See other Science/Tech Articles
Title: The Gas Is Greener
Source:
NYT
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/o ... bryce.html?_r=1&wpisrc=nl_wonk
Published: Jun 9, 2011
Author: ROBERT BRYCE
Post Date: 2011-06-09 11:40:00 by farmfriend
Ping List: *Agriculture-Environment* Subscribe to *Agriculture-Environment*
Keywords: None
Views: 175
Comments: 10
By ROBERT BRYCE IN April, Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines by signing into law an ambitious mandate that requires California to obtain one-third of its electricity from renewable energy sources like sunlight and wind by 2020. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia now have renewable electricity mandates. President Obama and several members of Congress have supported one at the federal level. Polls routinely show strong support among voters for renewable energy projects — as long as they don’t cost too much. But there’s the rub: while energy sources like sunlight and wind are free and naturally replenished, converting them into large quantities of electricity requires vast amounts of natural resources — most notably, land. Even a cursory look at these costs exposes the deep contradictions in the renewable energy movement. Consider California’s new mandate. The state’s peak electricity demand is about 52,000 megawatts. Meeting the one-third target will require (if you oversimplify a bit) about 17,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. Let’s assume that California will get half of that capacity from solar and half from wind. Most of its large-scale solar electricity production will presumably come from projects like the $2 billion Ivanpah solar plant, which is now under construction in the Mojave Desert in southern California. When completed, Ivanpah, which aims to provide 370 megawatts of solar generation capacity, will cover 3,600 acres — about five and a half square miles. The math is simple: to have 8,500 megawatts of solar capacity, California would need at least 23 projects the size of Ivanpah, covering about 129 square miles, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan. While there’s plenty of land in the Mojave, projects as big as Ivanpah raise environmental concerns. In April, the federal Bureau of Land Management ordered a halt to construction on part of the facility out of concern for the desert tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act. Wind energy projects require even more land. The Roscoe wind farm in Texas, which has a capacity of 781.5 megawatts, covers about 154 square miles. Again, the math is straightforward: to have 8,500 megawatts of wind generation capacity, California would likely need to set aside an area equivalent to more than 70 Manhattans. Apart from the impact on the environment itself, few if any people could live on the land because of the noise (and the infrasound, which is inaudible to most humans but potentially harmful) produced by the turbines. Industrial solar and wind projects also require long swaths of land for power lines. Last year, despite opposition from environmental groups, San Diego Gas & Electric started construction on the 117-mile Sunrise Powerlink, which will carry electricity from solar, wind and geothermal projects located in Imperial County, Calif., to customers in and around San Diego. In January, environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit to prevent the $1.9 billion line from cutting through a nearby national forest. Not all environmentalists ignore renewable energy’s land requirements. The Nature Conservancy has coined the term “energy sprawl” to describe it. Unfortunately, energy sprawl is only one of the ways that renewable energy makes heavy demands on natural resources. Consider the massive quantities of steel required for wind projects. The production and transportation of steel are both expensive and energy-intensive, and installing a single wind turbine requires about 200 tons of it. Many turbines have capacities of 3 or 4 megawatts, so you can assume that each megawatt of wind capacity requires roughly 50 tons of steel. By contrast, a typical natural gas turbine can produce nearly 43 megawatts while weighing only 9 tons. Thus, each megawatt of capacity requires less than a quarter of a ton of steel. Obviously these are ballpark figures, but however you crunch the numbers, the takeaway is the same: the amount of steel needed to generate a given amount of electricity from a wind turbine is greater by several orders of magnitude. Such profligate use of resources is the antithesis of the environmental ideal. Nearly four decades ago, the economist E. F. Schumacher distilled the essence of environmental protection down to three words: “Small is beautiful.” In the rush to do something — anything — to deal with the intractable problem of greenhouse gas emissions, environmental groups and policy makers have determined that renewable energy is the answer. But in doing so they’ve tossed Schumacher’s dictum into the ditch. All energy and power systems exact a toll. If we are to take Schumacher’s phrase to heart while also reducing the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions, we must exploit the low-carbon energy sources — natural gas and, yes, nuclear — that have smaller footprints. Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author, most recently, of “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.”
The Gas Is Greener
Published: June 7, 2011
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: farmfriend (#0)
The "elites" and greenies really dont care about "renewable energy". What they want is LESS energy and an agrarian society (except for them, of course). I think of it in terms of money spent. With a little forethought you can cut your electric bill drastically. LED lightbulbs, while initially expensive, save a couple hundred per bulb over their 25 year lifespan. As well, I'm an audiophile, Redwine Audio sells a wonderful amp that runs on batteries and takes very little power to recharge. There are others as well. Better insulation, LCD TVs, Chest Freezer rather than an upright, etc., .... There are lots of ways to reduce your usage and thus the bill.
Radiant barrier paint, and proper insulation, has our electric bill down to $77 in 95-100 degree heat. In full disclosure, we also replaced our 20+year old HVAC system with a 17 SEER, variable speed Trane system, which mainly runs on low speed. It all subtracts from the bill each month.
Somewhere in Kenya, a village is still missing its idiot.
this seems to me to be a very flawed analysis. The wind turbine will require, hopefully, little operating costs, while the gas turbine will require natural gas costs to operate. Once in place a wind turbine may be able to extract energy from the only nuclear source I believe we should use: the sun. We have a field of these turbines in SE Colorado, and they are impressive.
That is impressive, I believe you live around Austin, OMG the heat there.......
except that we don't have enough acreage for wind and you still have to have traditional power plants to even out the wind variability.
"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause." -Padme, Star Wars III, Sith
Yes, if you check the weather in 78701, you'll see that we are toasty enough. Approaching the record drought of the early '50s.
Somewhere in Kenya, a village is still missing its idiot.
Radiant barrier works good. I used radiant barrier foil when I built shop 2 last year. They make a radiant barrier OSB now. Saw it at Menard's a couple months ago. It's not much more costly than regular OSB, I think a couple bucks a sheet. Shop 2 never got below 40 last winter and stays pretty cool in the summer.
I'm a lizard. I like warm weather - although I do feel it above 95, but it doesn't bother me that much. I don't do a lot of heavy work in the sun at that range though. However, I do get your point. By taking advantage of the technologies that are already available it is possible to keep the electric bills under control. I think part of the problem is that people got used to cheap electricity and the price has now slowly been ratcheted up on us.
Crap, the weather's been all dicked-up here this year. Brutally cold spring, couldn't shut down the heat until May. Then we went into torrential rains. When the rain stopped, it got hot as hell. It got up to 99 a couple days ago, damn near wasted myself working in shop 1. Even with the ventilation, it got over 100 degrees in there. Yesterday I went to Home Despot and bought a 13,000 Btu portable A/C unit and put it in the shop today. The thing's pretty sweet. All it took to put it in was running a 5 inch duct up the wall up to the attic to exhaust the heat. Nice, clean install. I'm thinkin' that if it's a hundred in early June, we're gonna be fryin' in July/August. I'm getting too old to work in extreme conditions. Damn money's not doing me any good sitting in a safe, might as well go out in style.
So they set unabtainable energy goals and wait for the blackouts that will result.
I guess we're supposed to just go along... but I rather like electricty.
Once you go armadillo, you never go back.
#2. To: Armadillo (#1)
#3. To: Original_Intent (#2)
#4. To: farmfriend (#0)
Consider the massive quantities of steel required for wind projects. The production and transportation of steel are both expensive and energy-intensive, and installing a single wind turbine requires about 200 tons of it. Many turbines have capacities of 3 or 4 megawatts, so you can assume that each megawatt of wind capacity requires roughly 50 tons of steel. By contrast, a typical natural gas turbine can produce nearly 43 megawatts while weighing only 9 tons. Thus, each megawatt of capacity requires less than a quarter of a ton of steel.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" 
#5. To: Lod (#3)
ion, has our electric bill down to $77 in 95-100 degree heat.
"Satan / Cheney in "08"
#6. To: tom007 (#4)
#7. To: tom007 (#5)
#8. To: Lod, 4um (#3)
Radiant barrier paint
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936 2011)
#9. To: Lod (#3)
Radiant barrier paint, and proper insulation, has our electric bill down to $77 in 95-100 degree heat.
#10. To: Lod (#7)
Yes, if you check the weather in 78701, you'll see that we are toasty enough.
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936 2011)
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest