

A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy - nkurz
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/a-skeptic-looks-at-alternative-energy/0

======
brc
That's probably one of the best articles I've read on the real nature of
'alternative' energy in a while.

My rule of thumb is simple : if someone calls it 'Alternative Energy', it
means it's an alternate to having a cheap, ready supply of energy. Otherwise,
it would just be called 'energy'. Nobody calls Nuclear power alternate energy,
even though it's radically different to anything else that came before it in
terms of generating power.

The percentage of power generated from wind globally, currently, rounded to
the nearest decimal place is zero.

Trillions of dollars have been spent on windfarms and solar panels around the
world, and, as the article notes, it has made zero difference to the overall
energy mix. Yet it has affected national economies in real ways - the
bankruptcies in Germany, Spain and elsewhere have real costs, as does taking
the most basic economic input - energy - and making it more expensive for zero
environmental gain at the global level. Despite the countless examples of
failures to point to, the boosters insist that it's the right course, when any
plain analysis shows the exact opposite.

There are plenty of people who hand-wave around the very real problems as
outlined in the article, and say things like 'give it time, it will work out'.
But you have to be a starry-eyed believer who trusts in state-coerced
solutions to gloss over the myriad of problems of trying to jump-start
essentially niche technologies into mainstream adoption.

It takes real courage to rely on human ingenuity to solve problems and come up
with solutions. It's frightening to look at an issue and realise you have no
answers at all.

But what's worse is to set off on a futile and damaging strategy just to be
seen to be doing something, when that thing is ineffective at best, and
damaging at worst due to the self-delusion inherent. This holds at the
personal, family, business, state, national and global level.

~~~
rayiner
> The percentage of power generated from wind globally, currently, rounded to
> the nearest decimal place is zero.

This is just not true. I'm not sure what it is globally, but in the US it's
several percent (which is not zero percent under any rounding I'm aware of).
More to the point, it produces more than 10% of the electricity in five U.S.
states. It's also the fastest-growing energy source in the world, even faster
than natural gas.

> Trillions of dollars have been spent on windfarms and solar panels around
> the world, and, as the article notes, it has made zero difference to the
> overall energy mix.

Nowhere near "trillions of dollars" have been spent on wind farms. You're just
making things up.

> Yet it has affected national economies in real ways - the bankruptcies in
> Germany, Spain and elsewhere have real costs, as does taking the most basic
> economic input - energy - and making it more expensive for zero
> environmental gain at the global level.

The bankruptcies in Germany, Spain, etc, are the fault of alternative energy?

> Despite the countless examples of failures to point to, the boosters insist
> that it's the right course, when any plain analysis shows the exact
> opposite.

The analysis of the "skeptics" almost always leaves out the vast externalized
costs of traditional energy sources. E.g. if hundreds of billions of dollars
of externalized costs from coal were factored into the price of coal, coal
power would be more expensive than wind power:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-cooper/harvard-study-
coal...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-cooper/harvard-study-coal-costs-
_b_831755.html).

> But you have to be a starry-eyed believer who trusts in state-coerced
> solutions

There is nothing starry-eyed about the economists who point out that the free
market naturally underproduces fundamental R&D. Pick up an Economics 101 book
sometime.

~~~
brc
\- Globally wind power produced < 0.5% of energy last year. Most people
forget, or don't realise, that the current obsession with alternative energy
is limited to parts of Western Europe and parts of the USA. It has virtually
no traction elsewhere in the world.

\- You're right, I should have written billions instead of trillions, though
I'd be surprised if it hasn't reached a trillion by now. It's still an insane
amount of money.

\- Bankruptcies in Germany and Spain by solar companies are very much the
cause of bad policies - by pumping up a sector with unsustainable subsidies,
then being forced to remove subsidies precisely because they are
unsustainable. This creates a bubble into which resources rush, which then
bursts and creates a lot of problems.

This is the fundamental problem, of trying to coerce a particular set of
technologies into place when they aren't suitable for it. The correct response
is to admit there is no current technical solution to affordable energy
without burning stuff. There is a noisy subset of people who don't agree with
this position, and that's fair enough. History has always proven that major
advances come from unexpected areas, and tend to render prior technologies
obselete almost overnight.

~~~
ghouse
These comments are not necessary exclusive. Parent said electricity while brc
indicates globally wind power produced < 0.% of <energy>.

Of course, no thermal plant has been built in the US in the past 50 years
without some subsidies -- both direct and indirect. So, it's a bit of a red-
herring argument.

~~~
rayiner
The "no subsidies" bit is really a massive red-herring.

Even without taxes, fossil fuels are hugely subsidized. The lack of effective
legal frameworks to prevent e.g. coal plants from shifting the inherent costs
of coal power onto people in surrounding neighborhoods is an implicit subsidy.
Letting them shift $100 of environmental damage onto the residents of West
Virginia is exactly the same as giving them a $100 check.

------
acslater00
The future of energy is natural gas. End of story.

Alternative natural gas production -- "fracking" generally -- has been
researched, prototyped, implemented, and grown over the past 15-20 years to
the point where one can reasonably envision a future where natural gas
displaces coal and crude oil to become the most important energy sources in
the world.

It emits way less carbon than coal or oil, it is everywhere, it can be
liquified relatively cheaply and transported around the world by super tanker,
people are less afraid of it than nuclear power, and the technology to
actually use it has been around forever. Electricity...home heating...hydrogen
fuel cells...all easy with natural gas.

As a general rule, when The Economist publishes a 14-page spread about
something, it's pretty much hit the mainstream. They did that 2 weeks ago.
<http://www.economist.com/node/21558432>

~~~
btipling
How much natural gas is there, and how long will it last?

~~~
guscost
The near future of American energy is natural gas. Are you telling me that
somebody knows what's going to happen after that?

~~~
acslater00
Fair enough.

------
lancewiggs
3 immediate flaws:

He ignores completely hydro and geothermal power. They help Iceland (100%) and
New Zealand (77%) amongst others to near complete sustainability for
electricity generation.

While mentioned, the cost of co2e emissions from gas is glossed over. Charge
the true economic value for emissions and hydrocarbon sources are going to be
wildly more expensive.

He criticizes China for unfairly subsidizing wind on the one hand (their solar
story is amazing btw) then complains China is building too many coal plants
shortly thereafter.

~~~
brc
NZ and Iceland are tiny.

Iceland has a total population of 319,000.

NZ has a total population of 4.4m.

Both are situated on active volcanic areas.

Iceland is a geologically new island formed by the spreading of the mid-
atlantic ridge.

NZ is basically a giant mountain range sticking out from the bottom of the
ocean, in a climate where it rains and snows, a lot.

They are interesting cases in using technology to generate power both at low
cost and minimal environmental impact, but in no way at all are they models
for the rest of the world.

An externality can't be costed because there is no way to know the cost. You
can only model it. As there is no way to validate the model, you end up with
many competing models with no way of knowing which one is correct. As such,
you can't give an accurate price.

~~~
anthonyb
Borehole geothermal is possible too. Basically, find a large, hot mass of rock
close to the surface, drill down a couple of kilometres, pump water down and
get steam out (typical temp is ~200-300C).

That's in Australia, known for its geological stability, lack of active
volcanoes, etc.

~~~
jacques_chester
In _theory_.

In practice nobody has managed to produce a commercial-scale plant that
actually does that.

For example: the deeper the borehole, the more noticeable the effect of
tectonic drift.

~~~
anthonyb
Drift? Not in Australia. Even in other parts of the world, most of the
boreholes are proposed in large granite masses (they're hot because of
radioactive decay as well as conduction) which are relatively static.

Mostly it's just an issue of getting enough investment to get a plant off the
ground - there's no major technical impediment involved.

~~~
jacques_chester
Yes, even in Australia. We're very stable by geological standards, yet we
still have minor fault lines and the whole plate is still moving north.

When your borehole is kilometres deep it only takes a tiny amount of drift to
start breaking stuff all up and down the system.

And superhot steam is not exactly a friendly substance to begin with.

The main company who've been working on the Australian deep-drilling
geothermal problem is Geodynamics. And they have been at it for years and
years. They've consumed tens of millions of dollars and have, so far, not
successfully produced a deep-geothermal plant.

It's just not as easy as people make out.

~~~
LockeWatts
>And superhot steam is not exactly a friendly substance to begin with.

Don't pretty much all power sources use "superhot" steam to turn turbines?
What's special about this steam?

~~~
jacques_chester
It's dirty.

Laugh if you like; but the stuff used in stationary plants isn't full of an
unpredictable cocktail of dissolved minerals and hydrocarbons.

Truthfully I am not across the detail of the problems with deep boreholes.

I _am_ however across the fact that it hasn't worked yet. And we're talking
stuff that Very Intelligent People With A Lot Of Funding have been working on
for quite a while at this point. And they don't even have a working proof-of-
concept plant working yet.

Deep borehole geothermal sounds great on paper, but the engineering challenges
are enormous and yet to be surmounted. By comparison oil, gas and _especially_
coal are absolute doddles with work with.

------
aannnaa
Clean energy is expensive, takes a long time to build, and introduces more
problems, but we have no other choice! We can either suffer the consequences
of global warming or try to avoid the worst of it. Sticking with fossil fuels
is not a choice unless we can somehow make them out of C02 we remove from the
atmosphere for that purpose. All the choices we could make to deal with the
global energy crisis are terrible, we have to pick the one that hurts the
least. We can hurt the economy and stop burning fossil fuels, or we can take
almost certainly catastrophic risks with the only planet we have to live on.

People love to blame China, but they are polluting to make goods we then
import in many cases and are not responsible for squandering the giant fossil
fuel inheritance of the modern age. Of course they may wish to get their share
of what remains as long as everyone else is burning it anyway.

~~~
ars
> Clean energy is expensive, takes a long time to build, and introduces more
> problems,

And doesn't exist. Nuclear power is the best option, with natural gas second.
Everything else is too small to matter.

~~~
aannnaa
A back of the envelope calculation shows that solar and wind power can both be
useful components of an overall energy solution ([http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-
the-math/2011/12/wind-fights-sola...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-
math/2011/12/wind-fights-solar/) also see David MacKay's excellent book free
online <http://www.withouthotair.com/>). Ultimately, solar is more abundant
than wind and is sufficiently abundant that it can be useful in dealing with
the energy crisis. But, I don't care, I want any plan that adds up. Solar and
wind could be a piece of such a plan so I don't rule them out. Fission is very
attractive as well, especially for baseload power. None of these things solve
the liquid fuels crisis and there is no sign that we are building ANY of them
on a sufficient scale anyway, so we are probably doomed to play dangerous
games with the earth's climate.

------
pserwylo
I started reading it and admiring their attention to detail with the first two
charts. Extremely clear and informative:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/07OLAltEnergytechfig3-134088965...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/07OLAltEnergytechfig3-1340889659713.jpg)

Then it went down hill fast, culminating in stuff like this:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/07OLAltEnergyFigIcon3-134012678...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/07OLAltEnergyFigIcon3-1340126783409.jpg)
and
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/07OLAltEnergyFigIcon5-134020183...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/07OLAltEnergyFigIcon5-1340201830000.jpg)

Edit: spelling.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not sure what to make of that last chart... it's showing wind power
increasing from 0.09% to 2.91% in only 20 years (which is the blink of an eye
in an industry that moves as glacially slow as electricity production--Chicago
just this year shut down a couple of coal plants that were over a century
old). If the trend holds up then in another 20 years alms tall our electricity
will be produced by wind!

~~~
mc32
I think his point about that is that promises of renewables replacing
traditional sources in ten and twenty year time-frames (such as the proponents
he cites) is wildly optimistic. I think the time frames to adoption and ramp-
up to significant share are his main points of contention, via a vis boosters
of renewables as solution to our energy problems.

~~~
rayiner
It seems like a very "neener-neener" argument to me. Okay, so what, proponents
of wind and solar a decade ago were overly optimistic about how quickly such
technologies would take over. NASA scientists also thought we'd be going to
Mars by 2025. What does that prove?

At the end of the day, the installed capacity of wind power has tripled in
just the last several years. The price of solar panels has fallen through the
floor. A number of U.S. states are seeing immediate local benefits from
supplying > 10% of their electricity through wind power. I'm not quite sure
why "% of global electricity consumption" is the only salient metric. Even if
Texas's gas guzzling keeps the overall % low, Iowa still has cleaner air by
supplying 14% of its electricity needs through wind power.

~~~
mc32
> NASA scientists also thought we'd be going to Mars by 2025. What does that
> prove?

We don't _have_ to go to Mars tomorrow. We _do_ need energy right now. Panel
prices have fallen through the floor, but panels are only one component in the
PV energy production cycle. He cites that residential PV production cost per
kW/h hasn't changed significantly since the 2000's. (~¢30 sunny and ~¢60
cloudy areas) traditional production means average 11 to ¢12 kW/h.

>A number of U.S. states are seeing immediate local benefits from supplying >
10% of their electricity through wind power.

That's definitely a positive outcome, but an investment in anything will bring
jobs (tearing up roads and repaving). I think he's trying to find out it it
makes economic sense to invest in wind power versus something else. I think
it's debatable, at least. He might be proven wrong, but so might others.

>I'm not quite sure why "% of global electricity consumption" is the only
salient metric

I think it's because his main point is about trying to prevent going over the
450ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere --which isn't regionally manifested but
globally manifested.

------
twelvechairs
HN is not good with discussing these kind of articles. Far too many armchair
experts. At least with the programming articles you get the occasional comment
from someone who really knows something. Here its just a lot of noise.

~~~
guscost
Instead of any sort of useful statement _about_ the article, what's this? A
thinly-veiled appeal to authority, simultaneously claiming that I am the weak
link in this thread? Yes please...

~~~
twelvechairs
I don't understand your point. Is there a rule against discussing the
discussion? Its not appealing to any authority or claiming anything of the
sort you describe - you are putting words in my mouth...

------
india
The article notes that the total CO2 emission from India and China is rising
and crossing the US. This is true but the per capita emission is still a
fraction of that of US[1]. It will be impossible for China and India to
compete if they aren't allowed the same per capita emission as the developed
world. Per capita the US CO2 emission is huge.

[1]
[http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=co2+emissions+per+capita&...](http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=co2+emissions+per+capita&d=WDI&f=Indicator_Code%3aEN.ATM.CO2E.PC%3bCountry_Code%3aCHN%2cIND%2cUSA%3bTime_Code%3aYR2008&c=1,2&s=Country_Name:asc&p=Time_Code&v=1)

~~~
mc32
I don't think his main point was to compare per capita emissions but to
illustrate the futility in deploying comparatively costly alternative energies
when the great majority of new energy production is "dirty".

~~~
ghouse
Though, his op/ed was devoid of any data regarding cost.

------
pejoculant
This article article is ridiculous. He acts as if alternative energy sources
must be cheaper than our current energy sources to be worthwhile. Of course
alternative energy sources cost less, if they didn't we wouldn't be having
this discussion. There would not be much of a need to worry about co2
emissions.

But in fact we do live in a world where co2 emissions are an issue. The author
more or less acknowledges this and then simply ignores it. What exactly is he
proposing as an alternative? Nothing. If we are to avoid the worst effects of
global warming we're going to have to pay a price.

Furthermore he then goes on to completely paper over the fact that costs have
been dropping significantly. The numbers that he sites for solar prices come
from here: [http://www.solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/retail-price-
envi...](http://www.solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/retail-price-
environment/solar-electricity-prices)

Solar module prices have dropped 50% over the last decade. Working backward
from the numbers on solarbuzz that would mean that a residential scale
system's price has dropped 25%.

And by cherry picking the prices for a residential scale installation (28.9 /
63.1 cents per kwh) he ignores the fact that industrial scale systems are much
closer to parity. The price for these systems is half of that 15.15 / 33.3.
And these numbers have been declining. While the age of mass scale
decentralized solar generation may not be here yet, the age of solar may be
here much sooner than the author would like to admit.

------
ajcarpy2005
There can be no denying that solar panels and other alternative energy sources
_are_ an extremely good long-term investment for those who own homes or brick
and mortar companies. Don't let any amount of "skepticism" fool you into
thinking it is not a good investment.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
I won't inconvenience you with the facts, then

~~~
ajcarpy2005
approx. 8 year payoff (to break even with what you would have paid for utility
bills) with around a 30 year lifespan at least...4x ROI. How is that a bad
investment??

~~~
brc
Because it relies on someone overpaying you for the electricity produced,
which is added onto someone elses' bill.

In a democracy, that's not sustainable. Sooner or later, someone will get
voted in that promises the remove the subsidy.

Indeed this is happening all over the world.

It also leads to resource misallocation whereby time + money + manpower is
spent farming subsidies over other productive activities.

If your example is for an unsubsidised installation, then it's a good ROI.
Otherwise, it's a bad idea as well as morally questionable. The poorer members
of society shouldn't pay more for basic energy to make richer members get
excessive returns.

~~~
ghouse
You assume specific aspects regarding the regulatory environment for the
parent. Are you sure that they're talking about a full-NEM style arrangement
like found in California, or is it something akin to Australia (or Wisconsin)
where you're credited at avoided cost for exports to the grid?

I strongly agree that subsidies distort markets (usually to the detriment of
society). However, with energy, emerging technologies are competing with
incumbent technologies with a host of direct and indirect subsidies.

Regardless, for the parent -- solar isn't always a good investment. You need
sunny areas with high electricity prices. While this is found frequently, it
is not ubiquitous.

~~~
brc
Most of Australia has had what are called 'FiT' or 'Feed in Tariff'. This was
a price above and beyond the retail price of electricity that was paid for
solar panel owners.

It varies state to state, but was up to 44c kwh.

However, because of the fact that these schemes blew out in cost (original
estimates in NSW were about $1.6b in total, but ended up something like $6b
per year) - principally because of the same analysis as the parent comment -
'hey ! free money!' - the schemes are being wound back agressively and closed
to new entrants. In most cases, they have been trimmed back to pay the
wholesale cost of electricity if your house is a net producer.

The perverse incentives meant that many people would turn everything off
during the day, and then switch it all on again as soon as the solar panels
stopped producing power. So daytime usage would end up exporting maximum power
to the grid, while nighttime usage would climb as homeowners used power-hungry
appliances like clothes dryers after dark.

The end result is that a lot of small businesses that started up will now
close in a classic boom-bust cycle that could have been prevented.

In case it's not clear, I have a very real moral problem with subsidised solar
power. Nobody would float the idea of a law that meant bus prices were
increased to pay rebates to owners of a Mercedes, but effectively that is what
solar FIT regimes do. They increase the cost of energy for people who cannot
afford a solar panel install (those in rented accomodation, or in multi-unit
dwellings) to benefit those who have their own house and the spare capital to
spend on solar panels.

~~~
anthonyb
$6b is not so bad when you consider that coal subsidies are in about the same
ballpark: [http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/coal-and-gas-
paid-7b-...](http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/coal-and-gas-paid-7b-in-
subsidies/story-fn7kjcme-1226301312395)

And there's no moral problem. To paraphrase Winston Churchill - you're just
haggling over the price.

~~~
rimantas
And the amount of energy produced is in the same ballpark too?

~~~
anthonyb
We're talking cost per kWhr, so yes, per kWhr.

The issue is that coal is quoted at 10c/kWhr, solar at a higher rate, but that
neglects subsidies and negative externalities like climate change. Once you
balance the subsidies and introduce a carbon price, coal starts to look a lot
worse.

------
guscost
Yep, this plainly correct argument has been persistently ignored by everyone
on the bandwagon for an embarrassingly long time now, and that is leading,
predictably, to some unfortunate situations. Nice to see that the IEEE has at
least an ounce of integrity left.

------
anovikov
The article somehow implies that the feed-in tariff is Germany was 0.57 EUR
until 2011 when it was cut 29%. In fact, there is a formula for automatic
tariff cuts built into the law that introduced them: if i recall it correctly,
tariff goes 8% down each year at least, but more if there is over 3.5 GW
installed. That way, they descended to the levels that are currently much
below retail electricity prices there, 0.17-0.24 EUR depending on the size of
installation, with electricity being 0.24-0.29 depending on the region. And
yet it is highly profitable to install solar systems there.

Retail grid parity in Germany has been achieved.

------
rorrr
No mention of liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR) or algae-produced oil.
Lame.

~~~
anusinha
Or many of the other promising and fascinating technologies currently being
developed. Not all of them will work, but a few innovations will go a long way
to fixing the energy problem.

------
ktizo
Solar with storage will become ubiquitous when the price point on the storage
becomes low enough. The panels themselves are right on the edge of mainstream
viability right now, and the technologies involved are getting cheaper and
more efficient all the time and unlike most other energy production methods,
can be successfully integrated into existing urban architecture.

~~~
ars
The panels have been "right on the edge of mainstream viability" for 20-30
years now. What's different this time?

~~~
ktizo
this - [http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/energy-prices-two-
trend...](http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/energy-prices-two-
trends-2-graphs/)

~~~
ars
It's hard to take those graphs seriously when they are not logarithmic, but I
see your point.

Also, comparing to oil is terrible - they should compare to electricity
instead which has hardly changed in price.

And if the price is really falling so well, why are we pushing things? Let the
price keep falling and people will naturally switch, with no need to
subsidies.

Speaking of - does that price take into account subsidies?

