Project Abundance: Energy: How much do we need and how much can we make? | Resource Based Living

Project Abundance: Energy: How much do we need and how much can we make? | Resource Based Living: "Project Abundance: Energy: How much do we need and how much can we make?
May 28th, 2010 by Stuart Leave a reply »

In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×10^18 J) with 80 to 90 percent derived from the combustion of fossil fuels. This is equivalent to an average power consumption rate of 15 terawatts (1.504×10^13 W).

Exajoule? Terawatt? WTF? Ok hang on.

Here is a reference table. I think we’re going to need it for this article.

Multiplication factor
Prefix
Symbol

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1024 yotta Y
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1021 zetta Z
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1018 exa E
1,000,000,000,000,000 = 1015 peta P
1,000,000,000,000 = 1012 tera T
1,000,000,000 = 109 giga G
1,000,000 = 106 mega M
1,000 = 103 kilo k
100 = 102 hecto h
10 = 10 deka da
0.1 = 10-1 deci d
0.01 = 10-2 centi c
0.001 = 10-3 milli m
0.000 001 = 10-6 micro m
0.000,000,001 = 10-9 nano n
0.000,000,000,001 = 10-12 pico p
0.000,000,000,000,001 = 10-15 femto f
0.000,000,000,000,000,001 = 10-18 atto a
0.000,000,000,000,000,000,001 = 10-21 zepto z
0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 = 10-24 yocto y

http://www.educypedia.be/electronics/metrixprefix.htm

“Industrial users (agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and construction) consume about 37% of the total 15 TW. Personal and commercial transportation consumes 20%; residential heating, lighting, and appliances use 11%; and commercial uses (lighting, heating and cooling of commercial buildings, and provision of water and sewer services) amount to 5% of the total.

The other 27% of the world’s energy is lost in energy transmission and generation.”

The average residential usage of each American is 11.4kW,

So now let’s see whether or not we can generate this vast amount of energy.
Solar

The available solar energy resources are 3.8 YJ/yr (120,000 TW).

To put it another way, we use less than half a zetajoule a year, while the sun provides 3800 ZJ a year.

Oh. Well there we have it. 8000 times the energy we need right now, just from the sun.

Thanks for reading, and good night.

Ok let’s not get carried away. Obviously there is the difficulty of harnessing this energy, but this just shows the sheer volume of abundant energy that we can utilise.
Wind

Currently has the capacity for a poultry 159.2GW. Still, that’s enough for 131 DeLoreans to travel through time.
Wave and Tidal

The power of waves is about 3TW, and the available tidal energy is 0.8TW. Note that this is close to the 5.5TW (37% of 15TW) currently needed for ALL industrial, agricultural, mining, and construction needs.

There is some talk on Wikipedia about “Celestial dynamics” – ie screwing up our orbit if we harness too much of it, so it’s probably best we don’t delve too deep into this… Luckily, we don’t need to.
Geothermal

In 2004, 200PJ (57 TWh) of electricity was generated from geothermal resources, and an additional 270 PJ of geothermal energy was used directly, mostly for space heating.

According to Wikipedia, in 2007, the world had a global capacity for 10 GW of electricity generation and an additional 28 GW of direct heating. (about 0.3% of our needs).

However, the much cited MIT report (mentioned in Zeitgeist Addendum) estimated that 13.3YJ (13,300ZJ) of energy is stored in rocks in the USA. (source – 14.06mb – see page 18). Yes, that’s enough for 26,000 years, although it is constantly renewing itself.
Localisation

All these energy sources are based on the idea of a centralised collection supplying the population. In reality, what we may see is far more localised harnessing to supply smaller systems. Take home solar panels and other off-grid technologies.

In 2005, the average monthly residential electricity consumption in American was 938 kilowatt hours (kWh), according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s 30.84kWh/day per household.

“At high noon on a cloudless day at the equator, the power of the sun is about 1 kW/m². Accounting for clouds, and the fact that most of the world is not on the equator, and that the sun sets in the evening, the correct measure of solar power is insolation – the average number of kilowatt-hours per square meter per day. For the weather and latitudes of the United States and Europe, typical insolation ranges from 4kWh/m²/day in northern climes to 6.5 kWh/m²/day in the sunniest regions.”

So in theory, if you have 8m² of 100% efficient solar panels, that should be enough to completely supply the average home. There are lots of factors involved, of course, the sun wouldn’t be direct for most of the time, there could be clouds, there could be inefficiencies in the system etc, but that’s a rough guide.

Combine this with wind turbines on each house, or a small hydro-electric generator in the stream near your house, or several other localised solutions, and it seems that most residential needs can be met relatively easily. If anyone has more practical experience in this area I would like to hear your thoughts.

With batteries, you can store the energy you don’t use immediately and make the energy you collect last much longer, without having to sell it back to the grid.

Search “Off grid” on YouTube for thousands of examples of completely self sufficient systems.
Efficiency

Of course, residential needs only count for 11% of the energy we consume.

Although the sun and our geothermal potential gives us thousands of times the energy we need, so any more discussion is pointless, an important thing to mention when discussing energy needs is the efficiency of our current systems. Currently there is so much inefficiency in transport, distribution, and industry that we’re probably using a lot more than we really need to.

Take LEDs as a simple example, which for most purposes are 10x more efficient than incandescent lights.

Now imagine that instead of driving hundreds of trucks across the continent, we install a conveyor belt (or more likely, a network of continual belts). The only energy needed would be that needed to drive the wheel at one end of each belt, in order to move the belt. Even if there were problems along the way, a remote controlled (or eventually automated) robotic probe could be sent to perform maintenance at very little energy cost.

All we need to do is think a little more logically about how we do things, and how we are wasting so much energy, and there can be huge savings made. Technology will increase efficiency, but so will basic human ingenuity, if applied.
Do we have the resources?

It seems that we do. Geothermal and solar appear to have the potential to supply us many times over.

Solar is the fastest growing technology and seems to be the one that will take over from fossil fuels. Its major drawback is the cost of solar cells, also there is the problem of utilising it in high northern and southern latitude countries where there is less sunlight in the winter. However, these countries often have the space or surrounding sea to utilise wind, wave, and tidal power.

The problem is not lack of energy, or even the technology to harness it, it’s the willingness. It’s the heel dragging in setting up the projects, the incredible persistence of the governments in pushing non-renewable sources, and the lack of awareness in the general public.

The cost of solar panels is undoubtedly a major factor. However, the technology is already at a level where large farms are completely feasible. It’s also highly innovative. Take Sphelar, the spherical transparent cells that can be used in windows and don’t require tilting mechanisms.

The problem for those in “power” is that once these solar farms are built, they will supply energy that is essentially free. Maintenance costs will be minimal and can eventually be performed by automation, powered by the panels themselves.

What this means is that nobody can make any money out of it any more. This, my friends, is the problem.


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