[p2p-research] Fwd: there is no energy crisis

[Michel Bauwens]

This is a rather strong challenge to the piece published here,
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/can-distributed-renewable-energy-solve-the-energy-crisis-right-now/2009/02/19,
and which contains Vinay's optimistic assessment on the energy crisis,

Michel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kurt Cobb <kurtcobb2001 at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: there is no energy crisis
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>


Michel,

Where to start?  I know nothing of Mr. Gupta other than what you have linked
to so I cannot comment on his credentials or record.  But I can say this
about his statements. Solar companies, especially the ones involved in
thin-film research, have often made extravagant claims in the past that have
turned out to be nothing more than hype designed to get them funding and
media attention.  What they claimed they could do, they simply could not
deliver.  Whether Nanosolar will be just another in a long line of hype
artists, we can't tell at this point.  I would, however, suggest checking
out the figures quoted to make sure Nanosolar actually put them in a public
release.

What I can tell from their website is that they are using the same rare
minerals in their substrates as other thin-film makers, namely, indium and
gallium.  Let's assume for the moment that Nanosolar does, in fact, have a
revolutionary new process.  Will that process actually bring down the cost
of thin-film solar or will it hit a bottleneck when it comes to the
available indium and gallium supplies?  One scientist in Germany has
attempted to catalog our known reserves of indium which is used extensively
also in flat panel displays.  He figures we have 15 years left at current
rates of usage.  And if we have a large new user such as thin-film solar,
then the supply would be gone that much faster. (Amazingly, nobody else has
attempted to find out how much of these critical rare minerals we might have
left!)

As for gallium, well, there are no gallium mines.  Gallium is a byproduct of
copper mining. So, you are at the mercy of the level of activity in the
copper mining industry for your supplies, and right now that level is
declining sharply because of the worldwide economic contraction.  Nobody
mines copper for the gallium content.  It simply isn't economical and never
will be since the amounts are so miniscule in the ore.

So, we have a straightforward resource bottleneck for critical inputs.  But,
Nanosolar will just come up with a substitute, you may say.  Yes, perhaps,
but when?  Keep in mind that the claims they are making are based on their
current technology which uses these inputs and they are not anticipating
that they will have to find substitutes for these.

Second, there are the problems of scale and time.  If you have a very long
time, say, several decades the build up production and distribution of
thin-panel solar and you assume improvements and substitutions of more
plentiful inputs for the rare metals, then perhaps you can get the kind of
solar electric revolution Mr. Gupta speaks of.  But if you need to make the
change, say, in the next decade, then you are going to find it difficult to
build the plants, find or train the necessary people and distribute the
product widely in such a short period of time on the scale necessary.  If
you are faced with falling fossil fuel supplies at the same time, you will
find it hard to pay for the fossil fuel energy which must be used initially
to do most of what you need to do.

Third, there is the problem of energy return on energy invested, often
abbreviated EROEI.  Solar thin-film is highly inefficient compared to
conventional solar.  You are going to need an awful lot of it simply to keep
up with growth in electricity demand let alone substitute for fossil-fuel
generated electricity.  Solar has an very low EROEI compared to say coal.
Coal can be as high as 80 to1.  Solar is around 2 to 1 at best.  We are
going from a very high density energy source to a low-density energy
source.  Which means we are going to need far more space and resources just
to deploy it.

Fourth, the real energy shortage we face in the near-term is liquid fuels.
Solar panels do nothing to help alleviate that problem.  Sure, we could
electrify our transportation system, something for which I am a strong
advocate.  But then we are back to the scale and time problem.  How fast do
we need to do this and at what scale?  My answer is very fast and at a very
large scale.  These two are hard to reconcile.

I've discussed these issues in a series of columns for
Scitizen<http://www.scitizen.com/screens/usersPage/userSummary/sw_userDisplay.php?idUserDisplayed=863&sign=02cd303b5f9a176c4a2eedcd15000f51>.
The titles that are relevant are: Receding Horizons for Alternative Energy
Supplies<http://www.scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2008/09/Receding-Horizons--for-Alternative-Energy-Supplies/>,
Will the Rate-of-Conversion Problem Derail Alternative
Energy?<http://www.scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2008/05/Will-the-Rate-of-Conversion-Problem-Derail-Alternative-Energy/>,How
Many Windmills Does It Take to Power the
World?<http://www.scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2008/02/How-Many-Windmills-Does-It-Take-to-Power-the-World/>andCharlie
Hall's Balloon Graph<http://www.scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2007/12/Charlie-Hall-s-Balloon-Graph/>
.

The coming energy transition, in my view, will be difficult and fraught with
missteps--if it succeeds at all. The simple solutions that are being bandied
about now distract from our main task, namely, drastically cutting back our
energy use to that we can live within the meager amounts of energy that
renewable energy will actually be able to provide.  I believe this is
possible.  But it won't happen if everyone is led to believe that there is
an easy supply solution just waiting for us.

Before I close, let me say that I believe your thinking about our need for
decentralized, regional and local systems of governance, industry and food
production is right on target.  The tools we have, especially the Internet,
offer excellent ways to help coordinate this transition.  But these networks
of communication need to be face-to-face right in our communities as well
and that work is a bit harder.

Keep up the good work and good thinking you are doing.  I hope the
information I've provided will be useful to you.

Best regards,

Kurt Cobb
Resource Insights <http://www.resourceinsights.blogspot.com/>

------------------------------
*From:* Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
*To:* kurtcobb2001 at yahoo.com
*Sent:* Monday, February 16, 2009 11:16:03 PM
*Subject:* there is no energy crisis

Dear Kurt,

I wonder if I could ask you for a reaction, it doesn't have to be long, or
perhaps you can point me to an existing piece on the topic,

on the claim expressed by Vinay Gupta in the piece which I'll publish on the
20th , on our p2p blog which is read by about 2,000 people daily,

see
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/can-distributed-renewable-energy-solve-the-energy-crisis-right-now/2009/02/20

he claims that: there is no energy crisis, pointing to developments like
nanosolar etc..., see below for the full text of that entry:


text:

Can distributed renewable energy solve the energy crisis, right
now???<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/can-distributed-renewable-energy-solve-the-energy-crisis-right-now/2009/02/20>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]Michel Bauwens
20th February 2009

 in real terms, even when you factor in all of those costs, solar power is
likely to produce power at about half the cost of the cheapest coal-fired
power plants

Nanosolar, Konarka, and the dozens of other solar power outfits who are
pushing the price of solar down, down, down below the price of coal power,
and towards the a few cents a watt for the panel, meaning your daylight
power comes down below 1 cent per kilowatt hour, or maybe 20% of the
cheapest current grid power. The whole world is going to get electricity. In
many areas, this will immediately lead to vast improvements in lifestyle and
economic productivity as electric tractors, pumps, daytime-factories and
many other applications are found for the newfound power.

Both citations are from Vinay
Gupta<http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/whats-going-to-happen-in-the-future-670>
.

But some background first.

>From my research for the P2P Foundation, I have come to the conclusion that
a P2P-based society would be based on a set of inter-related
infrastructures:

- a distributed communication and coordination infrastructure, which we
essentially already have, despite its imperfections (some would argue we
need a distributed decision-enabling infrastructure on top of that, but I
think that a virtual infrastructure is not essential, and that the tools for
open and transparent government are also essentially there)

- a distributed money infrastructure: we need civil-society based mutual
credit and open money systems that can be used both locally and for online
affinity groups. Many of the tools are already available.

- distributed agriculture and manufacturing: this is the part which has been
emerging with open design communities, on which Marcin Jakubowski is working
with his Open Source Ecology project. I think we need about 15 more years
for substantial achievements in this area.

If I have not forgotten anything else, this leaves one more important
infrastructure: peer to peer energy, i.e. the ability to produce energy at a
hyperlocal scale.

Readers who will have read Mike Davis take on global
warming<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/only-democratic-and-green-cities-can-save-us-from-climate-catastrophe/2009/02/17>,
may be convinced that our efforts in renewable energy and carbon capping are
failing.

But amongst our network of experts, Vinay Gupta of Global Swadeshi takes a
rather radical point of view. While it does not negate the damage that can
be done through our continued use of fossil fuels, it does suggest that Peak
Oil is not such a fundamental drawback for the next phase of civilisation
based on distributed renewable energies.

In fact, says Gupta, these alternatives already exist, and just have to be
implemented:

"*There's no energy crisis*. If we work on scaling plastic solar panel
manufacture, we'll cut human CO2 emissions by 40% (the proportion currently
produced by coal) in 20 years because it will simply be uneconomic to keep
the coal plants burning."

For evidence, he points to Nanosolar <http://nanosolar.com/>, about which he
gives the following, rather amazing figures: "*Panel cost of manufacture is
said to be $0.30 per watt. Panel cost at retail is around $1. Price of a
machine which will print panels: $0.16 per panel per year*."

He explains<http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-age-of-cheap-solar-energy-now-to-be-precise-738>:
"*So what does this mean in terms of electricity supply? Simply put, it
means that in some applications, solar power's real cost is about half that
of a coal fired power plant today and it's only going to get cheaper. We're
likely to see solar displace nearly all of the world's coal plants within 20
years, cutting CO2 emissions by 40%*."

And this is just the beginning, a competing project, Konarka
Technologies<http://konarka.com/>,
*"thinks their panels will be about 1/3 the price of nanosolar. In about a
year or so."*

WorldChanging reports
<http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009415.html>that a same kind of
promising development may be about to happen in
windpower:

"The Jellyfish will do for the wind power industry what the personal
computer did for the computer industry. Although the engineering community
likes to think bigger is better, Maglaque said, we should remain open minded
about using both big and small turbines to power the renewable energy
revolution."

*"A mere 36 inches tall, the plug-in wind appliance can generate about 40
kilowatt hours each month, that's enough to light a home using
high-efficiency bulbs, said Maglaque. And although micro-wind is nothing
new, at $400 a pop, the Jellyfish's price and simplicity make it a fresh
face in the market."*

The participative, peer to peer, aspects of this potential new distributed
energy are well described in the article:

*"Maglaque hopes that the Jellyfish
<http://www.clariantechnologies.com/>will soon be an item you can
purchase at any local hardware store, just like
a vacuum or blender. And with the combination of access, affordability and
easy assembly, he hopes that eventually we will see his invention on every
rooftop. While that level of ubiquity is, of course, the hope of any
inventor, Maglaque also has a bigger vision: bring massive change to our
relationship with energy creation. No longer would energy be something that
we switch on mindlessly, and utility bills something that we begrudgingly
pay monthly. Instead, personal wind power would allow us to generate energy,
involving us in the process instead of just delivering uncontrollable
results. *

*As with other personal renewable energy tools, this one could help us
create energy, sell it back to the grid, watch as our energy bills drop and
hopefully witness the creation of a better, more reliable grid system
through our investment in the utility. *

*One vision that Maglaque shared was for the Jellyfish to help enable
district wind energy co-ops. Imagining thousands of personal wind turbines
all creating energy for the grid. He said neighbors could join together to
work collectively with the power utilities.*

*"Say you've got 10,000 units in one city. If you connect those units on a
server, and generate power together — managing and regulating that power —
you are in a position to work with power utilities," Maglaque said. "This is
good for customers because it provides a marginal return, and utilities like
this as well because a: you have on demand power, and b: you free up funds
to be allocated to the grid network that needs expansion and repair."*

*Another hope of Maglaques's is for the Jellyfish to help people in
developing countries leapfrog over dirty energy and jump more quickly into
renewables."*

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed
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 One Response to "Can distributed renewable energy solve the energy crisis,
right now???"

   1. Michel Bauwens <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/> Says:
   February 16th, 2009 at 5:21
am<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/can-distributed-renewable-energy-solve-the-energy-crisis-right-now/2009/02/20#comment-378920>
   e<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/wp-admin/comment.php?action=editcomment&c=378920>

   Kevin Carson, via email:

   "In general terms I agree, although I don't know enough to have an
   opinion about whether some form of photovoltaic will pan out and beat
   fossil fuels in terms of EROEI.

   But more generally, all the building blocks of an alternative,
   decentralized and less energy-guzzling economy are out there and ready
   to adopt. As Amory Lovins et al argued in Natural Capitalism, the
   main thing holding it back is cultural inertia and path dependency.
   When energy prices get high enough, they'll overcome that inertia.
   And according to Lovins et al, just the low-hanging fruit (things like
   replacing trucks with trains and cogenerating power from industrial
   waste heat) could eliminate more than half our current fossil fuel
   consumption.

   On a more radical level, the building blocks are already out there for
   local, small-scale manufacturing economies, as well as the
   prerequisites for shifting a considerable portion of production to the
   household or neighborhood barter economy. As little known as they
   are, I expect skyrocketing energy prices and a collapse of much of the
   wage economy to make it a lot easier for those currently involved with
   such technologies to promote them. For example, almost nobody in the
   conventional building industry knows about passive solar cooling by
   running intake pipes underground. But some people, scattered around
   the country, do have it. And when the cost of air conditioning a
   conventional tract house rises to $300 a month, I expect a guy whose
   house is cooled for $0 a month to generate some hellacious word of
   mouth in surrounding neighborhoods.

   As I've also argued elsewhere, I expect small machine shops and
   backyard hobby shops to become the basis of a localized industrial
   economy, under pressure of necessity, when the supply chains of the
   centralized corporate industrial economy collapse. This was the focus
   of my discussion of S.M. Stirling's fictional industrial economy in
   the Nantucket trilogy, which I raised in an exchange with Samantha
   Atkins on the Open Manufacturing list.

   Coupling such distributed manufacturing with microenterprises
   (bakeries, day care centers, cab services, market gardens,
   microbreweries, etc.) run out of people's homes using their ordinary
   household capital equipment, and with liquidity provided by LETS
   systems if the old currency collapses, I think thriving local
   economies will expand to fill the gap pretty quickly under pressure of
   necessity.

   One thing that will help the transition will be if the U.S.
   government, state governments, and other "hollowed out states" lack
   the capability of enforcing bank ownership of paper on defaulting
   mortgagers, and we can transition as the banks collapse to a default
   system of ownership based on current possession. That, and no
   last-ditch effort at large-scale police statism to enforce the DMCA
   and suchlike.

   FWIW, I also expect the collapse to be a long one (a "long emergency")
   taking around two decades, so there will be no catastrophic collapse
   and sudden vacuum to fill. But even when collapses have been
   catastrophic, as in Argentina early in the decade, people have been
   extremely resilient and creative in finding ways to make things work
   in the face of necessity."



-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/




-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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