PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY Chapter 3B – Will Renewable Energy Sources Save the Day? Robert Bériault.

PEAK OIL AND THE PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITYFATE OF HUMANITY

Chapter 3B – Will Renewable Energy Chapter 3B – Will Renewable Energy Sources Save the Day?Sources Save the Day?

Robert Bériault

What about the hydrogen

economy Earthlings talk

so much about?

A hydrogen economy :

What would it entail? Is it feasible?

The idea is to replace the oil used in transportation with hydrogen.

This would require building:

800 million fuel-cell operated cars The wind farms or photovoltaic arrays to produce renewable electricityThe infrastructure to produce liquid hydrogen, to store it and to transport it to the consumerHydrogen stations to replace present gas stations.

A hydrogen economy would

also have to include, trucking,

air and sea travel.

Advantages of hydrogen:

Could be produced from wind, solar, hydro or nuclear sources

Clean-burning. Water is its only product of combustion

Portable: Might be the most practical way to “carry” electricity to drive vehicles

Problems with hydrogen - 1

Physical characteristics:

10 X more flammable than gasolineIts explosive range is 20 X greater than that of gasolineVery little energy by volume (requires huge tanks)Flame is invisibleSmall size of hydrogen molecule leaks easilyIt is also very corrosive (pipe connections, valves, seals, etc.)

Problems with hydrogen - 2Both forms of storage are problematic

Exxon-Mobil Report, Oct. 2004

When carried as a liquid it is more practical for

transport. BUT IT RESULTS IN:

a 30% loss through the liquefaction process + a 1.7% evaporation

loss per day

When carried as a gas it must be under very high

pressure (10,000 – 20,000 lbs / sq. in.) oror

Compressed hydrogen for use in busses Liquid hydrogen for use in cars

Problems with hydrogen - 2Both forms of storage are problematic


Either way, with a

hydrogen vehicle you’d

have to forget about parking

indoors

Problems with hydrogen - 2Transportation to filling stations would be

problematic

To carry the same equivalent energy to the filling station would require 21 times more trucks than for gasoline*

Just imagine how many hydrogen tankers would be roaming the roadways in search of accidents!

=

* The Future of the Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak?, Baldur Eliasson and Ulf Bossel, ABB Switzerland Ltd.


Hydrogen leakage would be similar to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

Could indirectly cause as much as a 10-percent decrease in atmospheric ozone

Scientists are uncertain about the effects on the atmosphere because they still have a limited understanding of the hydrogen cycle.

California Institute of Technology June 12, 2003

If hydrogen were to replace

fossil fuels entirely:

Effect on ozone layer


There are no exploitable underground sources of hydrogenIt takes more energy to produce hydrogen than what the resulting hydrogen will yield – always*

Not an energy source, but an energy carrier:

Why? – because the process creates a waste

product: heat (heat energy)

Blame the laws of thermodynamics!

* “The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate if Industrial Societies”, Richard Heinberg


Fuel cell technology for cars is still under development

We might have to resort to using the hydrogen directly as fuel in internal combustion engines

Technology not ready:


Virtually all commercial hydrogen is made by natural gas reforming or by gasification of coal. *

The infrastructure for large scale production by electrolysis of water from wind or solar would have to be built from scratch.

* Mr. D.R. Simbeck, Vice President Technology, SFA Pacific, Inc., Mountain View, CA


Infrastructure cost:

To convert from a gasoline to a hydrogen infrastructure would require massive amounts of :

Energy Capital

You can see that hydrogen made from water is much more expensive


What necessities would you have to do without if a fill-up cost $400?


It just doesn’t make economic sense because natural gas is so cheap

Will it ever make economic sense?

No commercial hydrogen is made from wind or solar energy today:

When gas and oil get expensive:

Rather than going hydrogen, it will probably always make more economic sense to:

Buy a smaller gasoline car

Walk

CycleTake public

transit

James Howard Kunstler has this to say about hydrogen:

• “The widespread belief that hydrogen is going to save technological society from the fast-approaching oil and gas reckoning is probably a good index of how delusional our oil-addicted society has become.”

The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler

Some analysts conclude that:Some analysts conclude that:

a HYDROGEN ECONOMY will never

be economically feasible

There’s a lot of news about ethanol in

your newspapers.

Couldn’t ethanol replace

gasoline?

Growing our fuel…

For one thing,

Growing corn to make ethanol takes a lot of cropland out of food production

Let’s suppose Americans work like mad between now and 2020:

…and switched all of their 300 million cars to corn-derived ethanol…

Take a guess at how much land it would take to grow the corn!

Red portion = area required for replacing US gasoline needs for 2020


Today, cropland makes up 19% of all the land in the United States

In a world of declining per capita grain production, is it wise to create another use for farmland?

Taking land out of food production:

According to Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute:

“ U.S. automakers’ push for vehicles able to run on ethanol made from corn will boost food costs and global hunger…The vast number of distilleries in operation and in the planning stages threatens to reduce grain available for direct human consumption.”

And here’s another thing about ethanol-from-corn:

The Energy Return On Energy Investedis low (1.7 to 1).

It takes almost as much energy to grow the corn and process the ethanol than the energy we can derive from

the ethanol.

Some energy analysts say:

… we might as well chase our tails!!!

If we’re going to make corn-derived ethanol fuel…

What about the company in your

natal city that produces

antoher kind of alcohol?

Ah!, what you’re referring to is cellulosic alcohol – ethanol made from cellulose, the fibrous part of plants like stems, branches and trunks.

It differs from grain alcohol in that it requires a greater amount of processing to make the sugar monomers available to the microorganisms that are typically used to produce ethanol by fermentation. But there are more serious drawbacks than this…

To find out what they are, I recommend viewing the DVD:

By David Fridley: http://www.sfbayoil.org/sfoa/myths/index.html

OK, then, what about that diesel

fuel you can make from those little green creatures?

What you’re referring to is biodiesel from algae:

You can find some interesting papers on the internet about how fantastic this still-to-be-developed technology will be.

If you believe the claims, for a fraction of the cost of one year’s imports, the USA could build facilities to replace all of the country’s liquid fuel needs. Scientist examines a flask of

oil produced from algae

Biodiesel from algae:

The procedure would use liquid waste streamsfrom farms and municipal sewage on which they would grow oil-producing algae.

The oil could be burned directly in diesel engines if supplemented with 10% methanol.

Botryococcus, an oil

producing green alga

Michael Briggs, University of New Hampshire, Physics Dept.

Biodiesel from algae:

If something is too good to be true…

…draw your own conclusions

Oil from algae has only been produced under laboratory conditions. It cannot be scaled up to

industrial production.

I saw some solar panels from my

spaceship. Couldn’t they solve the oil

crisis?I hear they can be

used to make hydrogen

Photovoltaic (solar) panels convert sunlight directly into electricity

Advantages:

Quiet operationQuiet operation

Can be placed on rooftops, Can be placed on rooftops, close to point of useclose to point of use

Little maintenance except Little maintenance except for washing and de-icingfor washing and de-icing

US General Services Admin., Pacific Rim Region

Problems With Photovoltaics - 1

Solar panels take up a lot of surface area

To replace 1 nuclear reactor would take

75 sq. km of solar panels in southern Canada


1) When it’s cloudy(think of November

And December)

They don’t work:

2) When it’s dark

Problems With Photovoltaics - 3The electricity produced can’t be used in transportation

…unless converted into a fuel


Electricity from solar panels presently costs 57¢ per KWH*

vs. 6¢ for electricity from coal or hydro

A lot more expensive than what we’re used tospending:

* http://www.solarbuzz.com

The big difficulty with photovoltaics is

that there is no cheap way to store

the electricity during the day…

…so that we have power to run the lights during the night.

One way we could get around this would be to convert surplus solar electricity into hydrogen

during the day -- and then convert the hydrogen back

into electricity at night.

Solar electricity Hydrogen Electricity

The problem with doing this, is that in each step of the

conversion process, we lose some of the energy through

waste heat.

Those darned laws of thermodynamics come into play!

Here is an example of the energy losses that can be encountered at each step of the way:

* The Future of the Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak? Baldur Eliasson and Ulf BosselABB Switzerland Ltd., Corporate Research, Baden-Dättwil / Switzerland ** Exxon-Mobil Report, Oct. 2004 “Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Developers Claim 50% Efficiency” I.H.S. Petrochemicals “Fuel Cell Efficiency: A Reality Check”, E.V. World Overview of the Electric Grid, U.S. Department of Energy

Solar panel

produces electricity

Hydrogen is lost through storage &

transportation

Fuel cell converts hydrogen back to

electricityTransformation & transmission Consumer

25%*Energy losses: 15%** 20% 10%

Solar power is used to

make hydrogen

by electrolysis

Hydrogen is

liquefied for storing

30%*

Because of efficiency losses the 57¢ per KWH cost increases to $1.77 per KWH !!!*

*Calculations of cost by author

Solar panel

produces electricity

Hydrogen is lost through storage &

transportation

Fuel cell converts hydrogen back to

electricityTransformation & transmission Consumer

25%*Energy losses: 15%** 20% 10%

Solar power is used to

make hydrogen

by electrolysis

Hydrogen is

liquefied for storing

30%*

Canadians presently pay between5¢ and 8¢ per KWH

By this calculation, your $100 a month hydro bill would climb to $2700!!!

And in my calculations I used the most

optimistic numbers!


At the 45th latitude solar panels need to run 5 years to pay back energy used in their manufacturing.

It’s not likely that in the future we will ever be

able to make replacement solar panels

from the energy generated by solar

panels.

The cost of making solar panels depends very much on the cost

of energy.

So they will become much more expensive.

It was very windy when I landed

here. Why doesn’t Canada invest in wind energy? You

could have wind farms all over the

place.

Advantages of wind power:Price almost competitive with fossil fuels.

Many suitable sites in Canada

Non-polluting once the infrastructure is in place

The resource is renewable

Large potential

Problems with wind power - 1

Erratic supply – Wind mills don’t run when:

1- The wind is too strong 2- The wind is too weak

Problems with wind power - 2Erratic supply – affects the price per KWH

Wind mills are rated according to their peak production in an ideal wind.

The actual power produced from a wind farm over a year will only be 16% to 35% of the peak rated capacity.

i.e.: A 1000 Megawatt array would produce an average of 250 Megawatts average over a year

http://www.eon-netz.com


Off-periods require having a fossil fuel backup

In other words, you always have to have a fuel power station on standby for windless periods.

we willstill

need:

we willstill

need:

Onwindless

days:

Onwindless

days:


So wind farms won’t reduce the size of our

fossil fuel infrastructure.


Excess power can’t easily be stored

It could be stored in the form of liquid hydrogen or by pumping water up into reservoirs, but the infrastructure has yet to be built.

Other methods of storage might be possible, subject to research.


Not suitable for transportation, with 2 exceptions:

1- Every KWH of power you produce with wind means 1 KWH you don’t need to produce with oil or gas. The oil or gas thus saved could be used in transportation.

2- Its electricity could be used to produce liquid hydrogen for transportation, but it would be extremely expensive.

Energy analysts say:

Wind is the most cost-effective

renewable source after

hydro

They recommend

investing heavily in wind farms

now while oil is cheap

What about that cute little

compressed aircar? You could use

solar or wind energy to generate the

electricity to compress the air.

About eight horsepower of electricity are used to generate one horsepower of compressed air.*

Is this a wise use of expensive solar or wind energy? Is it affordable?

And what about all those barrels of oil that are required to build the car in the first place?

* Minnesota Technical Assistance Program

Finally, good old reliable hydro power:

Two major drawbacks…

1) Hydro dams disrupt the natural topography, fauna and flora

2) Silt accumulates behind the dams, rendering the reservoirs useless within a few centuries

3) Flooding of rivers destroys their value for water sports forever

Perhaps you suspect that we’ve going too far in exploiting the Earth’s resources. Read about how a past society did as we are doing, in Chapter 4.

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PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY Chapter 3B – Will Renewable Energy Sources Save the Day? Robert Bériault.

Documents

hydrogen infrastructure

hydrogen cycle

commercial hydrogen

hydrogen leakage

compressed hydrogen

hydrogen tankers

resulting hydrogen

advantages of hydrogen