Think Big, Really Big

1
Think Big, Really Big

• The Engineering view of the world is never very
  interesting, scalable or sustainable ?
  manipulates nature
• Physicists view the world as a system, assess its
  overall capacity and limitations ? partners with
  nature

2
An Issued Challenge

• Goal Provide resources for a global population
  that will quadruple in 100 years
• Done 1900 2000
• Consequences Depends on your point of view
  about progress versus quality of life versus
  human condition

3
Some Consequences

• Rapid mining/depletion of accessible high energy
  content medium (like, oil, dude)
• Serious worldwide inequities in resource
  distribution and wealth
• Two world wars and some other minor skirmishes,
  invasions, annexations,etc
• Robbing our great grandchildren of a possible
  future

4
Who Can We Blame

• Aristotle (Father of all white guys )
• Nixon (why not)
• The Enemy (we seem to require one)
• Your Parents
• Anyone you like (absolution)
• The Business as Usual Attitude
• Our Genes

5
Business As Usual Scenario

• Population stabilizes to 10-12 billion by the
  year 2100 (possible to do)
• Total world energy use from 2000 to 2100 is 4000
  Terra Watt Years (Current US use is about 1.5 TW
  years)
• Holy crap, Batman is the sky falling?

6
Ultimately Recoverable Resource

• Conventional Oil/Gas
• Unconventional Oil
• Coal
• Methane Clathrates
• Oil Shale
• Uranium Ore
• Geothermal Steam - conventional

• 1000 TWy (1/4 need)
• 2000
• 5000
• 20,000
• 30,000
• 2,000
• 4,000

7
Other Possibilities

• Breeder Reactors
• Hot Dry Rock
• Sunlight
• Wind Energy
• Global Biomass
• Fusion

• 2,000,000 TWy
• 1,000,000
• 9,000,000
• 200,000
• 10,000
• Essentially unlimited

8
There is no Real Energy Barrier or Limit

• And other extragalactic Civilizations have surely
  solved this problem.
• On Earth, we have a bunch of other likely
  problems

9
We may be running out of

• Cheap Oil
• Livable Environment/Fresh Water
• Tolerance for inequity (its about time )
• Money for better options
• Time for a transition out of the fossil fuel
  economy into something else
• Leadership to do what is required

10
Hydrogen Production

• Your research indicated we need 4 trillion KWHs
  per year for Hydrogen production
• This equals 10 billion KWHs per day or in round
  numbers 1 billion KWHs per hour.
• Figure of Merit is then 1 million MW of power
  needed for Hydrogen production
• Is this a lot?

11
One Million Megawatts

• 1000 Nuclear Reactors
• 1000 Gas Fired Plants
• Well if your going to build that crap, just
  connect it to the grid, you idiot
• Okay, then what about remote energy generation
  where grid connection is difficult

12
1 TW Production Schemes

• Harvest some Megaplumes
• Build 100,000 10 MW Wind Turbines off the
  Aleutian Island Chain (note total wind resource
  here is about 50 TW)
• Place one 100 MW turbine every 200 meters in the
  Gulf Stream which is equivalent to a 200 km/hr
  wind

13
More Production Schemes

• Distributed OTEC islands circular platforms of
  radius 1 km can produce 1000 MW. (Russia wants
  to build floating nuclear power plants Boeing
  wants floating equatorial launch platforms)
• Note 1 TW of PV power requires PV arrays (200
  miles x 200 miles) in North Africa Desert

14
Bottom lines

• Large Scale hydrogen production schemes are
  possible using way out of the box large scale
  renewable energy systems where grid connection is
  unlikely
• Solar Power is not a direct player in this
  scheme CSP unlikely to work on this scale
• Many technical difficulties lie ahead which we
  will discuss, but similar technical barriers were
  overcome in the last century!
• Reminder, we have walked on the Moon

15
Impulsive Discussion Now

• Are humans intrinsically competitive or
  cooperative?
• Which mode facilitates sustainability?