Climate Climate & Energy

What rules would you impose to address global heating if you were

America, nominally a democracy, acquired a strange fetish for "czars" during the Nixon administration (how telling).

I remember William Simon being appointed "energy czar" back in the 70s. Like the Romanoffs, he had a fearsome title and did nothing good for most of the people in his country.

Still, it can be a useful exercise to think about what you would do if you suddenly had responsibility for something like dealing with global heating, and you could make the policy changes you thought wisest. What would yours be?

Your math teacher knew you’d need this stuff someday!

During one of our many discussions here at Gristmill around cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, I did some figuring and realized that, if we started in 2008, we would have three "halving" periods between then and 2050 if we could just cut emissions by 5 percent per year -- not an unreachable goal for people who absolutely waste a buttload of energy.

I've been talking up what I've taken to calling "The 5% Solution" here in Springfield (where the Simpsons live), making contact with a local group to propose starting a campaign for it as a project of the organization, with the idea that it would spread to other towns, cities, and states, and then all over America (insert Howard Dean-like scream here).

This morning, the fellow I've been talking to sent me to this link about something I have not heard of, the Sierra Club's "2% Solution." What?! Have I been left at the gate? Did I invent something well after the patent had already been issued to someone else?

Turns out, no.

The days when they would take whatever you served up are gone

Why does Amory Lovins say that the market is deciding against nukes?

On smart grids

My last post made the points that:

• Long-distance transmission lines tying different climate zones together reduce storage needs to a few hours capacity, by ensuring that most of the time when one machine is not producing, another is.


• The least expensive and most ecologically sound way to store electricity on the particular scale needed is with closed-cycle, lined, modular pumped storage that recirculates the same water over and over again, and thus does not draw on rivers, lakes, or other natural watercourses.

However a grid must not only be able to meet baseload (the part of demand that is the same 24 hours a day) plus daily peaks. It also has to deal with seasonal peaks as well. After all, in cooling climates (say Houston) electric demand will peak at a much higher rate in the summer than the winter. Similarly in a heating climate (say New England, Toronto, or Glasgow), demand will peak much more in the winter than the summer.

The same extended grid that can help smooth out supply can also help smooth out demand. If we have a grid that extends 3,000-5,000 kilometers across multiple climate zones, you can connect heating and cooling climates so that summer and winter peaks vary less.

Skeptical about skeptics

One last comment on NASA administrator Michael Griffin's comments about global warming. The skeptics out there heralded his comments. For example, Bob Carter was quoted as saying, "My main reaction to Michael Griffin is to congratulate him on his clear-sightedness, not to mention his courage in speaking out on such a controversial topic."

What these skeptics seem to forget (or conveniently ignore) is that Griffin's comments were only about the moral question of whether we should address climate change, not about the reality of human-induced climate change. From the New York Times: "In his comments to NPR and in today's interview, he did not express any doubt that the warming trend is real or that humans have been found to play a part in that rise." Skeptics never comment on this aspect of Griffin's statement.

This is a good example of why skeptics cannot be trusted. A skeptic would only tell you the point about Griffin's questioning the moral aspect of climate change policy, and conveniently forget to tell you that Griffin specifically endorses the dominant scientific view that humans are warming the world. Remember that next time you hear a skeptical statement about climate change.

Fun Guys

Two recent college grads make insulation using mushroom spores Let’s play a word game: we say “college students” and “mushrooms,” you say the first thing that comes to mind. OK, now get ready to eat your words, because two recent Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute grads are having a different kind of fun with their fungi. Eben […]

O Pioneers

Western states fired up over clean energy When it comes to clean energy, the West is the best — or at least, it wants to be. In Deadwood, S.D., this week, 10 Western U.S. governors and two Canadian provincial premiers are meeting to talk about the region’s power prospects, including solar, wind, biomass, and “clean […]

If renewables are to work, we need good storage

David's recent post on pumped storage attracted enough angry responses that I guess it is time for a more detailed post on energy storage and renewable sources.

Solar and wind energy are variable sources. If we want them to provide more than 20%-40% of our power, we will need some storage method.

Fortunately, long-distance transmission lines can reduce this need. While the sun and wind have gaps at any one spot, if we use long distance HVDC transmission lines to connect sites thousand of kilometers apart, the sun will be shining or wind blowing somewhere almost all the time. As I pointed out in previous posts, connecting wind farms with such lines could provide a 96% reliable firm commitment with only 12 hours of storage, or a 99%+ reliable firm commitment with 22 hours of storage. With an extensive long-distance grid, most supply gaps shrink to a few hours.

Modular pumped storage (MPS) is not only the lowest cost, but lowest ecological impact electricity storage means available to fill this gap. Separate two artificial reservoirs by a difference in elevation. Pump water uphill when you have extra electricity. Run the water downhill through turbines when you need the power back, recovering from 70-85% of what you put into storage.

Umbra on installing solar power

Dear Umbra, I live on Long Island, N.Y., and am interested in getting solar power for my home. I am not sure, however, if that is viable in this area. Do you have any recommended reliable sources that I can reference? There is just so much confusing information in the marketplace. Thanks, Rick Port Washington, […]

Why the Smart Grid is important

It's the world's largest machine -- the interconnected network of power plants, transmission towers, substations, poles, and wires that make up the power grid. When you flip the switch you expect the juice to flow and don't have much reason to think about it, except during the occasional blackout. Power engineers and energy wonks might get passionate about the grid, but for most people it's just a background fact of life.

It's time to bring the grid into the foreground, because it positions at the exact center of the world's most crucial issue, global climate change. The power grid is the source of one-third of U.S. global warming emissions. Unless we clean it up we cannot avert severe climate change. The grid is also the key to electrifying transportation and making more effective use of heat generated for buildings and industry, source of the vast bulk of remaining emissions. The grid can be the ultimate climate saver.

But today's power grid cannot do it. A system built on central generating stations, little changed from the first power grids deployed in the late 1800s, lacks flexibility and smarts. We need a new grid capable of networking millions of distributed energy devices such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and smart appliances. We need an internet of energy that employs the latest in digital technologies. We need a Smart Grid.