Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy

[MonteQuest]

Since we have been flooded with spurious claims of late, I think this piece from FTW is apropos:

Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy

May 27, 2003, 1400 PDT (FTW) -- Before we instantly accept alternative energy lifeboats that will let us keep our current lifestyles, don't you think it wise to see if they float?

Here are nine questions that you must ask of yourself, and anyone who claims that they have found a perfect alternative to oil. After answering these questions, you may have a better idea about whether you want to jump (or throw your family) into something that might sink in short order.

Deluding yourself that the energy problem has been solved only guarantees that the crisis will hit you and the planet much harder in the end.

The end of the Age of Oil is a life and death game. Can you afford to be cavalier about it? Do not think of prudent, but ultimately temporary, steps that should be taken to soften the blow as solutions.

These questions have been arranged by order of importance and by the order in which they will enable you to quickly evaluate an alternative energy source. If you can't get the right answer to the first one, you need not go any further.

After answering all nine questions, you will see - from a scientific place, rather than an emotional one - that there is no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today.

Any alternative energy source claiming to be a solution to the coming oil and gas shortages must have documented “open book” EROEI policies. If it doesn't, then it has something to hide.

Link to the 9 questions

[savethehumans]

Thanks, Monte! Have saved, and am printing it out. . . .everybody should have a copy of this on hand!!

[Devil]

Seems, on the whole, like a reasonable thesis. There are a few sentences that I could question in detail, but I do like the 9 questions.

1. How Much Energy is Returned for the Energy Invested (EROEI)?
2. Have the claims been verified by an independent third party?
3. Can I see the alternative energy being used?
4. Can you trace it back to the original energy source?
5. Does the invention defy the Laws of Thermodynamics?
6. Does the inventor make extravagant claims?
7. Does the inventor claim zero pollution?
8. Can I see blueprints, schematics or a chemical analysis of how it works?
9. Infrastructure Requirements -- Does the energy source require a corporation to produce it? How will it be transported and used? Will it require new engines, pipelines, and filling stations? What will these cost? Who will pay for them and with what? How long will it take to build them?

I suggest that all persons posting claims on these forums that such and such a technology is "the answer" does a cut'n'paste of the questions above and answer each one of them with a detailed analysis, if they wish to be credible.

[bobbyald]

Sounds about right.

Maybe also something about the quality (concentration) of the energy and scalability.

[Starvid]

Another three very relevant questions:

How much does it cost in $$$? (For example breeder reactors have an insanely high EROEI, but still aren't useful. Yet.)

How big is the potential, ie, is it possible to scale up? (Hydro power kicks ass but there are only so many waterfalls.)

What are the negative environmental effects? (There are ALWAYS some, even if they might be small.)

[Doly]

Devil, you seem to know quite a bit about energy tech. Can you answer the 9 questions for the most commonly mentioned alternatives?
1) Solar
2) Wind
3) Nuclear
4) Hydrogen
5) Biomass

[Devil]

Bloody hellfire! That's thousands of questions you are asking (or more)

I don't mean to be nasty but
1) solar water heating, solar space heating, solar PV or solar concentrators etc.?
2) wind at what scale, offshore, onshore, type of turbine, generating electricity or grinding corn, direct or indirect (waves) etc.??
3) nuclear fission, fusion, cold fusion, MOX, pebble, breeder etc.???
4) generating hydrogen from coal, oil, natural gas, electricity, burning it in fuel cells, IC engines, gas turbines, boilers etc.????
5) biomass from cow dung, dried yak dung, human dung, trees, compost heap, poultry entrails, colza, hemp, coppice wood, cadavers, snake oil and used to generate NG, thermal electricity, space heating, refrigeration, diesel or motor fuel etc.?????

I guess answers to all these questions would fill volumes and certainly kill the database of this bulletin board :D Not to mention that I'd be dead long before I could possibly discuss all these points in detail.

Just to show good faith, I'll try to give the answers to one precise application of your choice, if I have sufficient knowledge to do so validly, but I reserve the right to refuse if I consider my knowledge to be too sketchy - or you can ask another. Note this applies only to Doly. Fair enough?

[bart]

This thread is a bracing bit of fresh air.

So far, the criteria have been mostly technological, which is fine. But it is important to examine the political implications of energy proposals (which point 9 begins to introduce).

Here are some simple tests:

1. Cui bono? Who benefits? Do the parties making a proposal have a vested interest? E.g., coalmine owners, car manufacturers, PV manufacturers.

2. Will the energy proposal lead to a centralized government (e.g. nuclear) or towards de-centralizatioin (locally generated and consumed power). ?

3. Animated butterfly test. The more slick and Disney-like the presentation (and the fewer facts), the more likely the proposal is snake oil.

4. Watch the subsidy. Where does the money go? Look at both explicit subsidies (ethanol generated from corn) and hidden subsidies (US military machine protecting sources of oil). Be very careful when someone proposes a scheme as a "World War II scale effort" (or "Marshall Plan"); a lot of money will change hands without much oversight.

5. "We're all in this together". The more a proposer claims to be speaking for universal interests, the more likely he is pursuing his own agenda. For example, if someone criticizes the NIMBY philosophy (Not In My Back Yard), they usually have in mind a scheme which is MMBSIYBA (Make Money By Shitting In Your Back Yard).

[Tyler_JC]

Monte, you might want to make this a sticky. It seems like some of us need to ask ourselves these very important questions before we create dozens of threads about an untested energy technology that is being proposed by a penny stock company desperate for funding...

[ArimoDave]

Monte, you might want to make this a sticky. It seems like some of us need to ask ourselves these very important questions before we create dozens of threads about an untested energy technology that is being proposed by a penny stock company desperate for funding...

Ditto!

Also, instead of using the statement "Don't feed the trolls" take Cyrus's lead and use a link to this thread instead.

ArimoDave

(I hope I spelled Cyrus correctly.)

[MonteQuest]

BiGG and Drive Electric,

Your posts on ethanol were deleted from this thread. Post them somewhere else! BiGG, you were warned once, now twice, third time and you are flirting with being banned from the site.

MQ

Devil,

Go ahead with your example, I think it will be a good addition, but everyone let's not muddy this thread with "alternatives" discussion, only discussion about evaluating them, ok?

MQ

[nth]

I think we can come up with better questions than some of these.

Original:
1. How Much Energy is Returned for the Energy Invested (EROEI)?
2. Have the claims been verified by an independent third party?
3. Can I see the alternative energy being used?
4. Can you trace it back to the original energy source?
5. Does the invention defy the Laws of Thermodynamics?
6. Does the inventor make extravagant claims?
7. Does the inventor claim zero pollution?
8. Can I see blueprints, schematics or a chemical analysis of how it works?
9. Infrastructure Requirements -- Does the energy source require a corporation to produce it? How will it be transported and used? Will it require new engines, pipelines, and filling stations? What will these cost? Who will pay for them and with what? How long will it take to build them?

My criticism of them:
1. There are different ways to calculate EROEI, but this is a must to answer for alternatives.

2. This is key also. (Sadly PO forecasters have not presented reviewable data, but that is another issue.)

3. Instead of saying "I", I suggest something like:
Has it been demonstrated to the public and available for review?

4. Rephrase suggestion:
Do you know the source of the energy?

5 thru 8 are irrelevant or cannot possibly be answered. Ability to demonstrate and went through peer review will elminate the idea being proven possible and still violating laws of thermodynamics and other wild claims. Also, trade secrets will prevent #8.

9. This is a good question and should be asked in conjecture with question #1. The lower the EROEI the cheaper the infrastructure must be.

[SolarDave]

Please consider adding:

Would you consider living (next to, under, over, near) this source of energy?

[The_Toecutter]

Even more prudent is to ask what politics surround the particular technology, if any. Also needed to be asked on the side is how much consumption of energy can be reduced or needs to be reduced, especially when the scale of the advancement is discussed, so as to determine whether botrh consumption reduction PLUS the alternative energy would then be viable. There's also cost, mentioned already in this thread. For alternative energy like wind and biomass(like biodiesel, ethanol is a net loser so far), cost isn't much of an issue anymore, even without subsidies.

You also have to look at the subsidies current energy sources receive in order to have an accurate comparision in cost as well. Such as the nuclear power currently generated in America versus solar. Kill nuclear's subsidies and count in the cost associated with handling the waste, solar becomes cost competitive with 60s and 70s era nuclear energy.


But as Devil clarifies, an entire volume of books could be written concerning this list.

[jpfrazer]

Good 9 questions - but as many have suggested, even if a technology passes the tests, there are social, political, cultural, psychological and even spiritual challenges facing any new way of doing things - major stumbling blocks to mass-uptake. There exist many small-scale, locally appropriate solutions that comfortably answer all nine questions (I can give examples), but are unlikely to pull us all out of a crash because they require fundamental changes to our way of life. If we are insisting on finding alternatives that allow 'business as usual', surely we are searching in vain? Overall, humanity is essentially living unsustainably, and I'm beginning to hope that PO does force a collapse (I prefer the term 'relax') before we make the planet uninhabitable for all but the extremophillic bacteria. I say 'force' because I can't see how we will voluntarily stop burning oil until its all gone (whatever the cost per barrel) - its just too damn convenient - and we may hit a runaway greenhouse effect threshold before that point.

[Curmudgicus]

Original:
1. How Much Energy is Returned for the Energy Invested (EROEI)?
2. Have the claims been verified by an independent third party?
3. Can I see the alternative energy being used?
4. Can you trace it back to the original energy source?
5. Does the invention defy the Laws of Thermodynamics?
6. Does the inventor make extravagant claims?
7. Does the inventor claim zero pollution?
8. Can I see blueprints, schematics or a chemical analysis of how it works?
9. Infrastructure Requirements -- Does the energy source require a corporation to produce it? How will it be transported and used? Will it require new engines, pipelines, and filling stations? What will these cost? Who will pay for them and with what? How long will it take to build them?

Amen to the kudos to MonteQuest.

I think that the nine points are not all equal, but in fact naturally divide into greater and lesser categories. I see 1, 2, and 9 as the "Big Three," whereas points 3-8 more properly fall under the third party verification.

I also believe that accurate EROEI numbers are much tougher to obtain than most posters seem to think, which is partially illustrated by point 9. The intial investment in an extensive infrastructure skews the EROEI to a low value, which gradually increases over time. Several EROEI numbers based on different levels of scale and different points in time might be needed.

[gnm]

I second that... 1,2 and 9. A lot of the costs of alternatives can be hidden in number 9. There are I think a few examples where the alternative is being used to produce the product. Kyocera runs a plant producing PV's on its own PV's. But what about thier suppliers I wonder? For instance they are not running the aluminum smelter which produces the stock for the frames. Or the mining thereof.

-G

[Revi]

I am sitting in front of a hydroelectric powered computer. I just took a shower with water heated by the sun. The woodstove is burning wood I cut off our woodlot, heating the house. Our PV system is running the radio. What's the problem? I even have an electric bicycle that gets me up hills, no sweat. What's the matter with alternative energy? The problem is that most people are too lazy to figure it out. Every house in America could be like ours. Most of us are just in a petrochemical stupor and haven't figured out how to quit using so much of it. We better learn how to wean ourselves from it. Soon.

[Curmudgicus]

I am sitting in front of a hydroelectric powered computer. I just took a shower with water heated by the sun. The woodstove is burning wood I cut off our woodlot, heating the house. Our PV system is running the radio. What's the problem? I even have an electric bicycle that gets me up hills, no sweat. What's the matter with alternative energy? The problem is that most people are too lazy to figure it out. Every house in America could be like ours. Most of us are just in a petrochemical stupor and haven't figured out how to quit using so much of it. We better learn how to wean ourselves from it. Soon.

Good for you. Since you have gotten to a place that many of us aspire to reach, maybe you can provide some pointers on how you got there. You obviously have some valuable knowledge to pass on. I am particularly interested in your hydro-electric system.

We definitely need to have public perception changed about "alternative technologies." I have had Homeowner Association troubles with attempts to install a geothermal HVAC retrofit or to put PVs anywhere visible on the property.

[Revi]

The hydroelectric comes from the dam which is about 200 yards from my house and is maintained by FPL energy (formerly Central Maine Power). Our valley down to Augusta is powered by hydro according to a friend who works for them. That's why I said the computer is hydro powered. We're on the grid. We buy green power. The solar hot water could work anywhere it is allowed. Homeowners associations not allowing solar panels makes it all impossible. PV and hot water systems have cost us around $8000 which is a bit of money for us. It's sunny today, so it's paying off. I thought I would experience buyer's remorse, but it's one of the best things we've done so far.