Solar and wind capturing devices are not alternative energy sources. They are extensions of the fossil fuel supply. There is an illusion of looking at the trees and not the forest in the “Renewable” energy world. Not seeing the systems, machineries, fossil fuel uses and environmental degradation that create the devices to capture the sun, wind and biofuels allows myopia and false claims.
Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) is only a part of the the equation. There is a massive infrastructure of mining, processing, manufacturing, fabricating, installation, transportation and the associated environmental assaults. Each of these processes and machines may only add a miniscule amount of energy to the final component of solar or wind devices. There would be no devices with out this infrastructure.
How else would we do it? There is always the old way. Who of us will go down in the mine first?
Let’s make an aluminum frame:
After getting the metal and barring accidents, it needs to be extruded. The extruding machine pushes heated ingots of aluminum through a die to get the shape of the frame. It then must be cut to transportable size and then heat treated.
As a teenager, 15, I worked in an aluminum extrusion plant in Florida. The extruded aluminum would be on a small gauge rail cart that we would push into a huge shed. The shed was heated to 375 F. When it was done we would push it out the other end of the shed to be loaded on trucks. Because it was Florida in the summer, our shirts were wet with sweat that dried immediately when we walked into the shed. By the end of the day my shirt was caked with salt.
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LET’S MAKE SOME COPPER PLATE
How about some selective black chrome.
Used on solar hot air and hot water panels.
Lots of energy and chemicals here.
WE NEED SOME GLASS FOR OUR PANELS.
HOT AIR, HOT WATER AND SOLAR ELECTRIC.
Wind Generators
HOW ABOUT SOLAR ELECTRIC PANELS
MACHINES MAKING MACHINES MAKING MACHINES
ALMOST ELECTRICITY TO MAKE THE MACHINES THAT MAKE THE MACHINES
HOW ABOUT A LITTLE NUCLEAR ELECTRICITY
MACHINES MAKING MACHINES MAKING MACHINES.
ReplyDeleteWe are goldfish swimming in a bowl, not seeing the water that we are immersed in because it is so ubiquitous. The massively surplus energy in our American society supplies the many complex layers. We don't see the layers and the energy and material requirements contributed at each level. People will only see and understand in retrospect, as the energy inputs start to disappear.
Net energy finds human services as negligible calories and leaves them out. Net energy violates the energy hierarchy law by counting energies on different scales as doing equivalent work. EROI undercounts the embodied eMergy, thus is too optimistic.
Development of renewables will require fossil fuels--lots of FF.
Excellent post as usual.
ReplyDeleteBesides all the machines shown there are also ocean going machines that get the rare earth metals for windmills and electric cars. And the killing machines, guns, tanks etc. that insure we get those minerals cheap, finally at this juncture often using human machines to mine them. - Kathy http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/kenya/100118/congo-conflict-minerals-mining
How do we let down the good, well-meaning folk who want to believe in renewable energy? By and large they have nothing to profit from their advocacy. To we tell them to turn their optimism into despair?
ReplyDeleteWe have an inherent problem in that most people don't have a technical background. Good friends of mine just think a solar panel or two on their roof will make their lives sustainable.
I try to explain the insurmountable problem of energy cannibalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_cannibalism) but they will then envision wind farms generating energy to make wind generators. The image is nice, but doesn't take into account the multiple layers of energy that go into production of almost anything.
I'm not even sure that I should be disillusioning good people who, even naively, feel optimistic about a clean energy future.
I just don't need any more pollution of any kind.
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