MonteQuest wrote:Omnitir wrote:
You foresee it taking the best part of a century to reach a sustainable energy paradigm, but your projection can only be accurate if PV growth takes a massive hit. Why do you believe this will happen? Will energy scarcity lower demand for alternative energies? Will all the R&D going into solar and nanotechnology and whatever else will become a part of the future solar capacity all be diverted into ramping up resource wars?
Economic collapse.
Are we going to build solar PV for the third world?
We had better.
Energy scarcity may well
prevent alternative energies.
Who will do without while we use that energy to build solar systems?
Heat or solar panel in the spring?
It seems more logical to me that as more and more people become aware of both the energy and environmental problems civilization faces, there will be an increasing demand for alternatives.
Yup, just like ice or generators in a hurricane.
Extremely expensive and in short supply.
Projecting future costs of PV, based on the current trends (with a growth of 33%), we get the cost of PV electricity falling bellow conventional sources sometime mid to late next decade:
MonteQuest wrote:However, even with these massive growth rates, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geo thermal and biofuels contribute just 2% of our primary energy with wind/solar less than 1%. An almost inconsequential contribution, given the twilight of the oil age on the near horizon. Omnitir wrote: Your last statement in bold completely fails to factor in exponential growth. These growth rates, while accounting for a mere fraction of primary energy right now, will ramp up rapidly if maintained. No extensive study needed, just the most simple understanding of mathematics and exponential trends.
Completely fails? It shows that
even with exponential growth rates over the last few years it is still less than 1%.
60% growth rate over the last 5 years for PV is surely exponential?
And these rates for 5 years are not exponential?
• wind power: 28 percent
• biodiesel: 25 percent
• solar hot water/heating: 17 percent
• off-grid solar PV: 17 percent
• geothermal heat capacity: 13 percent
• ethanol: 11 percent
*sigh* All you've shown is that the beginning of an exponential trend is slow. What a revelation.
Project these trends onwards for another couple of decades, and then try to tell me that they don't meet future growth much less oil decline.
It's really really simple. If you keep doubling an number, no matter how small a number, it will begin slow but eventually will skyrocket.
Take another look at the follow graph. You are pointing to the trend pre 2010 and saying "look at how meagre alternatives are". But in doing so you
completely fail to acknowledge that this growth is exponential, and if maintained, the picture will change dramatically.
MonteQuest wrote:Omnitir wrote:
You can argue against the possibility that these growth rates will be maintained. Maybe peak oil will cause a massive drop in the demand for alternatives (though the opposite seems more likely), or maybe some other factor will drop the growth of renewables. But the fact is that if these growth rates persist, renewables will dwarf conventional energy sources within a few decades. The fact that they are starting from such a small percentage of our total primary energy is completely, utterly, irrelevant. If you think otherwise, you need to revisit exponential growth.
Meanwhile, energy demand stands still?
If these growth rates persist?
If a pig had wings....
Even in the face of growing demand, an exponential trend will, eventually, ramp up suddenly to dwarf other linear trends.
Yes, if growth rates persist, and if pigs had wings. That's the whole bloody argument! I'm pointing out that it's perfectly possible for alternatives to meet all of our electricity needs within a few decades,
if only the growth rates can persist. Can growth persist? It doesn't seem probable to me. But than I'm also not going to dismiss it based on the fact that apparently economic collapse is written in the stars.
You seem to be arguing that it's not even possible for alternatives to replace conventional energy, when clearly it is possible. If it will or not is another argument entirely, and that's not an argument that you have been making.
I'm not saying that solar WILL continue to grow exponentially and replace conventional energy sources. I'm saying it's possible, contrary to your posts about alternatives being less than 1% of our primary energy.
And even if we can do this, it won't be as cheap, portable, scalable, or as readily available as oil and gasoline...and it must be.
[...]
Hydrogen, no matter how you produce it to be an energy carrier, is still an energy consumer.
You are ignoring the point again. Yes, clearly hydrogen is an energy carrier -
but that's the point! IF, we had plentiful energy thanks to our ability to capture that tiny fraction of sunlight that it would take to power all of civilization, IF we had abundant electrical energy, we can easily solve the liquid fuels crisis.
IF we have enough electricity generation, it wouldn't matter that any given storage system, such as hydrogen, is a net energy looser. All that would matter is that we would be able to produce a fuel that is indeed as "cheap, portable, scalable and as readily available as oil and gasoline".
The problem is generating the electricity.
"Mother Nature is a psychopathic bitch, and she is out to get you. You have to adapt, change or die." - Tihamer Toth-Fejel, nanotech researcher/engineer.