PG&E wants to heat our world from the sky

No, I'm wearing my tinfoil hat (yet).  PG&E wants to work with a company that will put satellites in orbit to beam down energy collected from the Sun.  Good idea?  Well, let's think about the theory, the practice and the alternatives.

Theory: Energy from the Sun is free and clean, beaming it to Earth is do-able if not now, in the future.  It's better than fossil fuel.  Only if you ignore future population growth, economic growth and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  See my previous blog post on this date on this topic.

Practice: Can we really generate beams of energy that can penetrate the atmosphere and clouds but are low power enough to not bring down birds and airplanes?  Even if we achieve spectacular results, there will be energy lost in the process, how good can it be?

Alternatives: First, it's got to be more cost effective to use solar concentrators and PVs from the ground.  The fact that this stuff works at night is a Red Herring, since I'm quite sure we can find other ways of storing extra daytime solar power with the money not spent on a sky-based power generation system.  Second, what about other forms of PVs, wind and wave/tidal power?  Launching satellites is not without risk, the research and time required to get this right means not working on other, easier to manage and execute projects.

Alternatives are less risk, the technological advances are steep and, ultimately, the impact on global warming will be negative (increase warming).  Why do it?

Can we really stop global warming?

The link to the article has a great analysis of why our solutions to Global Warming must be selected with care.  Why?  Because we cannot escape the science (read: Rules of the Universe).  Thermodynamics Second Law states that all energy converts to thermal energy.  What does this mean?  Currently, the uranium buried in our crust and the geothermal heat beneath our crust is stable.  In the case of uranium, it is neither concentrated nor having its energy extracted.  In the case of geothermal energy, it is in thermal equilibrium with the surface.  By extracting energy from the uranium (rather than letting it be) we put that energy into our environment (surface and air).  Extracting geothermal energy also does the same thing.

Is this of consequence, right now? Well, not right now, because the amount of energy we are talking about is small.  However, and this is the important part, the amount of energy our civilization will require will continue to grow over time because the population of the planet will grow and more and more people will move into first-world energy use.  Sure, at some point, this energy use will stabilize, but that happens when the amount of energy can have an impact on global temperatures.

Keep in mind, we are not talking about global temperature rise due to global greenhouse gases and their ability to trap the sun's heat.  We are simply talking about the impact of adding energy to our ecosystem, and it's inevitable conversion to heat!

What do we do about this?  Since the earth/sun/heat cycle has had some semblance of stability for the earth's history, we should only use energy generated from the sun which includes Solar, Wind and Wave.  Solar would be direct production from PVs or indirect production through biofuels and burning vegetable materials.  Winds are produced by the sun via unequal heating/cooling of the land, oceans and atmosphere.  Waves/tides are generated by winds and gravity.  Sure, the moon contributes to tides.  But, it's tidal energy is also converted into heat, so the pathway is not critical, we can safely convert the moon's portion of tidal energy without adding more heat to the ecosystem.

Why is this discussion important?  So, that we don't waste time on technologies that are not sustainable.  If we are going to correct our long term energy solution, let's try to do the best we can for future generations.  We won't be perfect, we will make unforeseen mistakes.  It would be nice to not make known mistakes.  We've ignored the science of global warming for far too long.

Thermodynamics has been well understood for hundreds of years.  Let's ignore it when planning for the future.

Earth Hour, did you celebrate?

I hope you celebrated Earth Hour on March 28th.  If you didn't, you'll get another chance next year.  In the meantime, please enjoy some poetry written during the event by a young, up-and-coming writer.

Earth Hour

They say there’s an hour,

the witching hour,

when all are asleep

nothing is heard;

not even a peep.

This hour is so grim.

This hour can reap.

It is so oddly scary,

not even robots will beep.

If the lights are out and all is silent

then that is sign that it has started to creep.

Though there’s a more joyful hour,

that comes once a year,

around the 30th of march

or near.

To make the world be like it never had light;

for just one night.

Think of it as an election,

with one candidate to make a correction

You are the voter,

your light switch;

the machine.

Make the right choices

we nead 1,000,000,000+ voices

to make a beating

out of global heating

in this world

upon which we stand.

By Mason Philips

Clean Water

Think clean energy is a big, big deal?  Take a look at clean, drinkable water.  In the US, we foul an incredible volume of potable water every day.  Water that should be saved for drinking, cooking and washing gets flushed, poisoned, etc.

Climate change will only exacerbate the problem by melting glaciers, reducing rain/snow fall, shifting the snowpack melt season earlier in the year and increasing sea levels will inundate freshwater systems and aquifers.

We must reduce demand and change how we handle water by adding more gray water systems to our homes.  Creating drinkable water from sea water and natural and man-made foul water will be vital.

Link above goes to one company that has a compact water treatment facility (looks like it fits in a boxcar) and converts the tailings from gas wells into safe drinking water.  Say what you will about continued fossil fuel exploration, this idea has value.

Sustainable Wines

Looking to make your wine consumption sustainable?  Try wine from Parducci in Mendocino County, CA.  It's drinkable.  I've had better, but I've had a lot worse.  Cooked a marinara with it the other night and drank it with dinner.  Delicious.

Ironically, I was in Whole Foods looking at their wine section when I came across their "Eco Friendly" offerings.  They had a bottle from France.  Nothing against France, but I had to quiz the wine stocker to find out how it could be "Eco Friendly".  They said it was for the organic aspects of the wine production.  That's all fine and good, but if the wine was shipped on anything burning fossil fuel, BOOM, any sustainable, organic and carbon-neutral product creation just went flying out the window and into our atmosphere.

It's the little things

Do you think you can't make a difference?  Collectively, we all can.  Buying recycled household paper products for tissues, toilet paper and paper towels makes a large difference.  See the above article.

Enough said.

Parenting in the Age of Climate Change

Great article! I look forward to reading her book.

It seems that parenting responsibly means handing your children a better life than you were given. At least, we should not make things worse. How then do we deal with this issue - one that seems bigger than anything we have ever seen before? What other threats have we seen and felt unleashed seemingly upon the whole world?

Any local or regional threat (drought, war, famine, fire, flood) creates upheaval, but people can move. We cannot, yet, leave the planet for better pastures.

True world-wide threats almost seem sublime. Atomic bombs? Rational actors realize that MAD (Mutual Assured Distruction) seems to prevent a full world bombing. Asteroid impact? Either we ignore the problem as remote (physically, temporarily and statistically) or place our faith in science to discover a way to deflect or destroy the invader. Epidemic? Visit the country or seal ourselves off.

Global Warming? For those of us who can no longer ignore the awful truth, what is left to do? We can't pick and move. Well, we can, but to where? What land will be under water? Will there be fresh water? Will it get warmer or colder? Will it be wetter or drier? Who can I blame? What can I fix?

Almost everything I eat originates with petroleum unless I try really, really hard. Almost everything I buy originates with petroleum. Almost everything I do (the bits on your screen, right now) originates with petroleum.

We built this economy for over 100 years to be based upon a very cheap available resource. To solve the problem, we require a tremendous worldwide effort to change to something new, something sustainable, something with much lower impact.

We will all be better for it. Healthier and happier. I hope we can do it and that it will be enough. I would hate to leave these things for my grandchildren to clean up. I'd much prefer they get to enjoy the almost comical story of how we all managed to escape a global catasrophy.

PS: For a cynical view of this, read James Lovelock's opinion.