly going to be necessary especially in many parts of the US.
Thank you for the kind words about the online presentation.
Wind power does not provide base load, load following OR peak load power, despite expensive and far fetched academic contrivances attempted by wind power zealots.
When wind power is a miniscule amount of our supply (1%±) it can "replace" some conventional source that was set aside for backup (maybe something like 1 MWH wind = .8 MWH conventional).
However, as wind power makes a more sizable contribution, the situation changes dramatically. (Despite what AWEA lobbyists would like you to believe) the more wind added to the Grid, the less conventional power is replaced on a MWH per MWH basis.
To understand this, take an extreme, where we have 30% of our electricity supplied by wind power (extraordinarily unlikely). Adding an additional MWH of wind power at that point would likely replace near zero MWH of conventional sources.
On the subject of Global Warming....... The biggest problem climactic science is going to face is that there are no real experiments that can be done. This forces it to be an observational science that then relies on statistics. Any hypothesis is most likely going to be co-relational. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth is a wonderful showcase of what that looks like. The original time line for Arctic Ice disappearing was actually 20 or 30 years in the future (going by memory), not 2008. So Arctic Ice disappearing in 2008 is not proof the theory was wrong per se. Nor is it proof that it is right either. My fear is that by the time physicists are convinced it is true (assuming that it IS true), it will be too late to act. If the only proof that is acceptable is Arctic Ice disappearing for 2 winters straight - irreversible damage will have been done. A recent survey of US recognized climatologists contacted all 10,000 plus registered practitioners, and asked them to participate in a survey. Some 3000 responded and answered the survey. Over 90% said global warming is happening, and over 80% aid human activity is a casual factor. This does not make them right. But when my wife was being tested for lymphoma, we did not go to a biologist. We went to a doctor. When I want questions about nuclear reactors answered, I will happily go to you. I will not go to a climatologist. While Structure of Scientific Revolutions warns us that most every theory we have ever had has been ultimately proven incorrect in whole or in part, it also teaches us to have some humility when attacking a theory. To paraphrase Galileo, do not forget that Wegener was right - the continents DO move.
I disagree with you in part regarding energy for electricity on several fundamental levels. Your basic claim that electricity is plentiful is true. However, in a world where oil production is possibly peaking, or getting close to peaking, using natural gas is not a wise move. Transportation will require fluid fuels for a few more decades. There are too many applications where battery or electrical based transportation may not be useable. Soil compaction is an issue in farming, and adding 800 or more pounds to a tractor will not be helpful to avoiding further compaction. Those tractors and associated equipment account for about 6.5% of US oil consumption. So actually, people who talk about alternative energy having some relationship to oil independence is in fact true. Though, I would have to admit that is probably more a matter of luck then design.
As for nuclear power, I have a number of points to make. For this post I will stick to two main points. The first issue is any change in nuclear technology will require a minimum of 19 years to implement, and if subjected to a rigorous treatment of scientific review, that number could easily turn into 30 years. Non pebble bed reactors use LOTS of water - where is all that water going to come from? Currently, about 60% of the continental US is considered to be in a "drought" cycle. As our populations' fresh water needs increase, water is going to be a major issue. So citing near large thirsty population centers is going to be difficult at best. If we use salt water, where is that going to come from? Given seismic activity in California, placing reactors south of Oregon is going to be somewhere between impossible and unintelligent. The East coast is pretty darn crowded, so not to many reactors are going to fit in there.
Geothermal as used today is going to have the same water problem only worse. The graphic you used shows the classic water cycle. The major problem with that is the fact that the water picks up all sorts of water soluble toxic products - many of which eat pipes rather quickly. Unless they can go to a 100% closed water loop, some of that is going to escape into the environment. Any accident with a geothermal plant is not going to be pretty. While it will not be anything like Chernobyl, it could easily be worse than TVA's recent coal ash spill.
I am curious as to what you consider economically equivalent? A full 31% of the cost for most if not all alternative energy systems is due to the fact that if they depend on loans, they are charged a much higher rate of interest then a standard coal plant?
Also, for nuclear energy subsidies, does that include insurance? No insurer will touch a nuclear reactor, so the US government ends up being the insurer.
Thank you for going through my online presentation.
You've asked some good questions that are too long to answer here. Feel free to email me at "aaprjohn@northnet.org".
Some of my additional comments are at Energy Pulse http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article...
I have looked over J. Droz website and slides. Is article on Boon Picken's energy scheme is excellent and put's Picken's plan in a more realistic perspective.
The big push for renewables is the alleged global warming claim tp CO2 emissions. It's was assumed that since CO2 levels where rising along with climate warming then CO2 emissions must be the cause. A similar mistake was made with the wheat rust fungus in relation to witches and tainted wheat products.
This peer reviewed scientific article showed that CO2 has an upper forcing level that maxes out at 325ppm for the then measured incoming solar radiation which has lessened with the solar minimum of cycle 24.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSENMARSCHALLENG...
Journal of Geophysical Research
Vol. 93, No. D8, Pages 9341~9364, August 20, 1988
Global Climate Changes as Forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Three Dimensional Model
Back in 1990 Jim Hansen said that at 350 ppm the world would past the tipping point of global warming. today it's at 385ppm and the polar ice is expanding while the Oceans, according to NOAA buoys, are cooling and they contain 80 to 90% of the worlds heat. The article showed that 95% of GHG CO2 forcing had been reached at 285 ppm, what AGW advocates called- 'the optimum level'. So since then the world has been experiencing 5% extra warming.
An Article in the March issue of Sky & Telescope- The Sun Climate Connection show how the varying radiance from the sum is linked to climate warm and cold spells. It shows that there are ice age cycles every 100,000 years followed by a warm period which last about 12,000 years. Scientists say we are quite near the 12,000 year period and headed for another ice age which can occur very quickly.
Part of Obama's energy plan includes Cap & Trade, But in many countries it has proved to be a failure in practice. I agree with John's viewpoint that any energy scheme should be looked at in TECHNOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC and ENVIRONMENTAL perspectives and not in hyped up environmental fear mongered mandates. Obama's stimulus is already showing cracks in it's Keynesian economic structuring, the stock market is not responding. Economists have shown the carbon cap and reductions plans will have an impact up to over a trillion dollars. So why push technology merely on the claimed basis that it's clean and carbon neutral along with renewable. Their ignoring the factors of technological viability and economic sense. Wind grid power is an investors game that has it's origins in ENRON.
Solar has feasibility but needs energy storage capabilities for night requirements. Passive thermal solar is still the best bang per buck. That leaves clean coal technology and advanced nuclear reactors with fuel reprocessing. I have also read of the magnetic energy possibility along with black light energy possibilities. There is compressed air powered vehicles and another scheme that uses the principle of a accumulator storing a compressed gas by a small engine to drive piston powered wheels. The problem, as John has observed, is bureaucrats and money sucking lobbyists interfering with real energy independence solutions. I'm glad there are people like john who are enlightening us to the real facts of any energy scheme cooked up from the bowels of Congressional and 'Madoff' scoundrels. Thank's John.
I'd like to know your thoughts.
John
There is considerable merit in having power generation closer to consumption.
Just one of the benefits would be the reduction of the need of expensive and problematic transmission lines.
One such solution that is in advanced stages is mini-nuclear (e.g. see http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=948)...
www.nrel.gov/wind/
www.20percentwind.org
www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/
www.newwindagenda.org/
Jeff Anthony, American Wind Energy Association
There you have it. Mr. Anthony (whose employment depends on the continuation of our government's largess and laxity) says not to believe what the independent scientist says.
His "proof" is to reference you to AWEA PR material. If you want to read how preposterous the 20% report is (for example), see "How DOE + AWEA = DOA" at http://www.northnet.org/brvmug/WindPower/DOECritiq...
His comments mirror how a charlatan of the Wild West would have responded when challenged for the scientific basis of their pitch: offended, dismissiveness, shill references, misdirection, etc.
Do we really learn from history?
If I've missed something, let me know. I would be happy to discuss further.
As always, if you have independent scientific proof that I have made a mistake, please email me the particulars ("aaprjohn@northnet.org") and I will make a correction!
You need to go back to graph school 101. The iceage cycles bottoms out in 50,000 years. The climate optimum, of which we are presently in, last about 12,000 years. Some scientists think the Earth is 2,000 years from when temperatures start to decline, maybe 50 years. So the sharp peaks is what you should be concerned about. When the climate slides past that then things will likely get cold rapidly. The cold trend will be chaotic, but progressive for the next 50,000 years where global temperatures can plummet to 10 degrees lower that today.
The only good part about CO2 being over the forcing limit of 325ppm is that it can buffer the earth from the long decline into the next iceage cycle and continue the climate optimum till CO2 levels start to decline from the 325ppm level.
1. Consumption, Conservation and efficiencies
2. Fossil Fuels-Oil, natural gas and coal
3. Nuclear
4. Renewables-wind, solar, ocean, biofuels, etc.