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The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 17:42:25

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', 'T')he test is can those energy sources can duplicate themselves ?
I.E. for the techno economically challenged
...can one make solar panels from a factory build and powered by solar panels
including the raw materials processing and the ecological costs of a very dirty manufacturing
YES!!!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Abstract
A number of detailed studies on the energy requirements on the three types of photovoltaic (PV) materials, which make up the majority of the active solar market: single crystal, polycrystalline, and amorphous silicon were reviewed. It was found that modern PV cells based on these silicon technologies pay for themselves in terms of energy in a few years (1-5 years). They thus generate enough energy over their lifetimes to reproduce themselves many times (6-31 reproductions) depending on what type of material, balance of system, and the geographic location of the system.

In order to determine true sustainability, all energy technologies should undergo a comprehensive life cycle analysis (LCA). LCA is a means of quantifying how much energy and raw material are used and how much (solid, liquid, and gaseous) waste is generated at each stage of a product’s life. Ideally an LCA would include quantification of material and energy needed for: raw material extraction, manufacturing of all components, use requirements, generation (if any), end of use (disposal or recycling), and the distribution/transportation in between each stage.

Analysis
A number of detailed studies on the energy requirements of the three types of PV materials which make up the majority of the active solar market. Based on this review of available data a working estimate of the energy inputs for the three technologies was established. Then with energy conversion efficiencies of modules in production the representation of the net energy was graphically simplified by plotting lifetime against the net energy output from a solar PV system.

Results
It is readily apparent from Figures 1-3 that all silicon based solar cells in any type of design and placed anywhere in the U.S. will pay for themselves in terms of energy over their lifetime. This is counter to the resilient myth that solar cells will never be viable because they cannot ever make up for their embodied energy. This myth started with an analysis of very early cells and continues today because of the confusion generated by the economically based “emergy” analysis. The payback time ranges from about 1 year for BIPV installations in Phoenix made from high efficiency a-Si to nearly 5 years for low efficiency c-Si in a centralized power plant located in Detroit. The fact that devices constructed from the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust can payback the energy used in their fabrication in under five years make silicon based solar cells an extremely attractive major source of energy. In the thirty-year lifetime looked at here Si based solar cells will produce between 6 and 31 times the amount of energy used to produce them.

Conclusions
Clearly the modern photovoltaic cells based on silicon technologies including cSi, p-Si, and a-Si all pay for themselves in terms of energy in a few years (1-5 years). They thus generate enough energy over their lifetimes to reproduce themselves many times (6-31 reproductions) depending on what type of material, BOS, and location.
Net Energy Analysis For Sustainable Energy Production
From Silicon Based Solar Cells

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', 'A')lternatives were always an ruinously expensive political pacifier given to starry eyes zealots
Proof , take the subsidies away and watch
Over their lifetime, fossil fuels have received far more subsides than alternative energy has.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')otal subsidies for renewable energy stood at $66 billion in 2010, but are still dwarfed by the total value of global fossil fuel subsidies estimated at between $775 billion and more than $1 trillion in 2012. Unit subsidy costs for renewables are expected to decrease as technologies become more efficient and the prices of wholesale electricity and transport fuels rise.

The production and consumption of fossil fuels add costs to society in the form of detrimental impacts on resource availability, the environment, and human health. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences estimates that fossil fuel subsidies cost the United States $120 billion in pollution and related health care costs every year. But these costs are not reflected in fossil fuel prices. These so-called hidden costs, or externalities, are in fact very real costs to our societies that are not picked up by the polluter and beneficiary of production but by all taxpayers. Local pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels kill thousands in the U.S. alone each year, and yet society makes them cheaper to continue down their destructive path.

fossil fuels have benefited from massive governmental backing worldwide for years. Fossil fuel subsidies continue to far outweigh support for renewable energy.
Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy Subsidies on the Rise
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 18:09:45

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', 'a')nd producing power at a cost equivalent to fossil fuel , hydro or nuclear

......NO !!
You obviously have not been following recent developments in nuclear. It has gotten extremely expensive.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') year after Fukushima, the future for nuclear power is not bright—for reasons of cost as much as safety.

As our special report this week explains, without governments private companies would simply not choose to build nuclear-power plants. This is in part because of the risks they face from local opposition and changes in government policy (seeing Germany's nuclear-power stations, which the government had until then seen as safe, shut down after Fukushima sent a chilling message to the industry). But it is mostly because reactors are very expensive indeed. Lower capital costs once claimed for modern post-Chernobyl designs have not materialised. The few new reactors being built in Europe are far over their already big budgets. And in America, home to the world's largest nuclear fleet, shale gas has slashed the costs of one of the alternatives; new nuclear plants are likely only in still-regulated electricity markets such as those of the south-east.

For nuclear to play a greater role, either it must get cheaper or other ways of generating electricity must get more expensive. In theory, the second option looks promising: the damage done to the environment by fossil fuels is currently not paid for. Putting a price on carbon emissions that recognises the risk to the climate would drive up fossil-fuel costs. We have long argued for introducing a carbon tax (and getting rid of energy subsidies). But in practice carbon prices are unlikely to justify nuclear.

Innovation tends to thrive where many designs can compete against each other, where newcomers can get into the game easily, where regulation is light. Some renewable-energy technologies meet these criteria, and are getting cheaper as a result. But there is no obvious way for nuclear power to do so.

Reactors bought today may end up operating into the 22nd century, and decommissioning well-regulated reactors that have been paid for when they have years to run—as Germany did—makes little sense. But the promise of a global transformation is gone.
The dream that failed

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')uclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal. The West's “nuclear renaissance” much bruited over the past decade, in part as a response to climate change, fizzled out well before the roofs blew off Fukushima's first, third and fourth reactor buildings.

In liberalised energy markets, building nuclear power plants is no longer a commercially feasible option: they are simply too expensive. Existing reactors can be run very profitably; their capacity can be upgraded and their lives extended. But forecast reductions in the capital costs of new reactors in America and Europe have failed to materialise and construction periods have lengthened. Nobody will now build one without some form of subsidy to finance it or a promise of a favourable deal for selling the electricity. And at the same time as the cost of new nuclear plants has become prohibitive in much of the world, worries about the dark side of nuclear power are resurgent.

In 2010 the world's installed renewable electricity capacity outstripped its nuclear capacity for the first time. nuclear energy, which has received large subsidies in the past, has not displaced much in the way of fossil fuels. Nuclear is getting more expensive whereas renewables are getting cheaper.

Barring major technological developments, nuclear power will continue to be a creature of politics not economics, with any growth a function of political will or a side-effect of protecting electrical utilities from open competition. This will limit the overall size of the industry. In 2010 nuclear power provided 13% of the world's electricity, down from 18% in 1996. A more guarded IEA scenario has rich countries building no new reactors other than those already under construction, other countries achieving only half their currently stated targets (which in nuclear matters are hardly ever met) and regulators being less generous in extending the life of existing plants. On that basis the installed capacity goes down a little, and the share of the electricity market drops to 7% by 2035.

Developing nuclear plants only at the behest of government will also make it harder for the industry to improve its safety culture. Where a government is convinced of the need for nuclear power, it may well be less likely to regulate it in the stringent, independent way the technology demands. Governments favour nuclear power by limiting the liability of its operators. If they did not, the industry would surely founder. But a different risk arises from the fact that governments can change their minds. Germany's plants are being shut down in response to an accident its industry had nothing to do with. Being hostage to distant events thus adds a hard-to-calculate systemic risk to nuclear development.

The ability to split atoms and extract energy from them was one of the more remarkable scientific achievements of the 20th century, widely seen as world-changing. But if nuclear power teaches one lesson, it is to doubt all stories of technological determinism. It is not the essential nature of a technology that matters but its capacity to fit into the social, political and economic conditions of the day.

If a technology fits into the human world in a way that gives it ever more scope for growth it can succeed beyond the dreams of its pioneers. The diesel engines that power the world's shipping are an example; so are the artificial fertilisers that have allowed ever more people to be supplied by ever more productive farms, and the computers that make the world ever more hungry for yet more computing power. There has been no such expansive setting for nuclear technologies. Their history has for the most part been one of concentration not expansion, of options being closed rather than opened.
The dream that failed
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 18:45:21

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'I')'ve read posts about how investment in Solar and Renewables could be seen as an energy sink diverting energy from 'useful' purposes, but I've never seen or heard the term applied to other fossil fuels and biodiesel. This has been as an argument against trying to build more sustainable future energy supplies.
...
Exactly - it seems to me double standards are applied.
The posts you read sound a bit different from the last time I was reading up on the energy trap. Back then it was more of a "We are all doomed! Renewables will not save us!" argument and not so much a "Screw renewables, fossil fuels to the end!" I was reading about it here I believe:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')he idea is that once we enter a decline phase in fossil fuel availability—first in petroleum—our growth-based economic system will struggle to cope with a contraction of its very lifeblood. Fuel prices will skyrocket, some individuals and exporting nations will react by hoarding, and energy scarcity will quickly become the new norm. The invisible hand of the market will slap us silly demanding a new energy infrastructure based on non-fossil solutions. But here’s the rub. The construction of that shiny new infrastructure requires not just money, but…energy. And that’s the very commodity in short supply. Will we really be willing to sacrifice additional energy in the short term—effectively steepening the decline—for a long-term energy plan? It’s a trap!

The Inevitable Fossil Fuel Decline
Let’s explore what happens as we try to compensate for an energy decline with an alternative resource having modest EROEI. On the upslope of our fossil fuel bonanza, we saw a characteristic annual growth rate of around 3% per year. The asymmetric Seneca Effect notwithstanding, a logistic evolution of the resource would result in a symmetric rate of contraction on the downslope: 3% per year. We could use any number for the decline rate in our analysis, but I’ll actually soften the effect to a 2% annual decline to illustrate that we run into problems even at a modest rate of decline. By itself, a 2% decline year after year—while sounding mild—would send our growth-based economy into a tailspin. As detailed in a previous post, across-the-board efficiency improvements cannot tread water against a rate as high as 2% per year. As we’ll see next, the Energy Trap just makes things worse.

Arresting the Decline: Take 1
Let’s say that our nation (or world) uses 100 units of fossil fuel energy one year, and expects to get only 98 units the following year. We need to come up with 2 units of replacement energy within a year’s time to fill the gap.

*has an EROEI of 10:1;
*requires most of the energy investment up front (solar panel or wind turbine manufacture, nuclear plant construction, etc.);
*and will last 40 years,

then we need an up-front energy investment amounting to 4 year’s worth of the new source’s output energy. Since we require an output of 2 units of energy to fill the gap, we will need 8 units of energy to bring the resource into use.

Of the 100 units of total energy resource in place in year one, only 92 are available for use—looking suddenly like an 8% decline. If we sit on our hands and do not launch a replacement infrastructure, we would have 98 units available for use next year. It’s still a decline, but a 2% decline is more palatable than an effective 8% decline. Since each subsequent year expects a similar fossil fuel decline, the game repeats. Where is the incentive to launch a new infrastructure? This is why I call it a trap. We need to exacerbate the sacrifice for a prolonged period in order to come out on top in the end.
The Energy Trap

However I am with you that the argument is incorrect, or at the very least, doesn't mean we are doomed. We talked about the energy trap in this thread a bit: Is 100% Renewable Energy Viable?

Here's a few highlights:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('radon', 'A')nother thing is that the boundary condition that the output energy has to be equal to the present day output energy, whether expressed in TWs or in oil barrels extracted, is a bit artificial. Nothing conditions that the total output cannot slide down before re-surging to the current levels and above. Arguably, this situation can be summarized as "the things have to get worse before they get better". Familiar cure, called austerity, isn't it - Greeks are through it, why others should be spared, it's not lethal, sometimes milder sometimes not. But in fact, the austerity can be mitigated or altogether avoided. The energy transition subsidy can be drawn from non-oil sources, including fossil (coal, gas) and other. Is there a better use for the shale gas glut, for example.
I had these same thoughts too. We are lucky that all fossil fuels are not peaking at exactly the same time. Some of that short term pain can be alleviated by drawing down other fossil fuels faster, until renewables can come online. And the most highly inefficient users of fossil fuels are likely to be the ones that go first. Which suggests to me that energy decline and economy decline will not be 1-1. I am predicting the economy will decline more slowly than energy supply.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('radon', 'O')ne other optimistic thing about the fact that the renewables appear to be self-sustainable and generate substantial surplus even at current levels of technological development: tackling the energy problem may not require a revolutionary technological breakthrough. Evolutionary development like a kind of Moore's law in the renewables efficiency may mitigate the transition. And civilization crush and feudalism can be avoided.I agree with you here too. Look at how much cheaper(monetarily and energy wise) just solar and wind have gotten in the last 30 years. Now imagine someone crunching the numbers for a renewable energy transition 30 years ago. It must have looked even uglier back then. Makes me wonder if it was not such a bad idea after all that we didn't implement a crash renewable program 30 years ago. What we have now is so much better than what we had back then.
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby Quinny » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 20:03:00

No those were the posts, the point I was making was that the Energy Trap should be applied to all sources if we are to get a clear picture.

Although many would class me as a doomer I believe a 'powerdown' might be possible if we applied all our resources to it. I very much doubt it will happen though. The US Tight Oil/Shale revolution is IMHO a short term fix that will only lead to a bigger cliff to fall off. If the money invested in scraping the barrel were re-directed to 'renewables' and sustainability we might stand a chance of not destroying the planet.

'The posts you read sound a bit different from the last time I was reading up on the energy trap. Back then it was more of a "We are all doomed! Renewables will not save us!" argument and not so much a "Screw renewables, fossil fuels to the end!" I was reading about it here I believe:'
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 20:27:20

I had the same frustrations with some posters not recognizing that fossil fuels also require an investment of energy/money. These posters recognize that building out a renewable energy infrastructure will initially be parasitic in energy generation. But this is only during their initial, rapid growth phase. These posters fail to realize that every single energy transition of the past went through this same parasitic phase, including fossil fuels.
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby Quinny » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 21:08:09

Agree, but still not optimistic, previous energy transitions have been to a denser source. This time we're going backwards. :(
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 16 Feb 2013, 21:37:53

We've been going backwards for over half a century. We used to have EROEI of over 100:1 with oil. In the US, this fell to 30:1 by the 1970s. Nowadays, the US has less than 10:1 EROEI on oil. Hell, even wind beats that. So technically, you could say we are increasing EROEI over some of the more lame sources of energy we have been using lately.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Energy Returned on Investment (EROI) has declined for all fossil fuel resources except coal since the 1950s. In the United States, the EROI of production was 30:1 in the 1970s and less than 10:1 now. Global EROI has gone from 30:1 in 1995 to around 18:1 in 2006.
EROI Source
18:1 Wind (perhaps)
What is global EROI now? A Review of 2012 EROI of Global Energy Resources
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby sparky » Sun 17 Feb 2013, 04:35:03

.
@ kublikhan,
My point was that the present "alternatives" are build in factories powered by the present grid ,
the raw materials and machinery are obtained from classical power sources
the wages paid are based on high classical energy

Wind power has been used for motive power for 5000 years
for mechanical power since the middle age
large solar projects have been build and operated for decades
tidal generation has forty years of practical use

Yet , their use fell into insignificance ,
the Dutch replaced their windmills water pump with steam operated ones in the 19th century
engineers and accountants made the sums
it just didn't add up .

P.S.
my icon is a Pablo Picasso drawing of Don Quichote , famous for tilting against windmills
also commonly used as a reference for the futility of human reason when faced with obduracy
it is thus self deprecating
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Re: The Energy Trap - Righteous or Not

Unread postby Quinny » Sun 17 Feb 2013, 05:27:06

Thanks KK for the link provided.

Interesting point re: the difference between changes at the high end of EROEI (eg 100:1 - 50:1), and changes at the low end (eg 5:1 and 2.5:1) the first being 'manageable' the second being 'problematic' to say the least.
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