Den Beste On Alternative Energy

Lone Star Times ^

[mnehring]

Shortly after I became a daily visitor to the internet, I discovered Steven Den Beste.  To this day, I stand in awe of his intelligence.  Steven was one of the most widely read writers, at that time, blogging prolifically on science, politics, warfare, engineering and anything else that crossed his mind.  A phenomenally analytic and literate mind possessing the ability to reduce the complex to the simple and expose the complexities of apparently simple subjects. 

Den Beste impressed a wide variety of people and drew enormous attention to his website, USS Clueless.  As one would expect, he also drew the ire and contempt of those whose fantasies he ruined.  One day, he just hung it up and quit without warning.  Weary of the constant barrage of hostility from corners whose intelligence and understanding could never approach his and tired of the whole thing, Den Beste refused to put up with it anymore.  I was among a vast and disappointed audience and yet I could sympathize with his frustrations.

Today, he still occasionally blogs here, but not about the former subjects.  He touched on old territory today concerning constant requests for comments, especially concerning the hot topic of the day, alternative forms of energy.  Here is an excerpt from a letter he sent to a writer who contacted him:

I don’t blog about that kind of thing anymore. I never enjoyed blogging about energy, anyway, because for too many people “alternate energy” is more about religion than about physics. They believe that if we are just creative enough, we can overcome fundamental physical limitations — and it’s not that easy.

In order for “alternate energy” to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:

1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).

If it fails to satisfy any of those, then it can’t scale enough to make any difference. Solar power fails #3, and currently it also fails #5. (It also partially fails #2, but there are ways to work around that.)

The only sources of energy available to us now that satisfy all five are petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.

My rule of thumb is that I’m not interested in any “alternate energy” until someone shows me how to scale it to produce at least 1% of our current energy usage. America right now uses about 3.6 terawatts average, so 1% of that is about 36 gigawatts average.

Show me a plan to produce 36 gigawatts (average, not peak) using solar power, at a price no more than 30% greater than coal generation of comparable capacity, which can be implemented at that scale in 10-15 years. Then I’ll pay attention.

Since solar power installations can only produce power for about 10 hours per day on average, that means that peak power production would need to be in the range of about 85 gigawatts to reach that 1%.

Without that, it’s just religion, like all the people fascinated with wind and with biomass. And even if it did reach 1%, that still leaves the other 99% of our energy production to petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.

Den Beste had this to say in his comments:

The way you can tell that a fan of “alternate energy” is a religious cultist is to ask them this question: If your preferred alternate source of energy is practical, why isn’t it already in use?

Why not? Because of The Conspiracy™. The big oil companies don’t want it to happen, and have been suppressing all this live-saving green people’s energy all this time for their own nefarious purposes.

As soon as you hear any reference to The Conspiracy™, you know you’re talking to someone who is living in a morality play. That isn’t engineering any more, that’s religion. And while religion is an important part of many people’s lives, it has no place in engineering discussions.

Read the whole thing.

Den Beste opened up his comments for 24 hours on this post, a rare thing for him to do.

USS Clueless archives here.

 HT: Instapundit

[WildcatClan]

His ideas and mine are 100% identical. Sure we would all love to use this dream-world “alternate energy”, but just as Mr. Beste said in so many words, “show me”. His five criterion are right on the mark and the only ones that matter. Although, I would add, the alternate form of energy has to be economically feasible without the help of government subsidy.

Thanks for the post and I hope he writes some more. It sounds like the hippies and water-powered car conspirators have got on his last nerve. :)

[mnehring]

I would add one other item. It doesn't give a government blessing for a single operator to have a monopoly. Along with the government subsidies, I would bet it is why old T-Bone is making his proposal. He wants a lock on the future power grid.

[WildcatClan]

So you have noticed “T. Boone’s Wonderful World of Green” too . All will be revealed soon! HE has sunk a lot of cash into wind, but something tells me the taxpayers, at least in Texas, are going to be sinking a lot more into it. He and corporations like BP really pi$$ me off sometimes. They are bowing to the AGW hoax and environmentalists in the name of improving consumer relations. But all they are really doing is lending credibility and perpetuating the AGW hoax and the alternate/renewable fantasy. T Bone fooled me, I thought he would use all that cash to buy Oklahoma State an NCAA championship. :)

[AprilfromTexas]

for later

[Racer1]

Quite frankly I’d rather put money into an energy that keeps our money at home and not give countries that wish us harm more money for oil. Oil has us captive and is destroying our economy. Changes must be made. Drilling for now is a temporary fix but we must change or this will happen again in the future. The fact that wind and natural gas is cleaner energy is only an added bonus.

[shove_it]

>>”In order for “alternate energy” to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:”<<

#6. It has to be something other than carbon based or nuke because access to those fuels are severely restricted by our own government.

[AmericanVictory]

Having written for years about the boondoggles of “alternative energy” and how they have led to enormous subsidization of the wrong direction, I find this man’s writing right on target.

The religion of “alternative energy” has had one practical effect— it has combined with the resistance to disruptive technology that dominates in all large industries dominated by a few players to completely prevent the solutions that are right in front of us. Big Ethanol (ADM, Cargill, etc.), big oil and big environmental groups with large donor lists to preach to, along with big auto, have done a dance to make sure that we do not look at real solutions. Finally going for offshore drilling after 30 years of blocking it for no good reason is a first step. Now let’s see if any of the others will be taken.

I think we need to do a blog.

[AmericanVictory]

The place where wind power makes sense on any larger scale is on the high plains where he lives. It doesn’t make much sense elsewhere except on an individual or small group scale, like the windmill my grandfather had at his small house in a small town until we grandsons spent so much time climbing on it that he became scared for us and took it down. You can’t put a windmill in your car, as I once pointed out to one of these enviro erdgeist nuts on Ollie North’s show.

Ol’ Boone does have a point that we can greatly expand the use of natural gas but he is simply wrong that we can’t drill our way out of the problem. We can certainly drill and mine our way out of it, along with reformulating oil fuels, and do so within a couple of years.

[Uriah_lost]

Thanks for reminding me of how much I miss him. I’m gonna go have a drink now.

[Steve Van Doorn]

Alternative energy through out the world:
”95 gigawatts, wind power is the largest of the newer renewable energy sources, while grid-connected solar photovoltaic systems increased by 53%, reaching 7.8 gigawatts.”

http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=11632

I think these are interesting numbers but no were near what we need.