
Altering Course: Why the US may be on the cusp of an energy revolution - ozdave
http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/altering-course
======
markbnj
I always enjoy a good energy discussion, but I'm a little dismayed when
someone claims to come to the conclusion that we can have a renewable energy
economy without lifestyle changes, and then doesn't deal with any of the
really hard problems. National grid? Electric cars? Pfft. We already know how
to do the first, and the second is closer every day. What about electric over-
the-road trucks? Container ships? Jet airliners? Trains we can do. What about
bulldozers and all the stuff we use to shape the earth to be the way we want
it? Will we be able to use electricity to heat asphalt for road repair? For
some of these things the answer is surely yes, but for a lot of stuff
centrally generated and transported electric power just won't cut it. There's
a staggering amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline, and part of why we are
where we are as a species is because you can carry a gallon and a chainsaw
five miles into the woods and clear half an acre in a day.

And then we could talk about rubber substitutes, plastic, ammonia fertilizer
from natural gas, pharmaceuticals, etc., etc. That tasty carbon-rich brew is
in fact the underlying basis for the entire Western way of life.

~~~
marcosdumay
Just replacing grid electricity and cars to renewables you get us 80% there,
and make that looming peak oil 5 times easier to handle. Once we get there, we
can start thinking about every niche that still uses fossil fuels.

People don't need to replace all energy usage at once. Also, people can't do
that, and shouldn't anyway because it's a huge risk to throw everything away
and start anew.

~~~
markbnj
I don't disagree, and it will happen because it has to, or we all go out of
business. But the article just seemed to me to paint too rosy a picture of a
painless transition to renewables without actually getting into the really
hard stuff. And by that I mean the things for which we currently have no
replacement, or only early concepts of what a replacement might be for fossil
fuels.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> And by that I mean the things for which we currently have no replacement, or
> only early concepts of what a replacement might be for fossil fuels.

Can you expound on this? Biofuels will (hopefully) be used for aircraft (best
case, algae produced at airports, converted into biofuels), and we can already
create plastics from corn and other crops.

~~~
jsymolon
the NorthEast is a big user of heating oil. Tell me what i can do to replace
800 gallons of oil a year.

Solar isn't going to work either. Not enough daylight.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> the NorthEast is a big user of heating oil. Tell me what i can do to replace
> 800 gallons of oil a year.

Insulate your home properly.

> Solar isn't going to work either. Not enough daylight.

[http://www.climatecentral.org/news/feds-largest-us-
offshore-...](http://www.climatecentral.org/news/feds-largest-us-offshore-
wind-farm-18604)

------
adventured
Almost comically, at the same exact time the pronouncement has been: 'we
wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters' \- we are in fact on the
cusp of vast, important technology revolution everywhere you look. Peter Thiel
lamented at exactly the wrong time; his statement will, fittingly, coincide
with a new epoch of forward progress.

\- Robotics everywhere

\- Virtual reality

\- Stem-cell tech, organ growing, a leap forward in drug breakthroughs (eg
Sovaldi)

\- Transportation (self-driving, electric, hyperloop)

\- Energy (rapid solar & wind build-out, rapidly falling battery costs)

\- Artificial intelligence

\- Nanotech & materials

\- Indoor farming

\- Drone tech, which will soon touch everyone and every thing in some form

~~~
Alchi
I read Thiel's argument more like a cultural criticism than the lack of
talented inventors coming up with great things.

Being engineer myself, I believe it's impossible to be a good or sane one
without being optimistic. However we always must be aware of the broader
society and HN does not represent it.

There always was some societal resistance to technological change. Socrates
hated books, for example. But take anti-vaccers. This is a group of people who
reject an undeniably proven and extremely beneficial to society advancement,
because they don't trust doctors and scientists.

Or take GMOs. In Europe some countries have banned growing of them and it
seems to be because of popular pressure. So if you are a talented crop
geneticist you are out of luck. And if you do work in the field of your
interest, you probably do at the eviil Monsanto. Because they are the only
ones that are big and rich enough to enable them to lobby politicians to stay
in business.

We should be optimistic of future, but look at the broader culture. After all
art does capture the zeitgeist and one of the most popular album of the year
2014 was titled - 1989... (music's nice though)

~~~
hackuser
Good points, but people are right to be skeptical. Often the technology can be
very damaging, from lead (in paint and in the atmosphere) to asbestos to
industrial accidents to partially hydrogenated fats to climate change, tech
has created a lot of suffering and usually that cost is mostly externalized on
the victims.

I don't reject all tech, but we can't realistically want people, especially
those without the resources to understand it for themslves, to just trust the
engineers and scientists.

------
nostrademons
The issue with renewables has always been cost, not theoretical efficiency
limits. I recall computing (and then finding that others had computed on the
Internet) that a 50x100mi array of solar panels in the Arizona desert could
power the U.S. with energy left over, and that was at efficiency levels of a
decade ago.

I talked to a couple founders at this year's startup school that said that
solar was poised to reach grid parity with coal this year, i.e. _without tax
subsidies_ it would become cheaper to install solar panels than to buy that
electricity from the electric company over the life of the panels. Pretty
exciting times, if true.

~~~
pkaye
Did you factor in the transmission losses to move the electricity from the
Arizona desert to the rest of the US?

~~~
SapphireSun
You don't have to put it all in AZ, though I'm not sure what the efficiency
impact would be. The AZ concept is a thought experiment to demonstrate a
simple capability, not a fully engineered solution.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Nothing goes over my head, my reflexes are too fast.

------
jonknee
The US is already in the midst of an energy revolution, just not the renewable
one in question. Fracking has changed the game and pushed the US into being
the largest oil producer in the world.

Hopefully fracking's cheap oil won't push the renewables timetable too much
farther down the road.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Most fracking expansion in the US has come to a screeching halt due to Saudi
Arabia's production rate (which they're using to try to kill fracking). This
is only prolonging the oil pain though, as the capital expenditures have
already been made and the wells established.

You'll see consolidation in the tight oil space over the next year as
company's default on their (excessive) debt, and wells come back online as the
price of oil heads back up to $100/barrel (futures markets are already
predicting ~$70/barrel by the end of the year).

So you'll see these erratic price movements in the oil market (death throes?)
while this transition to electrification continues; renewables investments
aren't directly affected by the price of oil due to them not directly
competing with oil (oil = vehicles/airplanes/trucks, renewables = electricity
market).

~~~
adventured
That's not accurate. US oil production is up 10% over this time last year.
Most fracking _expansion_ has come to a halt, not fracking itself. The vast
fracking production gains have not been reversed. And above $60 to $65,
expansion will pick up (which has already begun; along with EOG announcing it
will pick up at about $65).

Production is currently running near recent record highs:

[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WC...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRFPUS2&f=W)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Thanks for correcting me. I've updated my post.

Also: "Half of U.S. Fracking Companies Will Be Dead or Sold This Year"

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-22/half-
of-u-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-22/half-of-u-s-
fracking-companies-will-be-dead-or-sold-this-year)

------
Bognar
It looks like we killed it. Here's a text-only cache/mirror from Google:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SmNdAIe...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SmNdAIe4LBMJ:harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/altering-
course&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

------
x0054
After reading the DC power travels better than AC power, I was skeptical.
After a bit of googling I found this article:

[http://theenergycollective.com/rogerrethinker/204396/ac-
vers...](http://theenergycollective.com/rogerrethinker/204396/ac-versus-dc-
powerlines)

Its a really good read about how DC power does indeed travel a lot better,
especially under sea or under ground. The problem with DC power is that DC/DC
transformers are still expensive, and not as efficient as AC/AC transformers.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Also, breakers are more difficult for DC.

But yes, DC does have its advantages. Power through wires scaling with r^2
versus r, no RMS losses, no phase issues, no capacitance losses.

