Let's watch this test case

TangoMan-

I enjoy reading all your posts as they always make me think. :-)

Ironically, and I admit, probably hard to believe given the coincidence
:-) but I have been offline for a couple of days due to a power outage
in my area (high winds causing branch and tree falls). The problem was
especially bad since the local power company (Niagara Mohawk) was bought
by a British power company and has reportedly been firing 1000+ people
over the past year and dropping off routine maintenance (like tree
limbing) possibly to increase short term profits. So, I've not had time
to reply thoroughly to your other points. (also I have some other
obligations limiting my time in this thread.) Still, I think this
situation sort of proves my point about the reliability of centralized
power and the bureaucracies that run it. And if I need to depend on
(foreign) bureaucracies, I'd rather depend on one which I only need to
have work every few years (like when I buy a Japanese TV or a PV modules
or wind generator) than which has to be working every second of every
day (the grid) to maintain the lifestyle I desire. (Not as much wrong
with a grid for backup or sharing excess power though...) Essentially,
the time constant of depending on grid power is seconds vs. a time
constant of years for TV supply (or PV+Wind+Batteries). One aspect of
security is to enlarge these time constants of independence (for
example, why the USA has the 90 day strategic petroleum reserve). The
central problem with the SPS solution is it still elaves me with s time
constant of deconds for depending on the bureaucracy that runs it --
producing a huge (personal or national or world) security vulnerability.

I think you make some good arguments here and in your other replies to
the 87 billion thread, but perhaps the bottom line is that in this
posting I reply to and in your previous remarks we are not comparing
Apples and Oranges. I am talking about how dollars can be invested for
energy security today (conservation, efficiency, and local renewables)
by individuals or governments where typically each investment has a
payback in a few years (some longer) and is self funding for the enxt
investment and am referring to specific off-the-shelf solutions with a
track record of implementation (including visible problems). SPSs
involve a huge single investment (like Motorolla's recent fiasco) and
will soak up all related energy investment capital for years, for some
potential future result which may or may not happen depending on several
unknown risks. You and others are asking me to contrast and defend
approaches based on what is available now with the output of SPSs which
might be available in ten to twenty years given (implicitly) extensive
additional R&D and trial and error spent on improving SPSs (since just
about everything takes three tries to get it right). Essentially, I am
stuck defending a reality with warts and arguing against a fantasy with
no problems, since SPSs don't yet exist in the forms generally proposed
and so have no track record with which to compete (and uncover
unexpected problems, failure modes, etc.) and handwaving can remove any
future difficulties. The grass is always greener etc. We don't know what
all the issues with SPSs will be, as opposed to being able to point to
real problems of real solutions like insulation, PV, wind etc.

If I want to talk about what might be available in ten to twenty years,
we are talking about:
* ground based PV with 30-40% efficiency which is trivial to install,
perhaps also doubling as storage batteries with inverters in the panel.
(By the way, some PV installations typically run hot enough to melt the
snow on panels),
* efficient conversion from sugar to electricity,
* fuel cells taking hydrogen, natural gas, propane, or other fuels and
being 99.99% reliable for dozens of years
* a reliable box that converts power to hydrogen and back again with
95%+ efficiency,
* easy and efficient conversion of any biomass to hydrogen,
* home cogeneration systems which efficiently produce heat and light
from hydrogen or fossil fuels
* 100+ mpg hybrid etc. automobiles which are safer to drive than todays
cars (advanced composites, AI drivers)
* nanotech goo you hose onto your house to form an insulating shell at
R100+ (including transparent windows).
* virtual telepresence removing the need for much travel and related
power consumption
* local 3D printers removing the need for much transportation of
finished goods and related energy costs (like today everyone has a 2D
printer where in the past you used to have to go to somewhere to pick up
printouts)
* and so on.
[By the way, all of these possibilities exist in one form or another to
some degree today (except the nanotech unless you consider some platic
foams).]

My point: when proposing projects with ten to twenty year lead times
like SPS you need to compare against what will be available on earth in
a similar time scale (granted, if we had built SPSs in the 1970s they
might be here now).

There are also other factors in deciding how to build an energy
infrastructure related to politics and security and democracy. A
decision not to go nuclear or to phase out conventional centralized
nuclear power (as you refer to in the article) can be for other than
environmental reasons -- since for example nuclear proliferation such as
in Iran and North Korea seems to be a big problem, and historically the
nuclear energy industry has covered up problems (in the USSR, in the US
(Silkwood)) and so on and so essentially is a form of power typically
requiring more trust than is warranted based on its own track record.

We can also debate the meaning of centralized -- perhaps monopolized is
a clearer term -- but essentially I would say any system that relies on
a few (<100 SPSs) routed through a similar small number of receivers and
assuming everyone draws all their power from a grid is a monoculture of
energy production and distribution. Certainly Criswell's argument for
turning the moon into a power system involves even more centralization.
And monocultures become susceptible to either single points of failures
or one identically duplicated element that can cause the entire system
to fail.

Also, in your criticism of the German etc. efforts, remember that they
are trying to deal with a crazy economic pricing system which ignores
external costs like pollution and security, where they have to build
real systems to compete against $25 per barrel oil, when the true cost
of oil factoring in military issues is much higher ($100/barrel), and
environmental issues yet higher again ($1000/barrel?), making such
approaches at first perhaps seem nonsensical economically, even if they
make sense in the long term. Also, note that one of the points of
renewables is to decentralize, so considering applications with large
wind farms as opposed to smaller installations ignores part of the story.

The long term question is -- isn't it easier to make 100mpg cars, 40%
efficient PV, easier to apply home insulation, solar shingles, one piece
integrated power center sheds, etc. than to do the R&D on SPS? And
aren't such systems ultimately more secure than any system requiring
long supply lines and a huge and complex grid? Also, note the Europe is
much more densely populated than the US, so their energy production
issues are somewhat different from the US, so problems German has aren't
the same as US problems.

As for wealth vs. poverty, much of this is a mindset and related to
social Power. If home insulation or PV or Wind etc. will save money even
given all the subsidies to coal, oil, nukes, etc. (more on the way with
the new US energy bill just announced, including limiting liability for
gasoline additives), then it makes sense for even a clerk at Wal-Mart
(to use your example) to get a $10K loan to put in such a system. If
they can't get such a loan, then that says something about Power, not
power. And if banks and voters can't see this, then it is a poverty
mindset. (Of course, if that clerk was reading:
http://www.deoxy.org/endwork.htm
or even:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0874778247/002-2787036-2121636?v=glance
or even:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/voyage/baen99/titlepage.shtml
he or she might also have other plans for breaking out of a poverty
mentality beyond investing in energy independence.)

Regarding various other comments etc. -- I was a donating Senior
Associate for five years starting in the mid 1980s. I think SSI was then
and still is doing great things (the conference, etc.). I think humans
have a future in space habitats. I even had a similar disagreement with
Gerry O'Neill himself around 1984 (arguing for self-replicating space
habitats like Bernal proposed in the 1920s, which I wanted to do my
undergrad research on vs. Gerry's vision of a slow industrial expansion
into space driven by SPS etc. -- he called me a "dreamer" :-) before I
became an SSI Senior Associate. I think the SPS can be an exciting idea.
I just think in the big picture SPSs aren't needed energy wise given PV
etc., have political (not neccesarily technical) problems, face a
questionable economic rationale given alternatives for efficiency and
PV/Wind/ etc., and are therefore a diversion of intellectual energy that
could be going directly into developing habitats designs and seed
designs. We obviously disagree on many of these issues, and I'll admit
in these threads I haven't constructed an airtight case (in part from
lack of time to devote to this, sorry -- though Brittle Power and
Lovins/RMU does make the case in numerical detail), but that's OK. You
can work on SPS designs and maybe you'll be right. I can work on other
stuff. Maybe one of us will get lucky. :-)

--Paul Fernhout