Think Big, Really Big

1
Think Big, Really Big

• The Engineering view of the world is never very
  interesting, scalable or sustainable ?
  manipulates nature This needs to stop
• Replace it by
• 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. Inequity is
  allowed
• 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)
• Rapid mining of materials, copper, lead, tin all
  projected to run out by 2025
• Serious worldwide inequities in resource
  distribution and wealth
• Two world wars and some other minor skirmishes,
  invasions, annexations,etc

4
Who Can We Blame

• It remains pointless to blame the usual suspects
  (e.g. Corporate America, Over population, over
  consumption, Aristotle, your parents generation,
  etc) since that leads to no wisdom or solutions
• Challenge is to see how, collectively, we can
  overcome BAU (Business as Usual)

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 USA 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 (1/2 the need)
• 5000 (meets need)
• 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 (oceans)
• 200,000 (works!)
• 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

• From stranded dedicated renewals (Wind in
  Aleutian Islands Solar from North Africa OTEC
  from Indian Ocean) ? need 4 trillion KWH, per
  year for enough Hydrogen production
• This equals 10 billion KWH per day or in round
  numbers 1 billion KWH per hour.
• Figure of Merit is then 1 million Mega Watts (MW)
  of power needed for Hydrogen production
• One Million MW 1 TW ? Is this a lot?

11
One Million Megawatts

• 1000 Nuclear Reactors (1000 MW each)
• 2000 Gas Fired Plants (500 MW each)
• 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 and financial difficulties exist
  but similar barriers were overcome in the last
  century!
• Reminder, we have walked on the Moon