George Gilder, writing in the Wall Street Journal, 11/18/10, in California’s Destructive Green Jobs Lobby complained of the defeat of the repeal of the “Global Warming Solutions Act.”

“Economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I’m not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races. … This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act, which ratchets the state’s economy back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020. That’s a 30% drop followed by a mandated 80% overall drop by 2050. Together with a $500 billion public-pension overhang, the new energy cap dooms the state to bankruptcy.”

Gilder also wrote: “California officials acknowledged last Thursday that the state faces $20 billion deficits every year from now to 2016.” That’s $120 Billion over the next 6 years. This is a state of 37 million people (US Census). It should be able to borrow that money at 4% or 5% – which is $3083 per capita. Borrowed at 5% interest over 20 years, it’s $20.35 per person per month – which does not seem to be enough to push someone into bankruptcy.

Carbon Nation, by Peter Byck

Gilder calls for exploitation of natural gas and then says ‘All the so-called “renewables” programs waste and desecrate the precious resource of arable land that feeds the world.’ I would urge Gilder to see Carbon Nation, a film by Peter Byck,  Gasland, a film by Josh Fox, and read Vapor Trails, a novel by Bob Siegel and Roger Saillant.

Gilder should understand that:

1. Rooftop solar is built on rooftops, which are not arable land.
2. Big solar thermal projects are built in deserts, which are also not arable land.
3. Gilder complains that “so-called ‘renewables’ programs waste and desecrate the precious resource of arable land’ and he calls for exploitation of natural gas – has he seen what “fracking” does to land? (CBS / NY Times ).
4. Gilder really doesn’t seem to understand wind, solar, geothermal, other renewable or sustainable energy systems, or energy efficiency.

Vapor Trails

Gilder describes Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers as “Al Gore’s investment affiliate.” I’m not sure when KPCB was founded, but characterizing it as “Gore’s investment affiliate seems to be misleading at best. Gore might be a client, but with a net worth estimated to about $100 Million, (Celebrity Net Worth) he can’t be a significant client for the venture capital company the New York Times called “One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firms ” (here).  John Doerr – characterized by Gilder as one of Gore’s investment buddies, joined KPCB in 1980 – when Gore represented Tennessee in the U. S. Congress (and, according to PBS, Gore co-sponsored the first Congressional hearings on the implications of global warming.)

According to the Kliener Perkins web site, Doerr backed

• Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt at  Google,
• Jeff Bezos at Amazon,
• Scott Cook, Bill Campbell at Intuit,
• Andy Bechtolsheim, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Vinod Khosla at Sun,
• And the founders of Compaq, Cypress, Macromedia and Symantec.

Altho Sun was recently aquired by Oracle and Compaq was aquired by HP, these were started in the 1980s, when then-Representative Gore was in Tennessee.  Macromedia was started in 1992, when then-Senator Gore ran for Vice President.

Gilder concludes that a transformation of the energy economy will take $45 Trillion. I don’t know where he gets that figure. NJ has 8 million people and needs 7 GW of electric generating capacity. Extrapolating that to the US 300 million people, and we can conclude that the US needs about 260 gigawatts, gw, of electric generating capacity. Let’s suppose that’s half of the energy we need – so we need the equivalent of 520 gw.

If we used wind and solar we could implement 300 gw of wind and 220 gw of solar. Wind is $2.0 Billion to $3.0 Billion per gigawatt. Let’s say $3.0 Billion. Solar is $5.75 to $6.25 Billion per gw; let’s say $6.25 Billion per gw. (Please note that I’m ignoring efficiency, geothermal, marine hydro, algae based and other biofuels for the purposes of keeping this model simple.)

• 300 GW of Wind at $3 Billion per gw is $900 Billion.
• 220 GW of Solar at $6.25 Billion per GW is $1.375 Trillion or $1,375 Billion.

This adds up to $2.275 Trillion. A tremendous amount of money, but 5.1% of $45 Trillion.

This sloppy journalism is about what I expect from News Corp.’s “Faux News”. It is not what I expect from News Corp’s Wall St. Journal.

The Deepwater Horizon spill. Sunday, June 13, 2010, AP Photo/Dave Martin

Part 6 in a Series that began after Earth Day (1 Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, 2 Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, 3 The Magnitude, 4 One Month After, 5 Like Chernobyl?)

Last month I wrote on Popoular Logistics “BP and the government say … 5,000 barrels per day is reaching the surface and most of the oil – 80%  to 90% – is below the surface. So I think it’s on the order of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day.” (click here)

This was a “back of the envelope” reflection of NPR’s analysis, reported May 14 (click here) that the spill was 70,000 barrels per day, with a margin of error of 14,000 barrels – so maybe as low as 56,000 Barrels per Day and maybe as much as 84,000 Barrels per Day.

In their article “Deepwater Horizon round up: it’s worse than you think (again) – June 11, 2010,” Nature.com noted “At the end of May the official estimate was raised again to between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels day. Now the Flow Rate Technical Group has produced a bevy of new estimates ranging from 25,000 to 40,000. Crucially, legal liability established for a spill can be linked to its size.” (click here) and here for the Flow Rate Technical Group.

It looks like I’m in good company. But I’d prefer to be wrong.

I also note that this is “business as usual” for BP and other fossil fuel companies, and compared it to the accident at the Kingston Steam Plant, 12/22/08, the Upper Big Branch Mine, 4/5/10, the Exxon Valdez, and Chevron-Texaco’s alleged dumping of 18 BILLION Gallons

of oil process waste in Ecuador between 1964 and 1990  (click here).

It is obvious to me that we MUST move to a post-carbon economy.

• 100 gigawatts – offshore wind, $300 Billion
• 100 gigawatts – land based wind $200 Billion
• 50 gigawatts – solar $200 Billion (price is going down)
• 50 gigawatts – marine current – $200 Billion.
• Clean Energy Infrastructure: $900 Billion.
• Save the World: Priceless.

Emergency phone numbers.

* Report oiled shoreline or request volunteer information: (866) 448-5816
* Submit alternative response technology, services or products: (281) 366-5511
* Submit your vessel for the Vessel of Opportunity Program: (281) 366-5511
* Submit a claim for damages: (800) 440-0858
* Report oiled wildlife: (866) 557-1401
* Medical support hotline:  (888) 623-0287

The Series, following “Earth Day for the Future”

(Here)

1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon (Here)
2. Drill Baby, Drill – or Drill Baby, Oops (Here)
3. The Magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon Spill (Here)
4. One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day (Here)
5. Deepwater Horizon – the Chernobyl of Deep Water Drilling? (Here)
6. Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000? (Here)

Earlier today one of my friends handed me a copy of some satire published in the New York Post, a tabloid in the tradition of the London rags, on the subject of “Climate-Gate.”  At about the same time, Roger Saillant, co-author of Vapor Trails, who heads the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at Case Western Reserve University pointed me to Elizabeth May’s post on the hacked computers and stolen e-mails at East Anglia University. Ms. May leads Canada’s Green Party.

Patrick Michaels, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is really a public relations arm of Exxon Mobil, was once a scientist at the University of Virginia.  He is famous for giving testimony attacking Dr. James Hansen to the U.S. Senate. However, when interviewed by Elizabeth May on Canada’s CBC Sunday Morning’s “Kyoto on Trial” in 2002, Michaels admitted to redrawing Hansen’s graph to make it wrong. Michaels, who has traded the scientific method for Stanislavsky’s acting method, admitted to perjury in his testimony before the United States Senate.

The graph shows the amount of sea ice from July thru November from 1979 to 2000, then in 2005, 7, 8, and July thru Sept., 2009. It is from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder Colorado (here) published Oct. 6, 2009. The dark gray line shows Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2000. The gray band shows 2 standard deviations from the mean. The colorful lines show that Arctic sea ice is at or well below two standard deviations from the mean levels of 1979 to 2000.  Clearly there is less ice in the Arctic then there used to be.

I can say “You can question climate change at your own peril.” And you can say “Larry Furman, on Popular Logistics, says “you can question climate change.” Phil Jones, at East Anglica, said “when I wrote, in 1999, that  ‘we can use Mike’s trick in presenting the data,’ I used the word ‘trick’ in a colloquial manner.” He meant Mike has this neat technique, I wish I thought of it.” Not “we will use this sleight of hand to fool the rubes.”

There are a few truths that, to use Al Gore’s term, are inconvenient

About 120 years ago, Svante Arrhenius, the Swedish scientist, observed that dramatically increasing Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere could effect the climate. He thought a warmer world would be a good thing – a longer summer in Sweden would yield a longer growing season and other benefits.

Back then, circa 1890, the world’s human population stood at about 1.5 billion. Today it stands at about 6.7 billion. The concentration of carbon dioxide is estimated to have been 285 parts per million before industrialization and the widespread use of fossil fuels. Today it fluctuates around 385 ppm.  It is highest in April / May and lowest in Sept. / Oct. The annual variation has to do with carbon dioxide sequestered in green plants during the spring and summer.

You could argue that 385 parts per million is not a lot of stuff. But if 285 is “normal” and you quickly increase the concentration by 35% something is going to happen. A resilient system, and big complex systems tend to be resilient, might absorb the dose. If the dose quickly drops back to normal, there might be some scarring, and a quick recovery. Think of someone who eats bad food, gets sick, throws up, feels better. Or a beach that gets hit by a storm.

Suppose you have three drinks. Your blood alcohol level is 0.06 – under the limit for mandatory DUI conviction. Then you have a fourth drink. Your blood alcohol level is now 0.081. You are, as Sarah Palin might say, “Drilled, baby drilled.”

But here’s the thing. Forget climate, forget icebergs polar bears, and glaciers. Think national security and the economy. Don’t think oil or fossil fuel, think “magic rocks” and “magic gel.” We buy oil – magic gel – from the Persian Gulf, Niger, Venezuela, and Canada. The Canadians are our friends. Those other guys, I don’t know about you, but they don’t like my people (and the feelings are mutual).  As far as the magic rocks, we have them here, but burning them produces a lot of toxic dirt – toxics that spoil food and kill fish in lakes. It seems to be cheap, but when you factor in the costs of cleaning up the mess it’s very expensive.  Still, we need that stuff. Our whole system is built on burning these magic rocks and magic gel. And when we burn them we push carbon dioxide, water vapor, mercury, arsenic, radionucleotides, and other stuff into the air we breath, the water we drink and food we eat.

So what do we do? Well, a military occupation of one of those countries that has a lot of the magic gel might be a good idea, especially if the ruler is an unpopular tyrant who kills his own people. But wouldn’t it be better if we used “magic modules” that converted sunlight into electricity? And “magic turbines” that could harness the power of the winds and marine currents? And use the heat of the earth to warm and cool our buildings?

We can.

We will.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe 5 or 10 or 50 years from now. Maybe we need see a few more hurricanes like Katrina. Maybe we need to lose southern Florida and one or two of the Keys. Maybe we need to see Key West go from being a tourist attraction to a SCUBA excursion. Maybe then we’ll take action.

One last point. A Chinese diplomat in Copenhagen said, “It’s as if the West is at a dinner party, China is joining for dessert, and the West is sticking China with the bill.” That’s a bad metaphor. It’s more like we are in an opium den, we are stoned out of our minds, we’re one toke away from a fatal overdose, and China is banging on the door trying to get in while there is still some dope left to smoke – and they want to mainline it straight into the carotid artery.

Solar. Wind. Geothermal. Marine Current Kinetic. Negawatts. Clean Energy. No Waste.

Thomas Friedman is right in “The Next Really Cool Thing” in The New York Times, March 15, 2009, when he concludes:

At the pace we’re going with the technologies we have, without some game-changers, climate change is going to have its way with us. Yes, we’ll still need coal for some time. But let’s make sure that we aren’t just chasing the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal, when our real future depends on birthing new technologies that can replace it.

Note that he pointed out ‘the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal

Friedman also said:

“I don’t know if they can pull this off; some scientists are skeptical. Laboratory-scale nuclear fusion and energy gain is really hard…. we need to keep working on all forms of solar, geothermal and wind power. They work. And the more they get deployed, the more their costs will go down.”

Fusion may be the game changer. “Energy Gain” means we get more energy out than we put in. The prototype will cost $10 Billion – enough for 5 GW of wind capacity, and 1.53 GW of PV Solar. And fusion i’s at least 10 years away, maybe 20. (On the other hand it takes 10 years to build a nuclear fission reactor.)

Pushing carbon below 350 ppm is a problem that can’t wait 10 years.  According to the World Watch Institute’s Vital Signs, 2007-2008, the 6.5 billion humans on the earth are using the natural resources of 1.25 earths.  This can’t go on.

Dig 5 km, hit 200º C. Watch out for earthquakes!Actually, it’s a bit more complicated.  You dig two holes, each 5 km (3 miles) deep.  You lay a pipe in each hole, then pump water down into one hole, and up the other. The water heats up, and can turn a turbine. 

Geothermalfor heat is old news. Teams at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkinsare studying atDeep Geothermal

for space heating atCrisfield (click here )and at the Institute of Geophysics ETH, in Zurich, Switzerland(click here).

Deep Geothermal could, theoretically, use the earth’s heat to generate steam for industrial process power. But is this feasible? What is the temperature at the bottom of a coal mine or an empty oil well? How hot is it down there? With what efficiency, if any, can this differential be tapped to boil water to create steam to turn a turbine to generate power? How deep a hole do we need to drill? What are the potentially harmful side effects?

According toNew Energy News, Article

Deep Geothermalis potentially the cheapest and most consistent, predictable form of renewable energy. The geothermal sources being probed are 400 degrees Fahrenheit and 3 miles into the earth’s crust (not the 1000 degree heat of the earth’s core). A scientist compared it to scratching the earth’s “shell.” Geodynamics Limited and Geothermal Basel (English) are racing to be the first to produce electricity in commercial quantities from the deep hot waters. When drilling reaches the deep enough, cold surface water will be pumped down to lift the hot water up where its steam will drive generators.

The Geopower Basel project is being drilled near Basel, Switzerland. Geodynamics Limited, Queensland-based, is drilling near the southern Australian town of Innamincka. Who will finish first?

Spencer Reiss, writing inWired Magazine says “Nuclear Power is The Most Climate Friendly Insdustrial Scale Form of Energy “. Forgetting for a moment that nuclear power requires fuel, waste management, national security infrastructure, massive government subsidies, including artificial limits to liability, nuclear releases tremendous amounts of heat into the environment, and new nuclear are estimated to cost about 2 to 4 times the price of new wind facilities, without cost overruns (and cost overruns are a given with nuclear power plants) and take 10 to 12 years.

The climate friendly industrial scale forms of energy are Solar, Offshore Wind,large scale Marine Kinetic -tapping the Gulf Stream, Deep Geothermal, CoGen, and the NegaWatts available via conservation. Just as a screw can propel a ship thru the water, a screw anchored to the ocean floor will spin because of currents, and can power turbines. Marine Current Turbines, Ltd., based in Bristol, England has just completed the world’s first megawatt scale tidal/marine current driven power plant in the Strangford Narrows in Northern Ireland. If with wind, the sky’s literally the limit, with MCT the sea’s the limit. Geothermal exploits temperature differentials for heating and cooling. Deep Geothermal

would use the earth’s heat in abandoned mines and wells to generate steam for industrial process power. Recycled Energy Development, RED

, of Westmont, Il does CoGen. REDcaptures industrial waste energy to produce electricity and thermal power, often without burning any additional fuel or emitting any additional pollution. For industrial partners, RED reduces energy costs substantially, increases reliability, and offers the opportunity for emissions credits. Akeena, Evergreen Solar, First Solar

, Sunpower, World Water and Solar, and Vestas Wind are old news. Ausradevelops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal technologies to serve global electricity needs in a dependable, market competitive, environmentally responsible manner.

Wired Magazinealso published a companion piece by Matt Power that says “Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer” (click here). The fallacy here is that they forget to mention that a Hummer weighs about three times more than a Prius, so to have an honest statistic you need to compare 3 pounds of Hummer to each pound of Prius. They do note that the operating efficiency of the Prius outweighs any manufacturing inefficiency. And they point out that it is better for the planet to buy a used car than a new car.