A (very) different kinda wind turbine

Wind energy is one of the exciting areas of alternate energy development. It's cost is dropping down to where it's naturally competitive with "regular" (fossil fuel) systems, and the deployment of large scale wind generation is accelerating.

A turn for the better Wind turbines are ugly and no one wants to live near one. Right? Wrong. Steve Rose on the new architects of spin (Monday July 18, 2005, The Guardian)

Architects of Spin (July 18, 2005 12:20 PM - Lloyd Alter, Toronto)

The turbine in question is kinda turned on its side. Rather than looking like a stick with a propeller, it looks like an "eggbeater" standing upright. There's some good pictures in the articles, so take a look.

The Guardian article wants to say the propeller-on-a-stick designs are ugly ... I happen to think they're beautiful. But this design is more than interesting. One technical advantage is that it doesn't matter which direction is blowing, it'll capture wind from any direction. The propeller-on-a-stick designs are either fixed directional, or you have to design in rotational capabilities. Another technical advantage to this design is that all the moving parts are at the bottom, making maintanence easier.

How biofuels can help end Americas oil dependence

I'm looking at a very interesting report put together by scientists from the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) and several universities and government agencies. They have studied the potential for "biofuels" to end "oil dependence".

How biofuels can help end Americas oil dependence http://www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/pdfs/NRDC-Growing-Energy-Final.3.pdf

First they point out the several problems with "oil dependence": a) the U.S. has basically no domestic reserves (we have 2% of the worlds reserves) but use 25% of the worlds oil production, b) meaning the U.S. exports dollars to pay for oil imports, c) the U.S. is increasingly dependant on unstable countries, d) huge health risks from the emissions that come from burning oil.

They claim to have studied the issue up and down, and see that producing "biofuels" instead of "oil" will solve all those problems, plus provide increased wildlife habitat.

Hmm... that's quite a claim, so let's look closer.

The "biofuels" in question are derived from "cellulosic biomass", currently seen to be waste matter. e.g. straw's and husks.

With appropriate processing there are a number of plant material sources which can be converted to a liquid with the same properties as gasoline or diesel, and can be burned in existing vehicles just like gasoline or diesel are used today. Yup, their solution for "oil dependance" is to continue using a liquid fuel, but somehow because it is derived from "biomass" (plant matter) they get away without calling it "oil". Hmmm.... I guess all those PhD's gave them the right to split hairs.

Well, let's get back to the point, as the study itself points to a very positive direction.

By moving towards producing biofuel from plant material, the authors expect farmers to begin growing crops that make the required plant material. In fact the farmers are already growing some crops, and they point out that by selling different parts of the plants they grow to different markets, the farmers can increase their income and diversify their risk.

To produce 7.9 million barrels (equivalent) of biofuels will require 1.3 billion tons of cellulosic biomass each year. Somebody has to grow that biomass, and it's the farmers who will do so and receive the income for that work.

It looks good to me. It is essentially a method of moving dollars spent from exporting dollars to investing them domestically. Further, the technique doesn't have to be limited to the U.S. but can be employed around the world. The most interesting feature to me is to localize production of energy resources.

Currently the production of "energy" is done a long ways away, with oil being mined halfway around the world, and shipped to us here. But that need not be, and there is a lot of wastage just in shipping oil hither and yon. But with fuels derived from plants, the plants can be grown nearby, processed nearby, and therefore the world isn't wasting as much resource on the shipping of oil when it's produced nearby.

Exxon/Mobil and the oil peak

It's one thing for a bunch of lunatic fringe people to talk about oil production peaking. It's yet another thing for serious minded people like a large oil corporation to talk about it. At least that's the tone of this article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Oil: Caveat empty (By Alfred J. Cavallo, May/June 2005 pp. 16-18 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

The article discusses this report: The Outlook for Energy: a 2030 view

Basically Exxon/Mobil are admitting, in a very quiet and understated way, that oil production will not be able to meet demand. Their proposed solution? Greater efficiency.

The figures in the Exxon/Mobil presentation are that demand is going to keep growing in all energy sectors ... that the wind and solar alternatives are just beginning to make a measurable amount of energy (that is, make enough energy that they show up as more than an asterisk in a footnote) ... and that efficient automobiles will "produce" enough oil to make up for the shortfalls in production.

That last point is stated a little backwards. This is related to the "negawatt" concept. A negawatt is electricity production that does not have to be built because the customers use less electricity.

Likewise when the customers buy fuel efficient cars, then less oil has to be produced. In Exxon/Mobil-speak, the demand growth curve is flattened some due to efficient cars.

Energy "return on investment" (EROI) study for biofuels

When you consider whether to use an energy alternative to the existing fuels (a.k.a. fossil fuels) part of the analysis has to be whether it is sustainable. Whether the world can continue using that energy alternative for a decade or more.

In producing any energy product, you have an "energy input" which is the energy consumed to produce the energy product. Once the product is available you have "energy output" which is the energy available from that product.

Sustainability comes when energy input is less than energy output. If the input is greater than the output, then you have an energy deficit that has to be replenished from somewhere.

This is important because, as the oil peak scenario becomes reality, we won't have that oil lying around to make up the deficit. Either the alternative energy source does the whole job, or it doesn't, and we'll all starve.

Academic Study Discredits Ethanol, Biodiesel (July 15, 2005, RenewableEnergyAccess.com)

The article discusses a study from Cornell University and UC Berkeley that shows the EROI for Ethanol and Biodiesel is negative. That is, the energy input for both is greater than the energy output. In running the study they took into account as many factors as they could, such as e.g. the fuel running the tractors on the farm, or the oil used in producing fertilizers used to grow the crops, etc.

What's most interesting is to read the comments to the article.

For example the US Department of Energy has been studying the same issue, and found that biodiesel has a positive EROI rather than the negative EROI claimed by these researchers. Now, maybe the DoE has been compromised by big money interests, as claimed in the other comments. Or maybe the DoE (or even these researchers) are missing something.

Another point is that the study only looked at Ethanol from Corn, and Biodiesel from soybeans. There are probably more efficient ways to produce either one of those. For example rapeseed produces much more oil than does soybeans.

I'd earlier showcased a method to produce biodiesl from algae where the majority of the energy input is solar energy, to produce the light and heat required to grow the algae.

This shows a different way to interpret EROI. Not all energy has to come from oil. If you calculated the EROI for the biodiesel-from-algae process, you would include as energy input the solar energy. If you do, you might end up with a negative EROI (input greater than output). But in this case the energy input is free because it doesn't come from fossil fuel, but rather from the Sun.

Wind-turbine based bird deaths found to be less than thought likely

While wind power is getting economically feasible, it's facing one repetitive criticism. That the turbines kill lots of birds.

I saw a study once describing this. The idea is based on the wind farm in California's Altamont Pass. The experience there is that those turbines do kill lots of birds, especially rare raptors. However further study showed several fixable problems with the Altamont Pass wind farm, and the solutions have been put into use in newer wind farms. Why the solutions haven't also been put into use in the Altamont Pass is beyond me.

Basically the problem was twofold: 1) the turbines in Altamont Pass are located primarily on ridgelines, a place where the birds frequently fly, placing them in more frequent proximity to the turbines; 2) the turbines in Altamont Pass are small, with fast moving blades, and the tower design also gives many places for birds to roost, all of which contributes to more frequent contact between birds and turbine blades.

Wind turbines not so deadly for birds -Dutch study (Tue Jul 5,12:00 PM ET, AMSTERDAM (Reuters))

In The Netherlands and other parts of Europe they've been installing massive wind turbines. The blades on these are often 100 meters in diameter, and each tower produces around 1 megawatt of electricity.

And, their experience with bird deaths is that they're a lot less frequent than expected. e.g.

The new study suggests the Netherlands' 1,700 wind turbines kill about 50,000 birds a year. About 2 million birds perish each year on Dutch roads, it said.

This was predictable from the study I read of the Altamont Pass. With the larger turbines, the blades actually move a lot slower, making it easy for birds to dodge the blades. Further, when the tower makers pay attention, they make sure there's no ledges for birds to sit on, making it less likely the birds will stay around the towers in the first place. Finally, siting of the towers makes a difference, simply by putting the towers in places the birds don't stay in.

Several years ago Home Power Magazine published this summary of research into bird death around wind turbines. The article concludes the issue is overblown - for example, the recorded bird deaths in Altamont Pass are small compared to the birds killed in collisions with buildings or radio towers and the like.

Further the rates of bird death at other wind farms in California are a fraction of the rates at Altamont Pass, so there must be something special about Altamont Pass. Namely, the population growth in the San Francisco Bay Area is causing an out-migration of wildlife, and the Altamont Pass area is pretty open (other than the wind turbines) giving refuge to the out-migrating wildlife.

Thorium safer for nuclear reactors than uranium

I was an avid reader of Robert Heinlein's novels, and one detail I recall is that the nuclear reactors were generally running on thorium. I'm remembering that now, and thinking it strange we've accepted Uranium as being The Fuel for so long without questioning why. Uranium does, after all, have jillions of bad side effects ...

Some have been questioning "why Uranium" and because of those bad side effects, demanding that there be NO NUKES at all.

Torium Fuels Safer Reactor Hopes (July 5, 2005; WIRED NEWS)

What the article says is that

1. Thorium produces half the waste that Uranium does
2. Thorium's waste is not convertable to bombs or other weapons
3. Scientists have made recent breakthroughs in using Thorium
4. India and Australia have most of the Thorium deposits

hmmmmm....

Struggling to find oil

Oil industry ‘struggling to find new reserves’ (By Carl Mortished, International Business Editor, Times Online of London)

The Wood Mackenzie report, Global Oil and Gas Risks and Rewards, shows that typical annual returns from oil exploration — in the region of between three billion and five billion barrels — have not changed since the early 1990s. The only exception to the largely stagnant exploration trend was the discovery in 2000 of Kashagan, a ten billion barrel oilfield, in the Caspian Sea.

Graham Kellas, vice-president at Wood Mackenzie, reckons that the international oil companies were highly successful in finding oil during the past decade, but now are working in a diminishing field of opportunity. “The hunt for oil continues, but it is becoming increasingly difficult,’’ he said. “There are few areas of the world that are unexplored and that is why the larger companies are so keen to get access to areas that are off-limits.”

Shut out from the large known reserves of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, the West’s oil companies have had significant successes, such as in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico, Angola and Nigeria. There have also been failures, such as Brazil and Azerbaijan.

Mr Kellas said: “Deep- water Brazil has been a big disappointment. No commercial discoveries have yet been made by international oil companies, despite having spent nearly $1.5 billion.” The collapse in the oil price in 1998 and the ensuing wave of company takeovers led to cutbacks in exploration spending that the oil companies have been slow to restore, fearing further oil gluts. Exploration drilling peaked in 1998 with a total of 725 wells drilled, but in 2003 the West’s oil industry completed just 554 wells.

Peak oil, energy, and local solutions: reports from recent conferences

Peak Oil: Russian Style