No one is disputing that in any consideration of existing social problems, the question of energy supply is of prime importance.
But the vital question is about the reasons why the existing world capitalist system cannot take up the technical possibilities which now exist for the setting up of a safe and adequate world energy system. This question also takes us out of the sphere of applied science and technology and inevitably into the sphere of world economics and politics. From a practical point of view, society has available a wide range of technical options and there are large reserves of skill, labour and materials, yet at the same time we suffer from a chronic inability to take these up in a free and consciously regulated manner. In the field of energy supply, as in every other field, such resources, skills and production methods which are taken up will be determined by the economic imperatives of the market system or consistent with the existing national economic or military strategies. Socialism would not be bound by the economics of market competition to use methods which embodied the least amounts of labour in their production. Global energy policy is not being driven by concerns about the environment. It’s about ownership and control of key resources, who has them, and who’s got the weaponry to seize them.
There is no single alternative to oil, so a suite of alternatives will have to be employed. The main problem with renewables is that the oil-addicted capitalist economy has starved them of funds, because set-up costs are prohibitive and returns long-term. This is true of geothermal heating systems, wind and tidal systems, ocean thermal electricity, biowaste to oil reconversion plants, solar technology. Capitalism is not, of course,really interested in saving energy. Energy companies could offer customer discounts to those who were frugal, but in fact that's not the way to make money. Thermal Conversion Process can take any type of carbon waste including animal remains, car tyres, old computers and human sewage and within half an hour turn it into useful fertilizer minerals, carbon charcoal and oil. What’s the catch? Lack of profit. Paul Horsnell, Head of Energy Research at investment bank Barclays Capital: “To transport and process all the waste, pay the energy costs, provide for the capital costs and still make a profit does look difficult at first sight. By comparison, fossil fuel oil is actually pretty cheap.”
Under capitalism renewable sources will only be adopted on a wide scale when the price becomes right.
We live in a social system predicated on endless expansion and it is the blind, unplanned drive to accumulate is the hallmark of capitalist production – the profit motive – that has created the environmental problem, not individuals. There can be no such thing as sustainable or environmentally friendly capitalism. It is completely impossible under capitalism for humanity to use the earth's resources for the benefit of all people, and it is equally impossible for it to deploy the accumulated knowledge, the skills and the techniques of production which now exist in a direct relationship with human needs on a basis of world-wide co-operation.
If capitalism uses up the obtainable oil in its customary spendthrift way, then socialism is going to have to employ solutions, both in means of supply and modes of consumption.
What is, for a socialist, strange is nobody ever suggests that we just take drop in energy consumption and live with it. How can we continue to live the life of the motorway-commuter without petrol? Oh no, we can't possibly give that up, we'll have to use hydrogen or electric cars. How do we continue to have all our cities' department stores lit up every night so people can window-shop at 4 am? Dread the thought that consumers should have their nocturnal browsing habits constrained.
Humanity may have no choice but to adapt to a low energy way of life. Yet studies abound that demonstrate that traditional intensive farming methods can out-perform industrial agricultural methods. People may desire this change but the economic framework of capitalism won’t allow it.
Fusion power is the Holy Grail but that infinite energy would be uncomfortable to capitalist markets. It could never be allowed to get out. If fusion ever came about , we can be sure about one thing - our electricity bills won't go down. New technology tends to deliver wealth upwards, to the rich who own and control it, not downwards to the rest of us.
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Monday, August 08, 2011
Beyond Peak Oil 2
Gas prices are rising, ethanol is under attack and nuclear power continues to struggle in the shadow of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. But an abundant, safe and clean energy source once thought to be the stuff of science fiction is closer than many realize: nuclear fusion. Fusion used to be an energy source for our generation’s grandchildren; now, plans across the world call for a demonstration power plant in about 20 years. Harnessing nuclear fusion, the energy that powers the sun and the stars, has been a goal of physicists worldwide since the 1950s. It is essentially inexhaustible and it can be created using hydrogen isotopes — chemical cousins of hydrogen, like deuterium — that can readily be extracted from seawater. Fusion energy is created by fusing two atomic nuclei, in the process converting mass to energy, which appears as heat. The heat, as in conventional nuclear fission reactors, turns water into steam, which drives turbines to generate electricity, or is used to produce fuels for transportation or other uses. Fusion energy generates zero greenhouse gases. It offers no chance of a catastrophic accident. It can be available to all nations, relying only on the Earth’s oceans. There’s a catch. The development of fusion energy is one of the most difficult science and engineering challenges ever undertaken. Among other challenges, it requires production and confinement of a hot gas — a plasma — with a temperature around 100 million degrees Celsius.
Once a poorly understood area of research, plasma physics has become highly developed. Scientists not only produce 100 million-degree plasmas routinely, but they control and manipulate such “small suns” with remarkable finesse. Since 1970 the power produced by magnetic fusion in the lab has grown from one-tenth of a watt, produced for a fraction of a second, to 16 million watts produced for one second — a billionfold increase in fusion energy. Seven partners — the European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — have teamed up on an experiment to produce 500 million watts of fusion power for 500 seconds and longer by 2020, demonstrating key scientific and engineering aspects of fusion at the scale of a reactor.
What has been lacking is the political and economic will to develop materials that can withstand the harsh fusion environment, sustain hot plasma indefinitely and integrate all these features in an experimental facility to produce continuous fusion power. Fusion has the potential to help with all the emerging challenges of this still-new century: energy independence, national economic competitiveness, environmental responsibility and reduction of conflict over natural resources. A rough estimate is that it would take $30 billion and 20 years to go from the current state of research to the first working fusion reactor. But put in perspective, that sum is equal to about a week of domestic energy consumption, or about 2 percent of the annual energy expenditure of $1.5 trillion.
But socialism won't be placing a price tag on research as does capitalism.
From here
Once a poorly understood area of research, plasma physics has become highly developed. Scientists not only produce 100 million-degree plasmas routinely, but they control and manipulate such “small suns” with remarkable finesse. Since 1970 the power produced by magnetic fusion in the lab has grown from one-tenth of a watt, produced for a fraction of a second, to 16 million watts produced for one second — a billionfold increase in fusion energy. Seven partners — the European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — have teamed up on an experiment to produce 500 million watts of fusion power for 500 seconds and longer by 2020, demonstrating key scientific and engineering aspects of fusion at the scale of a reactor.
What has been lacking is the political and economic will to develop materials that can withstand the harsh fusion environment, sustain hot plasma indefinitely and integrate all these features in an experimental facility to produce continuous fusion power. Fusion has the potential to help with all the emerging challenges of this still-new century: energy independence, national economic competitiveness, environmental responsibility and reduction of conflict over natural resources. A rough estimate is that it would take $30 billion and 20 years to go from the current state of research to the first working fusion reactor. But put in perspective, that sum is equal to about a week of domestic energy consumption, or about 2 percent of the annual energy expenditure of $1.5 trillion.
But socialism won't be placing a price tag on research as does capitalism.
From here
Beyond Peak Oil
In the United States more than 40 percent of gasoline contains ethanol additive. The fuel is produced in huge fermenters the size of blimps, by fermenting a mash of corn or rye with yeast. Ethanol as a biofuel has a bad reputation. One hectare (2.47 acres) of corn produces less than 4,000 liters of ethanol a year, and 8,000 liters of water are required to produce a liter of ethanol. Besides, crops grown for ethanol take away valuable farmland for food production. The last growing season marked the first time US farmers harvested more corn for ethanol production than for use as animal feed. One of the adverse consequences of the biofuel boom is that it is driving up food prices. For this reason, many environmentalists now believe that growing energy plants is the wrong approach.
Scientists now rave about a new, green revolution. Using genetic engineering and sophisticated breeding and selection methods, biochemists are transforming blue and green algae into tiny factories for oil, ethanol and diesel. Algae do not require any farmland. Sun, saltwater, a little fertilizer and carbon dioxide are all the undemanding little organisms need to thrive. And because they consume about as much CO2 during photosynthesis as is later released when the oil they produce is burned, algae-based fuels are also climate neutral. In contrast to ethanol, the end product is not a low-quality fuel, but a highly pure product that contains no sulfur or benzene. "You could put our product in your car." Algae are also astonishingly productive. A hectare of sunny desert covered with algae vats can yield almost eight times as much biofuel per unit of biomass in a year than corn grown for energy purposes. To obtain the oil, the algae must be harvested and the oil extracted in a complex process. To overcome this obstacle, other scientists are developing algae that don't even have to be harvested. Instead, they essentially ooze the fuel of the future. Evolution has not yielded anything that produces biofuel from CO2 on a large scale, explains biologist Venter, "which is why we simply have to build it." The bioengineers' tools include culture mediums, incubators and, most importantly, databases containing the DNA sequences of thousands of microorganisms. Robertson and his team search the databases for promising gene fragments, which they then isolate and inject into the genetic material of blue algae.
But will the laboratory creations really work as well in open fields as they do in the lab? Calculations show that some algae plants will likely consume more fertilizer and energy per hectare than grain crops. And the carbon dioxide in the air won't be enough to feed the microalgae. Scientists estimate that a commercial algae fuel plant would require about 10,000 cubic meters of CO2 a day. Whether and how large amounts of the gas could be derived from the exhaust gases of large coal power plants, for example, and then brought to the algae farms, remains unclear. The farms could also require enormous tracts of land. In a recent article in the journal Science, researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands calculated that, in theory, an area the size of Portugal would have to be filled with algae pools to satisfy Europe's current fuel needs. A "leap in micro-algae technology" is needed to at least triple productivity, say experts.
Pyle and Robertson are convinced that this increase is possible. They insist that algae technology can be used to meet a significant portion of our energy requirements in the future. "There is certainly enough non-arable land with enough solar radiation and enough CO2 and water sourcing in the world," says Robertson. Another important advantage, he adds, is that algae-based fuel could easily be pumped into the oil industry's existing pipelines and refineries, and that cars and aircraft would not have to be modified to accommodate the biofuel.
From Der Spiegel
Scientists now rave about a new, green revolution. Using genetic engineering and sophisticated breeding and selection methods, biochemists are transforming blue and green algae into tiny factories for oil, ethanol and diesel. Algae do not require any farmland. Sun, saltwater, a little fertilizer and carbon dioxide are all the undemanding little organisms need to thrive. And because they consume about as much CO2 during photosynthesis as is later released when the oil they produce is burned, algae-based fuels are also climate neutral. In contrast to ethanol, the end product is not a low-quality fuel, but a highly pure product that contains no sulfur or benzene. "You could put our product in your car." Algae are also astonishingly productive. A hectare of sunny desert covered with algae vats can yield almost eight times as much biofuel per unit of biomass in a year than corn grown for energy purposes. To obtain the oil, the algae must be harvested and the oil extracted in a complex process. To overcome this obstacle, other scientists are developing algae that don't even have to be harvested. Instead, they essentially ooze the fuel of the future. Evolution has not yielded anything that produces biofuel from CO2 on a large scale, explains biologist Venter, "which is why we simply have to build it." The bioengineers' tools include culture mediums, incubators and, most importantly, databases containing the DNA sequences of thousands of microorganisms. Robertson and his team search the databases for promising gene fragments, which they then isolate and inject into the genetic material of blue algae.
But will the laboratory creations really work as well in open fields as they do in the lab? Calculations show that some algae plants will likely consume more fertilizer and energy per hectare than grain crops. And the carbon dioxide in the air won't be enough to feed the microalgae. Scientists estimate that a commercial algae fuel plant would require about 10,000 cubic meters of CO2 a day. Whether and how large amounts of the gas could be derived from the exhaust gases of large coal power plants, for example, and then brought to the algae farms, remains unclear. The farms could also require enormous tracts of land. In a recent article in the journal Science, researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands calculated that, in theory, an area the size of Portugal would have to be filled with algae pools to satisfy Europe's current fuel needs. A "leap in micro-algae technology" is needed to at least triple productivity, say experts.
Pyle and Robertson are convinced that this increase is possible. They insist that algae technology can be used to meet a significant portion of our energy requirements in the future. "There is certainly enough non-arable land with enough solar radiation and enough CO2 and water sourcing in the world," says Robertson. Another important advantage, he adds, is that algae-based fuel could easily be pumped into the oil industry's existing pipelines and refineries, and that cars and aircraft would not have to be modified to accommodate the biofuel.
From Der Spiegel
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