Can Renewables Really Power our Cities?

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I found this the economics discussion in this podcast interesting. The assumption that if we were to wipe away all of our existing energy infrastructure and make decisions on which energies provide the shortest payback period might show renewable energy resources in a better light. Yes it might. While we are at it, why don't we throw in some other make believe assumptions and make it look better yet. Further, why don't we eliminate all of the taxes generated by the current system and watch that ripple through government spending. Or why don't we encumber renewable energy ideas with taxes similar to the taxes on the resources they hope to replace. Now they have an even longer payback period.

We need to continue focusing on ways to reduce the costs and improve the efficiencies of these technologies so people and industries will buy into the concept because it is a better deal than the current stable of energies.

Additionally, it would be nice if there were an easy way to levy the cost of the externalities caused by carbon based fuels without that solution sending a bunch of money to Washington for corrupt politicians to decide who will be the winners and losers in energy production.

When will we start to talk about the root cause of all our energy (and other) problems? ... Population!

Even if the average American were to lower his/her lifestyle to that of the Indian or Chinese populace we still will eventually hit the energy wall. In order to feed this over-populated world we need and will only need more and more energy. We need to start talking about population control. Why man thinks he is ABOVE nature if just plain foolish and egocentric. In the nature world, population is regulated. If the rabbit population gets to high then the food becomes to scarce and the rabbit population naturally decreases. Its only been going on for the last 10 million years. So why should man be any different? I'll probably get it from the religious right and their bible thumping, "Go out and prosper" jive but the truth is we need to start to look at reality. We are living against the nature state of the planet and She will eventually adjust it Herself if we don't do it first.

mc

FofF, please first read the book, then ping me.

Cheers,

VHM.

FofF, I liked you you're correcting grammar, but misspelled grammar.

I never called you trivialist, although I will call you bad-speller. :)

Please read the book, please ask your buddy Mary to read it, and ping me when you're done.

Cheers,

VHM

Mary, you're truly not bright. I hope you don't come back saying you have a degree from an Ivy League, unless if it's a major in Rock Counting.

The examples aren't for real raptors or Hot Tamales, ding-dong. Those are illustrations, and if you took your head out of the Goodwill bins you'd open your field of vision.

Let me say it this way just for you: YOU. CANNOT. POWER. TODAY'S. CITIES. WITH. RENEWABLE. ENERGY.

The current US use of power is 250kWh-e/day/person. Europe's is 125kWh-e/day/person. There's no RE technology in the drawing board that can power a population of 300M (and growing) with 125kWh-e/day/person, much less with 250kWh-e/day/person.

You created this naive illusion your frugal life is sufficient and will save the planet, but when you stroll on the sidewalk, you just don't know where and how the sidewalk appeared under your feet, let alone the shoes you're wearing were made of and with 100% non-RE.

Evidently you can read and write, so read a book before making a fool of yourself.

VHM

VMH lost credibility when he failed to know there are raptors all over some cities now. A guy near Portland makes a living with his trained raptors. His birds guard blueberries from starlings, at the cost of a frozen quail per day per bird, saving the environment from earlier, more energy-costly methods. Quail are raised nearby.

I don't need trained hawks in the city because there are so many wild ones.

We have come a way since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. As neighbors take out lawn and stop using poisons, song birds are returning, and so are raptors. Most other ways of landscaping require less water and other outside inputs than lawn.

Put-downs and false assumptions do not change the aggregate energy demands of any particular city. I do not see why readers should wait to read something gloomy about why individual action doesn't matter before reducing energy use, as individuals see fit. The reductions tend to be good for health as well.

Lifestyle changes among humans will make a difference, over time, though some locations will lag.

At some point we may be forced to make more momentous changes. Different locations will weather the the challenges in different ways, and lifestyles will affect that. Until then, gulp on with the soda. I don't like it and don't drink it. Do you really eat Hot Tamales? Gross.

FofF, no I don't live w/o FF. Nobody does. Maybe a small little tribe lost in the Amazon basin does, but the moment you see them wearing Adidas shorts, that's it for a RE-life.

That's the predicament. We built our lives on an enormous amount of readily available, cheap as dirt, and abundant as heck storage of energy, and now we think a Prius, a LED bulb and a row of carrots in the backyard will replace the 80 million barrels a day, the 18 million tons of coal a day, and the NG, etc, etc.

I'm very for RE and a paradigm shift of how we live our lives, but first you must understand the facts of where we are, of how we got here, and our predicament, before you start with a solution. Otherwise you're like Mary and thousands of others that think a little recycling here, a little walking there does the trick.

A great resource to understand how RE cannot power today's cities is McKay's "Without Hot Air".(www.withouthotair.com) It's free!

Mary, if you're bright, you traded it at Goodwill for a pair of coveralls.

You're giving examples of your frugal life. Congratulations! But that's easy! Millions of Africans, Americans, Latin Americans, and Asians do that every day without even trying.

Again, look at the "made in" label of your Goodwill clothes. You tell us how many you find that the cotton was planted down the road from you with RE, the fabric was weaved down the road with RE, and it was tailored just down the street with RE. Let me spare your energy: none! Your fun-to-brag frugal life is cute at best. You (and me) couldn't live one day on RE not even if you tried. Want to dress RE? Wear 2 banana leaves.

This thread is "can RE really power our cities?" The answer is no, not the cities in which we live today. There's no form of RE within the next 100 years that can replace the readily available, cheap, and abundant fossil fuels (and nuclear). None!!!

Sure we can change our habits, install millions of PVs and wind turbines, disturb every last patch of native sod, displace every last raptor, reduce the population, etc, but then it won't be or look like the cities in which we live today. We want AC-ed movie theaters, popcorn, 36-oz soda cups, Hot Tamales and 3D movies, or whatever comforts you dig. They all require huge amounts of non-RE, and there's no RE in sight to carry the torch.

I buy clothes from Goodwill, within walking distance.

I grow fruit and over-wintering greens and alliums on my property, and I share with others around. I am a working member at a grocery-coop within walking distance. I get a discount, and I get stuff from the free box. I buy other things also, but much is local. If I needed to eat from local only, I could. As yet I haven't had to, exclusively.

My laptop could be one of the reasons they checked my meter. It uses far less energy than my 8-year or so old machine did.

I gave you my name that you used to put me down with.

What I do not understand is why you find it necessary to put me down.

What sort of lifestyle are you trying to justify for yourself by putting me down?

Or are you truly perfect, verifiable by third-party certifiers?

Mary, when you're done with your non-unique brainy libertarian a la Palin yada-yada-yada, please check the percentage of garments you own made within walking distance of your domicile, the percentage of food you eat that is grown within walking distance of your domicile, the provenance of your computer hardware, etc, and tell us if any of that was done without the least help of non-renewables.

Having a modest and frugal life and living in a house that bearly makes the meter turn is easy; millions around the world do that every day.

Now subtract fossil fuel from your seemingly frugal life, and bye-bye the computer monitor you're reading this note.

VMH

As a city dweller, I have modest energy needs. I can walk or bike to stuff. My neighbors are close and help each other out. I keep the house at 60, though sometimes I splurge and raise it to 64 for visitors.

We get refuges from other places because we are walkable. City code people are soon to agree to Ecovillage zoning, where if a block wants a dentist on the block, we can have her if we petition her in.

Power consumption at my house has gone down, as verified by a conservation expert.

The power company does not chuckle at me. They came and checked my meter, two of them.

I chatted with the older one while the younger one took the meter out to their van. He was a nice guy. I asked if they tested on a random basis. He said yes, but I don't believe him.

My son lives in Cambridge, and I visited once and liked it, especially the museums, but I will pass on Massachusetts, thanks.

We are not perfect out here, and don't pretend to be, but we are somewhat prepared for energy sags and for food trucks stuck in floods.

When they raise rates, we add stoves and other work-arounds.

The latest discussion is earthquakes. We did volcano challenge in 1980. Geothermal is happening, but it is not ideal here.

Solar is better, and group buys get over-subscribed. You have to go on a waiting list, where I now sit.

I'm a libertarian, so I hear the gloomy naysaying a lot. I just don't buy it.

The Man may have the money, but I have a brain. I know how to run intervals to warm up in the dead of winter, and one of these days I'm getting PV and P-thermal, and if the Man won't pay my FIT, maybe I'll go off-grid, just for the fun of it.

I can find somebody who has read Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, to help rinse the pollen off twice a year or so. I am afraid of the roof, I admit it, which does not mean I have not gotten on it.

I'm not unique, and I'm glad about that.

It definitely can be done - RE can compete with and beat out most other forms of energy. One company has the cost of SOLAR THERMAL down to $3 per Watt (installed) and becomes FREE -- NET COST OF ZERO -- after applying tax benefits - explained here: www.tnns.org/energy

Then after considering the environmental benefits - twice as valuable / half the cost of the filthy fossil fuels.

I agree with VMH....since the electric bills of LEED redesigned homes are higher than previous homes.

People who are continuously on their iPODs and blackberries are consuming power that must either be generated or replenished; reading a book uses no power, reading an iPAD or a KINDLE--less than an iPAD uses aprox. 2.5 watts.

The more people the more electronics; the more electronics, the higher the demand for power.

All of you GREEN readers, has your power consumption gone up or down over the past five years as measured by your electric bills----power companies chuckle softly at all the green chatter and plan to increase power production to meet the every growing demand.

Are you ready to move into a broken down New England Mill town and adapt your lifestyle to the power that can be produced from the river that once powered it as augmented by solar panels, wind turbines?

Our original new england ECOPOLIS was water powered; are you ready to sacrifice salmon protection for 'green power'?

Artful stereotypes and put-downs, VMH.

How do you get around, oh perfect one? Is that hummer working out for ya?

"...power our cities?" Yes, when we radically change our habits, which very few are doing.

Live off renewables? Not in this life. 70-80% of the US oil consumption comes from abroad, in a FF ICE ship. Shut down that oil, and bye-bye California almonds, Minnesota apples, Florida oranges, I don't care how organic the hippie farming community like to brag about their environmental stewardship. It's over.

It's cute to see folks claiming they're doing their part, or they're carbon neutral by drivng Priuses and installing PV on their McMansions, never mind the soccer ball their kids kick on Sundays was made by a 6-year old Indian work slave, was transported by a FF ICE ship, and purchased at a big box that runs the AC in the summer with the doors wide open. Put the ballet shoes in that same category too.

Cynicism aside, in the other life, when we're done with the hypocrisy, then we can start to live off the land.

VMH

Liked the report very much, would like to see a slide show with it. It is incredibly daunting the task we have ahead of us. The Oildrum has been a source of valuable info to me for several years. 2.5 Terawatts for the US annually with that expected to grow! It is not so much that we have to power the world now (we have 100yrs of coal) but coal is dirty and if we don't start now we will have an incredible battle to maintain civilized life on the planet if we don't mine the sun. All energy is sun based or mimicking. If we turn the ship 2 degrees today our course will be set to new energy horizons. It was so uplifting to hear US installs hit 2000MW, thats two new power plants but so much more than before.

Thanks Stephen.

Larry Santoyo, a permaculture designer from the Los Angeles area, speaks of a job he took in a Southwest city, where most building is monolithic concrete building without landscaping. His client's HVAC had broken, and they needed something to replace an old system. He looked at the site and found no shade anywhere, and evidence of drainage problems when it did rain. He removed blocks of concrete and put in plants for shade. Outside eating areas added to the useful footprint of the building once the severity of the site was softened. This improved the environment on many fronts, with a far lower energy requirement for the building.

Catching rainfall on roofs is also an increasing phenomenon. A new hospital building in Portland is an example of this.

Figuring out ways to slow, spread, and sink the water that does fall can eventually change climate and make diversity in plants and animals more resilient for all.

Designing for retrofits has not had the press that new designs have gotten. Perhaps in this downturn, retro-fit is happening under the radar. It is not as headline-magnetic, but it can be significant in its effects, especially now that useful plants are being employed in landscaping and design.

In addition, sewer systems are in need of re-design, to harvest nutrients and heat. There is less tolerance for allowing effluent in rivers. Increasing attention is on ways to harvest and use nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other fertilizers made as by-products from the fuel industry.

Costs for production of fertilizers and costs for mining and transportation of nutrients can be reduced by making fertilizer close to use and moving to greater urban agriculture.

Vancouver, B.C., has been in the forefront of the movement to let un- or under-employed people use the back yards of people who are too busy to care for their yards. There is growing interest in cities like Portland, Oregon, as well.

One of the biggest challenges with transitioning to a more sustainable growth model is changing human behavior. The world, especially the United States, has for the better part of a century been coddled with cheap energy prices. Gasoline prices are a factor of 2-3 lower here than in Europe. Cities and humanity have evolved and adapted to this environment with suburban sprawl, a massive roadway infrastructure and widespread aviation.
A transition to a more sustainable energy infrastructure will only come about if the cost of energy increases and remains high. There is plenty of evidence from the oil embargo of 1978 and the more recent run up in energy prices in 2008, that human behavior will respond to economic forces. This change can occur as a result of market forces or can be spurred by regulatory activity.
The transition from coal to oil at the beginning of the 20th century depended on a partnership between government and industry in establishing the oil industry with its standards and supporting its growth. Currently, however, the government is schizophrenic in its approach to supporting a transition to a renewable energy. Given the current political situation in Washington, it seems unlikely that the current push to renewable energy can be sustained in light of the budget constraints that the country currently faces. The leadership in this transition will be on the local and state level where new standards are being instituted to force some of these changes albeit, slowly.

It is time that all fossil fuel investors and auto makers realize that the entire global energy based on Wind Water and Sun along with a drive for energy efficiency will help to avoid building new fossil fuel based power plants and also stop many inefficient power plants. Total global generation capacity needed to power the world will be considerably reduced, without sacrificing the living standards.
Imagine electric car efficiency is 85 % against 19 % of gasoline driven cars; no transport of coal or fuel oil. There are plenty of ways of improving economic activity ,if industrialists and scientists play an active role to induce the Government play their part to make the world GREEN for the sake of our grand children without sacrificing living standards

Many folks are beginning to see the strength of focusing on a regional approach to clean energy infrastructure development...this reinforces that strategic thinking. It is also a question of population growth and sustainability, and it would seem that urban centralization might be good way to mitigate ecological footprints provided the systems were right---

Outstanding report, Stephen! It's a very important question, and I enjoyed hearing the various perspectives on the answer.

We all need to be thinking in terms of building a 21st-century net-zero "ecopolis" in place of each 20th-century "petropolis."