Powering the Planet Conversations about Alternative Fuels

1
Powering the PlanetConversations about
Alternative Fuels

• Bill McNeely
• Audio/Visual Guy
• Science on Tap
• February 25, 2008

2
About this talk

• A laymans interpretation of
• Powering the Planet by Prof. Nathan Lewis
• Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech
• Grounded in IPCC 4th Assessment Report
• Goals
• Expose certain underpublicized information
• Suggest SoT series on climate change
• see JISAO.washington.edu (NOAA UW)
• Previous SoT topic Joshua Tewksbury 10/29/2007
• The biological impact of climate change
• Upcoming SoT topic Robert A. Brown 3/31/2008
• Earth science satellites and their contribution
  to weather and climate models (and why they have
  become political)

3
Some burn rates

• 100 watts/person from metabolism alone
• Brain uses 20 watts
• Per-capita net energy consumption
• World 2000 watts (20x metabolism)
• USA 5000 watts (50x metabolism)
• World total 13 trillion watts (13 TW)
• Accounts for 5 of Gross World Product

4
How the world currently gets 13 TW
Biomass is defined here as unsustainable burning
5
Svante Arrhenius

• Swedish chemist, lived 1859-1927
• Nobel laureate
• Predicted global warming in 1896
• 56C due to doubling of atmospheric CO2
• Modern estimate is 24.5C (relative to 1896)
• Predicted this would take 3000 years
• Pointed out Can avoid the next ice age!

6
Global warming The bad news

• Tough international issues
• Developing nations seek first-world lifestyles
• Poorest nations are at greatest risk
• Human activity is the culprit
• Its later than we think!

7
Global warming The good news

• Compelling economic rewards envisioned
• 50 Exxon Mobils worth
• 2T/year 3 Gross World Product (GWP)
• IPCC-estimated remediation cost 0.12 GWP/year
• Return on investment 25-fold
• Break-even time 40 years?
• Green initiatives are proliferating
• No more ice ages!?

8
Carbon dioxide

• Important greenhouse gas
• Absorbs infrared radiation, e.g., at 15 µm
• Sources
• Human Burning of fossil fuels / deforestation
• Natural Volcanoes / wildfires / respiration
• Central player in the carbon cycle
• Ref History Channels Crude

9
Key assertions

• Only three options scale economically
• Fossil fuels with CO2 sequestration
• Nuclear breeder reactors
• Solar with energy-storage system
• 510 years left to make fateful decisions
• New infrastructure takes 40 years to build
• Goal stabilize atmospheric CO2 at 750 ppmv
• Currently 385 ppmv (pre-industrial was 280 ppmv)

10
A prediction of future power consumption
11
Coal

• USA 50 of our energy
• Centuries of supply remaining
• China new plant every 10 days
• Gasoline from coal oil at 40/bbl
• The dirtiest fossil fuel
• Mercury, arsenic, sulphur,
• CO2 sequestration needed

12
Will CO2 sequestration work?

• CO2 atmospheric lifetime 5005000 years
• Dont pump CO2 into oceans!
• Carbonic acid is bad for sea life
• Deep aquifers may prove practical
• Need low leakage rate 0.1/year
• Does China have any suitable sites?
• Sequestration experiments are underway

13
Nuclear breeder reactor

• Creates new fissile material
• Burns nearly 100 of Uranium-238 fuel
• Compared to 1 in once-through reactors
• Can burn the more abundant Thorium-232
• Produces much less radioactive waste
• Facilitates weaponization

Peter Sellers as Dr Strangelove
14
Solar

• Eco-friendliest of the scalable 3
• Photovoltaic / Thermal
• Nanotech may make PV much cheaper!
• Requires an energy-storage system
• H2 / compressed air / liquid sodium
• Abundant !
• Willie Suttons first choice

A friendly local star
15
Courtesy Willie Sutton School of Energy Management
16
DOE Photovoltaic Power System 2 MW Sacramento, CA
17
Kramer Junction (CA) Solar Thermal Generating
Station 150 MW
18
Land area needed to power entire US with solar
energy
19
(No Transcript)
20
Ken Zweibel James Mason Vasilis Fthenakis
Photovoltaic solar thermal Compressed-air
energy storage DC long-distance transmission
100 of USA energy by 2100 No impact to
standard of living 420B in subsidies over 40
years
Online discussion http//science-community.SciAm.
com Discussions Technology
21
Less economically-scalable options

• Hydro 0.60.9 TW max. practical
• Geothermal 12 TW
• Wind 24 TW
• Biofuels 46 TW
• (using 50 of worlds unused arable land)

22
Biofuels

• Ethanol and biodiesel
• Politically popular in USA
• 286B farm subsidy bill in 2007
• Unfortunately, they have a dark side
• Production from corn is driving up global food
  prices
• Brazilian farmers are planting soybeans in
  response
• Accelerating rain-forest destruction
• 93 years to reach carbon neutrality via new
  crops
• Biotech to the rescue?

NY Times 2/8/08
23
Submit your 20-watt ideas

• Put 1 trillion umbrellas into earth orbit
• Emulate volcanic cooling effect
• Inject sulphur particles into upper atmosphere
• Foster algae growth using iron particles
• Win Richard Bransons 25M prize
• Remove 1 billion tons CO2 from air annually
• 4 of human-caused CO2 emissions
• E.g., artificial trees using Ca(OH)2

Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, Jr.
24
Artificial trees (artists concept)
25
Surfing suggestions

• Nathan Lewis presentation
• SoTs home ? (todays event) ? more info
• IPCC 4th Assessment Report
• google IPCC climate
• Wikipedia
• IPCC fourth assessment
• alternative fuels
• global warming controversy

26
SoT climate-change series?

• Deep-time natural history (ref. History Channel
  The Formation of Earth)
• Prof. Peter Wards talk on Permian Era
• The carbon cycle (ref. H.C. Crude)
• Single-topic talks on various fuel types
• Climate feedback mechanisms
• Science-based contrarianism

27
BACKUP SLIDES

• GHG Emissions by Sector
• Energy basics
• Energy archaeology
• Temperature vs. GHG concentrations
• Volcanic gas compositions
• Radiation transmitted by the atmosphere
• Global carbon cycle
• Global-warming nontroversy
• Radiative Forcing Components (per IPCC)
• Global warming as function of CO2 concentration
• Controlled nuclear fusion

28
(No Transcript)
29
Energy basics

• Energy is conserved
• Energy is deeply associated with time
• Noethers theorem implies energy conservation
• We consume energy by converting its forms
• E.g., in an internal combustion engine
• electrostatic energy ? heat ? useful kinetic
  energy? heat
• Primary vs. secondary energy sources
• Primary Fossil fuels, nuclear, solar
• Secondary Electricity, hydrogen, biofuels,

30
Energy archaeology

• All energy on earth ultimately comes from
• Sun (fossil fuels, hydro, wind, solar)
• Radioactive decay (nuclear, geothermal)
• Orbital motion plus gravity (tides)
• The sun is a natural nuclear fusion reactor
• Located a safe distance away ?
• Big Bangs mysterious energy endowment
• Inflation? Dark energy? Other?

31
(No Transcript)
32
Examples of volcanic gas compositions, in volume
percent concentrations
VolcanoTectonic StyleTemperature Kilauea SummitHot Spot1170C Erta AleDivergent Plate1130C MomotomboConvergent Plate820C
H20 37.1 77.2 97.1
C02 48.9 11.3 1.44
S02 11.8 8.34 0.50
H2 0.49 1.39 0.70
CO 1.51 0.44 0.01
H2S 0.04 0.68 0.23
HCl 0.08 0.42 2.89
HF --- --- 0.26
Symonds, R.B., Rose, W.I., Bluth, G., and
Gerlach, T.M., 1994, Volcanic gas studies
methods, results, and applications, in Carroll,
M.R., and Holloway, J.R., eds., Volatiles in
Magmas Mineralogical Society of America Reviews
in Mineralogy, v. 30, p. 1-66.
 
33
(No Transcript)
34
Global Carbon Cycle (Billion Metric Tons Carbon)
From http//www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/cha
pter1.html
35
Global-warming nontroversy

• IPCC is 90 confident in its conclusions
• Special-interest money may create illusion of
  scientific debate
• Examples of science-based contrarianism
• (the late) John Daly (www.john-daly.com/)
• Dr. Heinz Hug, Universität Würzburg
• CO2 radiative forcing is overestimated by
  80-fold
• Dr. Sallie Buliunas, Geo. C. Marshall Institute
• Global warming due to solar variability, not CO2

36
From IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007
37
From IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007
38
Controlled nuclear fusion

• Nearly unlimited source of energy
• D T ? He 17.6 Mev neutron
• Relatively safe and clean
• Has been 30 years away for the past 50 years
• ITER
• International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
• Objectives 500 MW for 400 sec, around 2016
• Joint European Torus (JET), 1993
• 16 MW for 1 sec