Archive for February, 2010
Posted by wastedenergy on February 28, 2010
Most people believe there are substitutes to be found for the raw materials out of which civilization is built. To an extent, there is truth to this belief. Cement can substitute for brick, and vice versa. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and biomass, can substitute for coal and methane, which in turn can substitute for each other, at least by degrees.
But a few materials have such unique and essential characteristics that no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we innovate, no substitute can be found.
Posted in Energy Production, Water and Soil | Tagged: copper, economics, grid | Leave a Comment »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 28, 2010
For conventional sources of energy, like coal or gas, it is a fairly simple matter to determine whether the source provides power that is “base loading,” i.e. it is, or at least can be, run 24/7 in order to meet a community’s “base load,” or minimum power requirements over a given time period such as a season or a year. For instance, most coal power plants, and other plants that burn solid fuels like wood or solid waste, are run as base loading plants, since it takes at least several hours for enough fuel to ignite so that the plant can run at its designed capacity. It is desirable, therefore, to run these plants in longer “campaigns” of several months or more at a time, in order to meet the base load needs of a community in a given year or season.
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Posted in Energy Production | Tagged: solar, wind | 3 Comments »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 28, 2010
Oil infuses everything we do. It almost doesn’t need to be said, but it is worth reminding ourselves of just how pervasive this substance really is, and just how little replacement there really is for oil as a resource. Economists and like-minded optimists seem to believe that once oil becomes scarce, we’ll magically conjure up some kind of substitute, that the “invisible hand” will pull some rabbit out of the hat that can keep things going once oil production has peaked and begins its inevitable decline. Rather than viewing oil, and the high-quality, readily usable energy it provides, as the foundation that drives every aspect of our modern globalized society, they tend to view it as just another commodity for which substitutes can be found, ignoring the many examples history provides of other resource-dependent civilizations that have collapsed rather than finding adequate substitutes.
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Posted in Agriculture and Food, Energy Consumption, Energy Production, Water and Soil | Tagged: automobiles, economics, food, peak oil | Leave a Comment »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 27, 2010
As the United States embarks once again upon a discussion of alternatives to its longtime dependence on energy from fossil fuels, many people are suggesting that restarting the nuclear power industry in the U.S. would be a good idea. I believe nuclear power appeals mostly to folks who believe in the “infinite progress” version of history, and do not have a very good sense of the way that energy crises have played into the collapses of civilizations in the past.
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Posted in Energy Consumption, Energy Production, Water and Soil | Tagged: economics, nuclear | Leave a Comment »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 27, 2010
A lot of attention has been focused recently on “green energy” from solid waste, more commonly known as “trash” or “garbage.” In fact, everyone and their mother, including many folks who have never made much effort to study solid waste previously, now seem fully convinced that energy from waste is the wave of the future and will provide a large amount of the answer to greenhouse gas and fossil fuel-dependence issues.
Recovering energy from waste makes good sense, since it is something that needs to be managed anyway and unlike, say, biofuels or solar power, does not therefore compete with other land uses or economic activity. It is encouraging to see so much attention being paid, but somewhat discouraging that many of the news stories being published today either confuse waste-to-energy with landfill gas, which provides a much smaller amount of energy, or promote “waste-to-ethanol” or other likely unworkable proposals. A fair number of stories have also confused energy from solid waste with wastewater, which entails an entirely different set of technologies and deserves its own discussion separate from the ways of getting energy from trash.
Attempts to reclaim value from trash in the form of renewable energy might seem novel, but in reality they are as old as the hills (or at least as old as the Puente Hills Landfill). And it would be helpful if those reporting on what they see as new developments would get their facts straight.
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Posted in Energy Production, Solid Waste | Tagged: landfill gas, waste-to-energy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 25, 2010
“The amount of work you get out of a given energy source depends, not on the amount of energy it contains, but on the difference in energy concentration between the energy source and the environment.”
The above is the clearest explanation I have seen so far on this issue. In other words, even though the Earth is bathed in lots and lots of energy from sunlight constantly, far more than humans use, replacing fossil fuels with solar energy, or a surrogate like wind power or hydropower, isn’t nearly as simple as many people assume. In fact, the reason wind, biomass, and hydropower are used at all is that they help do some of the work for us by concentrating solar energy into a more usable form.
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Posted in Energy Production | Tagged: biomass, solar | 1 Comment »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 24, 2010
If you haven’t started trying to figure out ways to live a low-consumption life, it’s time to start. Not now, but 15 years ago. And not for the reason most people talk about. Not because conservation now can buy us time to figure out a transition to “clean energy sources” so that we can continue being “energy rich,” but because it will get you used to the idea of what it will be like – and already is like for 4/5 of the world’s population – to live in a world that is energy scarce.
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Posted in Agriculture and Food, Air, Energy Consumption, Energy Production, Solid Waste, Urban Planning, Water and Soil | Tagged: biofuels, economics, peak oil | 2 Comments »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 21, 2010
Most of you are probably aware by now that WMATA (Metro Washington, DC’s transit authority) is raising fares by $0.10 per ride. There has been a lot of rabbling about town about the ten-cent fare hike, not unlike the also-largely-inconsequential five-cent plastic bag tax that went into effect a few weeks ago.
I’ll preface my comments by saying I fully support raising the fare by ten cents per ride. WMATA has a huge pile of debt and is in the midst of some major capital improvement projects, including the planning of at least one new line and the revamping of its bus fleet to meet new emissions standards and improve the fleet’s efficiency and appeal to riders. Raising fares is a good way of helping to close the budget gap while achieving these inarguably beneficial measures. And it’s a much better idea, and sends a better message, than the service cuts that were proposed as an alternate measure.
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Posted in Energy Consumption, Urban Planning | Tagged: automobiles, mass transit, Urban Planning | Leave a Comment »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 20, 2010
A small but vocal group of individuals has been talking trash about waste-to-energy lately. But do the facts really support what they’re saying?
This report takes a look at some of the talking points published on the website of one “anti-incinerator” group[i] and provides an assessment of the criticisms based on recent scientific data.
Above: Images taken from “Incinerators” page of Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance website, www.no-burn.org.
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Posted in Air, Energy Production, Solid Waste | Tagged: recycling, waste-to-energy, zero waste | 4 Comments »
Posted by wastedenergy on February 19, 2010
This is my first attempt at running my own blog. I know basically nothing about how to do it, so hopefully it will all work out ok. I hope you enjoy my musings! I’ll start by backposting some of my previous writings, so folks who are interested can see what has already been said.
I’ll be focusing mainly on issues related to energy, resources, culture and the environment, and may occasionally deviate into other tangentially related or unrelated topics.
Enjoy! And don’t forget to leave some comments.
Posted in Basics and Site Administration | Leave a Comment »
