Climate Climate & Energy

Neat

World wide wind potential (using only conventional wind technology) exceeds our current energy needs by many times. However, that is merely the potential of wind near the ground, at 80 to 100 meters.

Most wind energy is in the jet stream, miles over our heads. No one is going to build a tower that high to support a wind turbine; cost alone would prohibit that. But we can use flying energy generators -- turbines supported by kites or balloons or what amounts to stationary helicopters. The latter technology (stationary helicopters supporting wind turbines) has actually been demonstrated briefly, and has been claimed in peer reviewed research to be ready for commercial implementation (PDF). Questions like net energy, metal fatigue, stability, transformers and power loss have all been answered -- at least on paper. (Net energy at really high altitudes is higher than with either kites or helium balloons -- due to wasted energy on the downward part of the cycle with kite systems, and drag with balloon systems.)

According to the corporation developing this technology, Sky WindPower, they can put together a system out of commercially available products that will provide wind electricity (at a profit) for 2 cents per kWh -- competitive with current fossil fuel generation.

Don’t fight it

Energy wonk Robert McLeod has long post filled with statistics and graphs, arguing a simple point: if historical trends continue, solar power is going to dominate. Soon. (You’ll recognize this as substantially similar to the argument made by solar booster Travis Bradford.) If you’re into statistics and graphs, read the whole thing. If not, here […]

Dig deeper

CNBC dreams of abiotic oil: (via Hugg)

Eyes wide shut toward global collapse?

Ecological Footprint, Energy Consumption, and the Looming Collapse:

This article explores dynamic relations governing population growth, resource depletion, and world economics by means of a few simple modeling and simulation exercises. To this end, we start out by exploring the concept of an ecological footprint, representing the amount of land that a person needs to produce everything that he or she consumes: food, clothing, energy, shelter, the tools that are needed to make the clothing, etc. and place it in relation with the human development index, a measure of the quality of life of an individual. We then relate the ecological footprint to the per capita energy consumption. This discussion serves to provide a quantitative understanding of the limited resources that are at our disposal.

The article continues by exploring the dangers and seductions of exponential growth, and uses a system dynamics approach to illustrate why we are moving at a rapid pace toward global collapse with our eyes wide shut.

The article ends by discussing what we would need to do in order to avoid the looming collapse.

Colbert: The Word

Perfect:

Smells Like Progress

As climate summit continues, fed-up mayors unveil actual plans They cover 1 percent of the Earth’s surface, but the world’s cities spew 80 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions — and 180 percent of climate-action plans. “Where national governments can’t or won’t lead, cities will,” said Toronto Mayor David Miller at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit […]

Making a market for solar in Eugene, Oregon

Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) offers to buy solar power produced by customers at 15 cents/kWh.

The weather will matter more and more

Energy dependence seems to be the topic of the day, or at least the last two days. David Roberts posted a link yesterday to an eye-opening article about the surge of interest among the Amish of Ohio for solar PV panels. I had always assumed, wrongly, that the Amish eschewed electricity, period. Actually, they just don't like depending on the outside world.

Meanwhile, renewed violence in Nigeria, a major petroleum producer, is giving oil markets the jitters.

So is home-produced energy always better?

Crap, another means of continuing business as usual failing to survive scrutiny

Important, albeit somewhat depressing, post about biofuels from algae on chemical engineer Robert Rapier's always excellent blog.

Here's his introduction to the article, which you should read in its entirety:

The Big Yapple

World’s mayors gather for climate-change summit in New York City Gone are the days when mayors chomped cigars and handed out keys to the city. Today’s civic leaders face a somewhat more monumental task: saving the planet. This week, mayors from more than 30 of the world’s biggest cities — from Bangkok to Berlin, Sydney […]