Robert Rapier: The Scientific Challenges to Replacing Oil with Renewables

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Applying many of the common alternatives, like wind and solar power, solar heat, biomass for several purposes, and being busy with this subject on a daily basis for several years now, I am not optimistic anymore. I see it as a desperate move to keep up the present standard of comfort. Although the sources are sustainable, the machines to harvest are not and cannot be made by using the harvested sources. At least not the quantity we would like to have.
In my opinion there is only one long term solution and that is slowly decending from the present level of technology to somewhere between this level and the pre-fossil fuel level. Even if the impossible goal would be achieved: finding the ultimate energy source, mankind would hit other limits within decades. We are creative, but not very self-regulating. Mankind should now start exploring decline instead of expansion. I know, that also is very un-human…

Still, enjoy present unique times! But do not allow our comfort and wealth to mislead us to the wrong direction.

Regards, DJ

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I cannot understand why, when our backs are against the wall, people are unwilling to consider certain discoveries that may ameliorate or perhaps even be the answer to our predicament.
We know that present knowledge is hopelessly inadequate and applying it will be fatal. (I am reminded of the Easter Islanders hanging on to their belief in their Moui until they doomed themselves)

source.

I am led to believe that the same psychological mechanism is at work. Perhaps a Death Wish.

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Are you serious?  The US is 9.83 million km2
Australia 7.69 million km2

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RR writes, "We are trying to replace that (crude oil) with something that the energy required to get it and process it and produce it is a lot higher than the energy required to process oil." Not so.
A few years ago I read  http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05spr/gorlov3.asp describing the Gorlov Helical Turbine. Since those trials nothing has been done with the technology; the license has been sold/ to GCK Technologies in Texas then to
Lucid Energy Tech who are sitting on it at the behest of big oil. When the trial in Cape Cod worked the Energy Department refused to provide funding. At that time, as is true today, the decision makers at DOE were revolving door execs from the fosil fuel industry.
Then there’s the case of industrial hemp. Prohibitions against its cultivation are not based on rational science or anything close.  The fossil fuel, lumber, and petrochemical/pharmacuetical barrons continue to support the law declaring industrial hemp a psychoactive and therefore prohibited plant.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Americans in Kentucky and Tennessee flourished as a result of their industrial hemp market from the mid 16th century until 1932. Harry Anslinger, the DuPonts, Rockefellers, newspaper moguls all colluded to have it banned from production because it was a low cost alternative to wood pulp, fuel oil, oils for human use, cotton, and just about any product processed from crude oil.
There are alternatives that do not use as much or more energy than they produce. Our problem is that we fail to use a metric/standard that in these times makes more sense than sole reliance upon that of marginal cost/profit.  Instead, for new energy technologies, we should use the metric/standard that focuses on the least amount of carbon produced for every dollar of investment.We subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of $4B annually, while sweeping crumbs of not more than a few hundred million in subsidies nd even with that these fledgling firms have a Tsunami  of regulations to overcome to just get in the cue.

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My nominee would be industrial hemp. The industry would be built from the ground up…;Farmers, finance, truckers, processing plant workers from janitors to scientists, product design, fabrication, manufacturing, distribution, sales, accounting, etc. And, on and on with vertical and horizontal expansion.Industrial hemp matures in 3 months, (four harvests per year in the south an one crop in Alaska), uses only ten percent of the water poured on cotton, no pesticides, (cotton uses over fifty percent of all pesticides manufactured and sold in the U.S) moreover, as cotton yields decline fertilizer use increases. Hemp uses very little fertilizer and can flourish without any as proven by its abundance as "ditch hemp."
But since the non-psychoactive Canabis has been banned along with psychoactive hemp the likelihood of it being freed from its false charges are slim to none.  Which is a monument of hypocrisy enshrining this nations fear of the fossil fuel, lumber, cotton, and phrmacutecal robber barrons…  

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These power sources can replace crude oil without using a drop of crude oil. http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05spr/gorlov3.asphttp://www.votehemp.com/
The problem of course is monopolistic control of gov subsidies, and legislation prohibiting the cultivation of a non-psychoactive plant.
Both constraints are artificial, hypocritical, and extremely costly.
 
The fossil fuel industry sucks up $4B in subsidies annually and only a pittance to renewables and less than that to wave energy. Industrial hemp competes with fossil fuels, lumber, petrochemicals, pharmacuticals, cotton and other fibers, therefore a virulent opposition to allowing a least cost alternative to flourish at the expense of legacy industires. Yes, our shortsighted approach to our energy crisis will have us stepping over the ledge we failed to see even in the short-run.  And as you say climbing back up will put us four to five generations behind the Chinese.

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Random thoughts after listening to this EXCELLENT interview:
I prefer to frame cost of biofuels discussions in energy and not dollars.  The real metric is EROEI.

What would the EROEI for corn be if we made CH4 insteasd of EtOH?  If we included the stillage in the calculations?

There are 2 basic forms of C fixation in plants (let’s can CAM):  C3 and C4.  C4 plants (corn and sugar cane) are much more effecient in fixing atmospheric carbon than C3 plants.  To my knowledge there are no C4 algae plants.  How is it that algae has come up the winner here?

I grew up in Iowa on a large corporate farm.  They have a digester that uses feedlot manure to produce methane and electricity.  IF functioning properly, this digester can produce $1 million annually.  Last week I learned that 80% of this profit is tipping fees supported by current tax laws (set to expire).  The good news is that this digester produces $0.5 million in fertilizer.  The bad news is that spreading this fertilizer consumes sizable amounts of diesel.  How does this work at $200 oil or when petro is limiting?  Not well.

In Crash Course Chris mentions how certain regions of the US (or world) may fair better in a fuel starved future.  I would put the corn belt at the top of the list. 

When friends complain about the price of gasoline, I make them a deal.  I will buy firewood they cut, split, and deliver by hand for $200/cord.  Or they can purchase 2 gallons of gasoline for $25/gallon, cut, split, and deliver the wood.   It shuts them up for a few minutres, anyway.

Finally, the topic avoided is the most painful.  How many people can this planet support?  In the end, matching the number of people on this planet with available resourses will solve these problems. 

Nate

Adam - can you embed a spell-check feature in the comment box?

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I really enjoyed this interview. It brings some realism to the discussion of alternative energy. 
However, I don’t really care if we ever find a worldwide solution to our energy needs. I care about finding a personal solution to my energy needs.

We can only act on a personal level, so why do we spend so much time on this site debating subjects that are beyond our ability to act upon (i.e. markets, politics, macro-energy) ? Changing the world is a bottom-up process that begins with the individual. Instead of rehashing the same-old macro topics again and again, maybe this site should focus more on the micro; stories of individuals who find and create solutions to their problems. The WSID Series is a great start towards this path, and I believe it is the only viable business model for this site going forward. 

Thanks, Jeff

P.S. Mike, why haven’t you posted your story to the WSID Series? I personally would find great value in it.

 

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[quote=Robbrian]These power sources can replace crude oil without using a drop of crude oil. http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05spr/gorlov3.asp
[/quote]
Really?  For how long?  Ever heard of soil depletion?  Even if you start with outstanding soil, pulling four crops a year from any patch of soil will eventually deplete it to the stage no more will grow.  Unless you apply inputs, which, ta da, are usually made with/of fossil fuels…
Mike

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China understood need to keep & expand the railway component as they motorized and expanded the manufacturing component.    Car and aircraft deals get the headlines, and sexy high speed rail is highlighted.    But the meat of transport in China & Russia too, is generic standard-gauge railway engineering.    Except, Russians use 5’ gauge, Chinese use US 56 &1/2" inch for standard…   Russians did not want Germans to have too easy a time with logistics… goes back to Kaiser Bill.Instead of Gold as the big panacea, give thought to your  (readers’) locale and dormant rail branch lines that might get rail service closer to where you live.    We visited Healdsburg CA recently, and note agonizingly slow progress bringing rail service up from the Union Pacific main at Fairfield.    These rebuild projects (freight is the important thing for victuals, etc.) are exceedingly rare; if you have a rusty streak of rail line near you, be grateful; this is orders of magnitude better than searching out old corridor already stripped of track long ago.    People think of railway as a noisy inconvenience unless they understand the military phrase: "Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform".   Meaning- a stand alone transport facilty able to self-repair, and quickly do what is necessary to keep 'em rolling.    Your family will still be on the victuals distribution network when trucks starve for fuel…  
 
Middle East meltdown, from Iran spasm, or Islamic internal feuding is going to crimp world oil flows!    Railways are Guarantors of Societal & Commercial Cohesion moreso than guns & Gold.    Keep your local post Office open too!   CM mentions hydropower rail lines, but interim, over the next decades, rail will operate on most any prime mover power source: diesel, electic and some smaller lines will operate with steam engines running on biomass and or coal!     CM does not talk much about worst case, but attack on US homeland is not unthinkable, and getting the 100’s of strategic rail branch lines up & running ASAP is actually a smart way to keep victuals coming to your locale.    Gold is not much good when things really get out of control, in fact makes you and your family a target…  Another note on coins and bullion: expect US Federal call-back of precious metals to shore up currency in war and or energy emergency scenarios.  This is from US strategic planning sources, going back decades.   EMP strike is probable, another reason for maintaining a variety of locomotive designs.
Some readers have military connection; this railway methodology brings in reformed US Army/Guard Railway Logistics Battalions, to expedite dormant rail line return to service.    Ft. Eustis, VA is source for info and history on the Railway Operating & Maintenance Battalions.    Try also William Withuhn, Curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian Institution.    A private entrepreneur, Christopher C. Swan, is also working on a SYSTEMS approach to renewable powered railway lines.    See Swan’s book " ELECTRIC WATER" (New Society 2007) for compendium of ways and means for local economic units to achieve generic railway amentity.
For US Rail Map Atlas Volumes, see spv.co.uk     -Also, "Official Guide of The Raiways" copies circa 1920-1950 for comprehensive listings of US rail lines and maps.    Keep 'Em Rolling

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Deep geothermal energy is a virtually inexhaustible, safe energy that can replace all forms of combustion-based energy  for providing electricty, heat, etc.It is already being used and/or under development in some forward thinking countries.  

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Over history our economic and technological progress in society grew as we shifted from animals to wood to coal to oil and natural gas as major energy sources.  Each new source had more advantages and broader ranges of application.   Show me an energy source that is better than oil, in terms of density of energy, portability, steadiness, scalability, energy returned vs invested, and support from existing infrastructure.
 What new alternative energy on the horizon meets or exceeds that same critiera?   I don’t see it yet.  As this great podcast points out, at best the transition will be long and challenging.  

 

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As Dutch John pointed out, even if some incredibly intelligent human or humans could figure out an energy "source" that could substitute for oil (then natural gas, then coal), we would hit other limits.We can’t look at these issues in isolation, our predicament covers a lot of issues; finding an equivalent, and growing, energy (and resource) alternative to oil will leave many of those other issues untouched.
Some poster ventured to suggest that our predicament might have an answer. No, predicaments only have responses. I sincerely hope our response is not to try to keep civilization, as we know it, going.

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Ah, Hawaii…  Mr. Rapier looks kind of young so I doubt that he will remember the biomass fiasco of Molokai Electric back in the early to mid 80’s.  They had some hotshot engineer, Bruce Yamashita, if I remember correctly, who sold them on the idea of a steam generated biomass plant because they had to ship in all of their diesel oil to power their electrical plant and had the the highest $/KwH cost in Hawaii…  They may still do for all that I know now.  The whole thing was a complete bust and Yamashita had to leave town.  They quickly discovered that the whole Island would be denuded in a short time if they expected to use the local vegetation to fuel the plant…  It was shut down shortly after it opened.  Why did you fail to mention the Cold Fusion work that is going on in Italy and has been proven to work?

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Why did you fail to mention the Cold Fusion work that is going on in Italy and has been proven to work?
I have been following the Rossi story with some interest. There is still a small element of doubt in my mind that will evaporate when I see the energy from the device. However, there are other  repeatable experimements that yield less spectacular energy, (This link shows heat generated and captured on an infra red camera. The hot spot temperatures are beyond the limits of the camera, which is what you would expect from nuclear.) And there are competing hypotheses floated to explain the theory behind the phenomena. Here I offer the Widom-Widom/Larsen theory, which lures you in with pretty pictures but then plunges you into mathematics. Nice and chewy.) One thing I discovered from Tada Mizuno's book  "Nuclear Transmutations" is that electrolysis produces pressures in the order of 30 atmospheres. So your good old lead acid battery is an extreme environment. These more scientific experiments use exotic metals such as palladium and deuterium. So Nickel's transmutation into copper is interesting in that the resource is abundant. Just follow the numerous links offered by Ruby Carot in her blog   or see the Alphabetical list of the impressive Library of experimental resuls  that is the result of 20 years of research around the world. And which is getting millions of hits per month. The waste products are Trituim (Half life 12.32 years) and helium for childrens balloons. As for other constrains, you are addressing a disciple ot the Limits to Growth team. If we do manage to get this magic bullet then exponential growth and the desire not to die will force us to the Lagrange points which are capable of supporting several orders of magnitude more people than this finite world. The Doubling of the population can then be given several more iterations and then I hand the batton on to my great grandchilren.
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Jeff - I agree with your local idea - but then yesterday morning I read a very disheartening story in a local paper. In a town next to me, an individual who owns a house next to a river with a dam and waterfall on it(which he owns) wants to install a hydroelectric system that could power as many as 30 homes. He first submitted his application 3 years ago! It had to go through all of the regulatory approvals, hence the long delay. And now, the neighbors are coming out against it because they don’t want someone to ruin the scenery of water tumbling over the dam. Between regulations and nimby, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, and all this while we still have time and resources to tackle future energy shortfalls.
Even on my end, I have been trying to get a 2nd quote from several different solar panel installers for a month now. I have not been able to get one of them out. One of them told me my electric usage is too low for them to install a system. I am very frustrated right now to say the least.

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[quote=8Ball]  Why did you fail to mention the Cold Fusion work that is going on in Italy and has been proven to work?
[/quote]
Because it has not been proven.
A ‘proof’ requries independent, third party validation where all the components have been assembled by that third party.  That is the essence of peer review and ‘proof’ cannot be claimed without replication.
That’s my standard.
In the most recent Rossi ‘proof’ I did watch the approved video that he put out (no unapproved video taping was allowed, is my understanding) and I had to marvel at the 500kw diesel generator roaring away in the background as a yield of slightly under 500kw was claimed.  (Maybe the carburetor was dirty was my waggish thought.)
Uh, what?  I thought that only minimal input electricty was needed and then nothing for the continued reaction…there should have been dead silence.  What’s the explanation for the generator in that video?
So consider me still a skeptic.
Extraordinary claims requrire extraordinary proof and such proof has not yet been provided for the Rossi device.

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Hey Joe,
Yeah, that story is pretty pathetic, especially since hydro-electric is such a great energy resource (and one that I can only dream of in my coastal flat-lands). But the only way these regulations are going to change, is by the actions of individuals like the man in your story. It’s hard to be an early adopter of any technology, especially if "neighbors" are in the equation. 
Keep trying with your PV system and please share your experiences.
All the best,
Jeff
 

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Yawn. So more fear based posts eh?  Here are some thoughts I had while reading this blog.
The world uses 15 terrawatts of energy every year.  Every hour approximately 120,000 terrawatts of energy hit our planet via electromagnetic radiation. Almost TEN TIMES the amount of energy we use in a year hits our planet in one hour. Biofuels are a method of maintaining scarcity, with solar and electric transportation we can have more than enough.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_solar_energy_reaches_the_surface_of_the_Earth

Denmark aims to have 50% of its power needs met by 2020, via wind power!  Combined with biomass, solar, geothermal, etc, abundance is within grasp.

http://www.zeitnews.org/energy/wind-power-to-make-up-half-of-danish-energy-use-in-2020.html

In the US, over $70 billion is spent on oil subsidies. About $1 billion is spent on solar subsidies. Reverse the two, equalling a little over a billion for every state, and over a few years every city could be running on solar.

http://www.ecoinsite.com/2010/10/what-if-solar-got-the-same-subsidies-as-fossil-fuels.html

For those who aren’t familiar with my position, this doesn’t mean I support a continuing expansion of contemporary economic models. The monetary market model of resource distribution is the most destructive, wasteful, inefficient, and detrimental system to have ever existed. This exists due to the need to maintain cost efficiency, growth in GDP, competitive advantage, and preserve relevance of market share through maintaining artificial scarcity.

2/3 of all food grown for human consumption is thrown away, there are approx. 4 million homeless in the US, yet there are about 20 million vacant homes. We already have abundance of goods available, but due to the need for markets to create value out of scarcity, we preserve detrimental and cancerous traits like poverty, stratification, and homicide.

An important concept is the ‘four fold effect’, which theorizes that by creating open access economies, we can reduce consumption by four times while reducing waste by four times. Think libraries; you dont own the goods available to you, but you can use them when you like. Less waste, more access. 

I hope that the members here who view the future as ‘hopeless’ realize the only thing hopeless is doing nothing.  Get involved with your community, get initiatives for non-profit aquaponic greenhouse systems along with solar, wind, biomass programs.

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[quote=joemanc]And now, the neighbors are coming out against it because they don’t want someone to ruin the scenery of water tumbling over the dam. Between regulations and nimby, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, and all this while we still have time and resources to tackle future energy shortfalls.[/quote]A micro hydro system (even if not so micro, would not need to "ruin the scenery", as hidden plumbing from upstream of the waterfall to divert flow and use the fall, which is after all the real source of energy, could/should be used to drive the generator/s well away from the scenery…

Where on Earth do you live Joe…  here in Australia you would have people falling over themselves to sell you a solar system!
Mike