Ocean Energy Update  

WorldChanging has a post up on the genesis of the ocean power industry.

Solar and wind are the twin giants of the renewable energy world. Everybody knows about them, and power generation projects involving photovoltaic or turbine technologies are, relatively speaking, commonplace. But there are other forms of renewable power out there; one we've followed for awhile now is ocean/tidal generation, something we usually call "hydrokinetic power." It's fascinating to watch this technology move from idea to implementation, and today we can see the surest sign that hydrokinetic power is beginning to hit the mainstream: regulation.

In the Ocean Energy Report for 2005 and Renewable Energy Access, Carolyn Elefant and Sean O'Neill of the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition lay out the current state of the ocean power industry. What's notable is that the report says little about innovative new ideas -- instead, it's all about how the companies actually testing new technologies are dealing with government oversight. It's a pleasingly mundane report, filled with detailed looks at the complexities of compliance with federal energy regulations while trying to test out new technologies.

For a better sense of what those new technologies are doing, we can hit the Ocean Energy Web Page at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). A year ago, EPRI released its final report on the potential for ocean and tidal power in the United States, spelling out the potential benefits of deployment of this technology. With its Ocean Energy project, EPRI is now following the evolution of this new power industry. The white paper on ocean energy submitted last month to the Western Governors Assocation Clean and Diversified Energy Advisory Committee spells out the technology's benefits:

First, with proper siting, converting ocean wave energy to electricity is believed to be one of the most environmentally benign ways to generate electricity. Second, offshore wave energy offers a way to minimize the aesthetic issues that plague many energy infrastructure projects, from nuclear to coal and to wind generation. Since wave energy conversion devices have a very low profile and are located at a distance from the shore, they are generally not visible. In addition, wave energy is more predicatable than direct solar or wind energy, and therefore can be more easily integrated into the overall electricity grid for providing reliable power.

So what's underway now? According to EPRI, there's currently around 2.3 MW of installed offshore wave energy capacity worldwide, coming from four locations: a 1 megwatt facility at Lexious, Portugal; a 0.75 MW system at Orkney, Scotland; a 0.5 MW generator at Port Kembla, Australia; and a 0.04 MW -- 40 kilowatt -- unit at the naval station in Hawaii. EPRI goes on to argue that, if the states of Hawaii, Oregon and California were to enact policies to stimulate ocean power construction, the US capacity could increase to over 100 MW by 2010, at which point the cost of power will be between 8 and 16 cents per kWhr, "substantially less than the entry point for wind technology when it reached a capacity of 100 MW back in the early 1980s."

WorldChanging also has a post on "Debating Nukes" that takes a look at the evolution of the debate (for want of a better word) on whether or not nuclear power has a role to play in mitigating global warming.

Yesterday's Sustainability Sundays post from Gil Friend, "Houston: We've Got A Problem," generated quite a bit of discussion, much of it about whether or not nuclear power should be considered a -- or the -- solution to global warming, peak oil, and other unfolding energy-related problems. There are plenty of good reasons for worldchangers to oppose the expansion of nuclear power, but the institutional forces pushing for it are formidable.

It's a recurring debate, one not limited to the comments in WorldChanging: this Friday, the Long Now lecture series will hold a discussion about this very topic, pitting Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, who opposes expansion of nuclear power, and Peter Schwartz, a former board member of Rocky Mountain Institute and chair of Global Business Network, who sees the potential for abrupt climate change as sufficient cause to support the expansion of nuclear power. (Disclosure: I used to work for Global Business Network, and still do occasional projects for them.)

As always, if you can't make the event (because you don't live anywhere near San Francisco, for example), you can download the Long Now programs within a few days (a couple of weeks at the outside).

A useful argument about nuclear power is one that admits that the opposing sides each may have strong arguments; fortunately, Friday's discussion looks to be of that nature. Long Now characterizes it as a disagreement between environmentalists, and given that Schwartz now sees global warming as the biggest problem going, I'll accept that depiction. Moreover, the discussion is explicitly not a debate: The format requires each speaker to draw out the other's views and then restate them in a way that satisfies the opponent, "That's right. You got it." Smart.

It's an important topic, and I look forward to the event. I am hopeful that the discussion will be a good one; normally, the issue of nuclear power provokes an epidemic of jerking-knee syndrome. Many long-time opponents of nuclear energy are set to reject anything that has "nuclear" in its name, and dismiss new technologies designed to prevent meltdowns or similar problems as just more "electricity too cheap to meter" nonsense. At the same time, many of the loudest pro-nuclear voices are of the same ilk that not too long ago accused global warming of being "junk science," and now latch onto any idea to discredit environmentalists.

I'm hopeful that the discussion will quickly brush past tired old arguments. No talk about meltdowns (a variety of reactor designs can now make meltdowns physically impossible) or about the impossibility of solar alone totally replacing all energy production (a mix of solar, wind, ocean and bio could); let's hear more about molten salt thorium and the economic efficiency of "negawatts." Let's move this debate -- or whatever it is -- forward, please.

Commenter Arthur Smith makes some interesting points:

I'm not entirely clear what all the fuss is about - it sounds like the recent cries of alarm about a "war on Christmas", manufactured by certain networks apparently for ratings purposes.

* research on advanced nuclear fission reactors, particularly the integral fast reactor approach, and fusion as well, is an excellent idea, and should be adequately funded. There was money for some of this in the recently passed energy bill; perhaps it should be enhanced, but it's there now.

* we have plenty of experience building and operating reactors around the world; plants based on the existing once-through cycle are a mature technology. If power companies found them economical to build they would be building more. Every power plant has regulatory hurdles to cross; there must be lots of states that would be quite friendly to new plants.

* Nevertheless, and despite large handouts from the government in the past (for example, all nuclear operators are still indemnified from major liabilities by the federal government, and for a fee the feds have also taken on long-term waste disposal responsibilities) no nuclear facility has been built in the US in several decades.

* The main reason is probably simply that coal is much cheaper than nuclear.

So what nuclear advocates should really be calling for is huge carbon taxes sufficient to price coal power higher than nuclear - and then let the nuclear industry compete on a fair footing in the energy marketplace.

As I've said before and I'll say again - the number one best thing to do about global warming is to impose carbon taxes everywhere. Then renewables can compete on a level financial playing field with nuclear (assuming the nuclear industry doesn't get too many more government handouts) and the coal industry can go the way of the dinosaur (unless it, more likely, morphs into a coal-to-liquids industry, assuming depletion and liquid fuel dependency outweigh carbon taxes).

Crooked Timber has a note on "The end of the global warming debate".

The news that 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded in Australia comes at the end of a year in which, to the extent that facts can settle anything, the debate over human-caused global warming has been settled. Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.

More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics (such as John Christy), along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians (like Ron Bailey), have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.

...

Finally, the evidence has mounted up that, with a handful of exceptions, “sceptics” are not, as they claim, fearless seekers after scientific truth, but ideological partisans and paid advocates, presenting dishonest arguments for a predetermined party-line conclusion. Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility. Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science which I plan to review soon, gives chapter and verse and the whole network of thinktanks, politicians and tame scientists who have popularised GW contrarianism, Intelligent Design and so on.

A couple of thoughts on all this.

First, in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.

Second, now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options. There are legitimate issues to be debated here. But having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental think tanks in the first phase of the debate, we shouldn’t give them a free pass in the second. Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both in Australia and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.

Moving back to renewable energy - particularly wind power - while I was on holiday in WA I spent some time in Albany and visited the nearby wind farm, which can provide up to 75% of the town's power requirements (and usually does, with the wind failing to blow on only 7 days per year.

The farm itself looks great to me and was basically silent - just a small swooshing noise when you stand underneath the turbines - I can never quite understand why anyone would object to a wind farm when you consider most of the alternatives.







Of course, that doesn't mean much to the residents of the nearby town of Denmark, who are vigorously opposing a similar development there (egged on by some nutty federal Liberal MP who thinks that this anti - clean development agenda is a good thing for some mysterious reason - which a cynic might guess is coal related).

This sort of thing is happening everywhere it seems - Wired has a report on some windpower NIMBYism in New York state.

Back to WA, on another annoying note Western Power has decided to build a new 400MW coal fired power station at Muja - why does anything think it is a sane idea (even on business grounds) to be building new coal fired generation capacity at this stage ? Can you hedge against future carbon taxes being imposed in a few years time ?

While the government likes to drone on about carbon sequestration and "clean coal" being the solution, no one really believes this - with some local experts feeling compelled to note the bleeding obvious in the leadup to the big "lets not do anything meaningful about global warming other then emit lots of hot air" talkfest - if there isn't a cost associated with burning coal in a dirty fashion, then the power companies will keep doing it.

Research and development of clean coal technologies would be a waste of time and Australia's greenhouse gas emissions will keep rising unless the Federal Government sets a price on carbon, energy experts and power providers say.

Ministers from Australia, the US, China, India, Japan and South Korea will meet on Wednesday as part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate to discuss technologies that aim to capture and store underground the carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels.

It could be 10 to 40 years before carbon capture and storage technologies are commercially viable and well entrenched in industry, and they could double the cost of fossil fuel power.

But if the only benefit of such emerging technologies was that they cut greenhouse gas emissions, investors would build power plants without them, said Tony Wood, general manager for public and government affairs at the power provider Origin Energy. "There is absolutely no incentive for business to adopt [such technologies]," Mr Wood said.

"You would have to put a value or a penalty on greenhouse gas emissions. You need a level playing field in terms of carbon value so the market can decide what is the lowest-cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

A research analyst at AMP Capital Investors, Dr Ian Woods, agreed, saying developing new technologies was only half the story. "The other half is the cost at which a technology can compete in the market.

"Currently there is no driver to do clean coal technology."

TreeHugger has an article on storing wind energy called "Compressed Air Underground Battery for Wind Farms". As this sort of idea becomes more widely implemented we'll find that distributed renewable power generation has an even greater cost advantage.

CAES steps. This is essentially a peaking power design.

Wind turbines generate electricity which can flow directly to grid or, alternatively, power the site's air compressor bank.

Compressors run at "off peak" times when wind happens to be blowing strongly, but regional electricity demand is low, driving air down into a subterranean cavern of sorts.

Compressed air driven underground both dissolves in, and temporarily displaces, groundwater. The horizonatally displaced water is "contained" by surrounding aquitards, however, so the air remains under pressure for extended periods, ready to be let back up the pipes to the surface when needed. When air pressure is reduced, the previously displaced groundwater flows back toward the zone of lowered pressure, which is now under the "dome". This is the "battery-like" part of the design.

Air flowing back up the pipes, toward the non-wind turbines, is pre-heated by the combustion of natural gas...Our reading of the design narrative indicates this heating is from in-situ' combustion, not requiring a heat exchanger..., further increasing the air's pressure, prior to it's passing through the turbine blade chambers.

The hot compressed air turns the turbine blades just as would flowing water as it passes through a hydroelectric generator.

The turbines turn dynamos that generate electricity for the regional grid at peak demand periods.

The BBC has a report on the 'Critical danger' for fish, warning that new research suggests deep sea fish species in the northern Atlantic are on the brink of extinction.

Deep sea fish species in the northern Atlantic are on the brink of extinction, new research suggests.

Canadian scientists studied five deep water species including hake and eel. Writing in the journal Nature, they say that some populations have plummeted by 98% in a generation, meeting the definition of 'critically endangered'.

Scientists and conservation bodies are pressing for a global moratorium on deep-sea fishing which they regard as particularly destructive.

Some fleets have switched to deep-sea fisheries following the collapse in more commonly-caught species such as cod. Known as bottom-trawling, ships often use heavy trawls which are dragged across the ocean floor, destroying coral and other ecosystems.

And to close, given that I can't seem to resist anti gravity stories at the moment, here's one more anti-gravity link - this one from the conspiracy theorists at RI, who add some more detail to their peak oil / anti gravity / NWO theorising...

When asked to choose which of five avenues proposed by NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program stood the greatest chance of success, Puthoff selected without hesitation the perturbation of space-time through antigravity.

Cook left the interview with the impression that Puthoff meant to indirectly communicate that tangible results had already been achieved. There is much more direct evidence in The Hunt for Zero Point to support such an assumption. And as Cook suggests, "if antigravity had been discovered in the white world, then someone, somewhere had to be perfecting it - maybe even building real hardware - in the black."

Was there an antigravity Manhattan Project about which now the general public is finally being fed the theory? I think it would be more astonishing if there wasn't. For one thing, there have been too many reliable sightings of discoid craft being piloted or repaired by seemingly ordinary men in military uniforms and even baseball caps. (Though as I've made clear in other posts, I don't believe the relatively prosaic explanation of nuts and bolts black budget craft can account for the genuine UFO phenomenon. If humans can already build craft capable of slipping into other dimensions, then the veil is exceedingly thin, and presumably may be crossed in the opposite direction.) And for another, it makes an awful sense. I suggested last March that our "Immortals" have been preparing - covertly, and for a long time - for a post-carbon world. One that may not include most of Earth's population.

If the G-Engines are coming, they've probably already arrived. And they're not meant for the likes of us.