Making Fossil Fuels Obsolete
This morning I explained to a friend that, in my estimation, Buckminster Fuller was a super-human engineer, architect, author and visionary. He’s perhaps best known today for some terrific quotes he made during his long and rich life, including my favorite: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
The reason I’m so infatuated with these words is that they apply so nicely to what our civilization is doing vis-à-vis fossil fuels and renewable energy. There is no need to fight the oil companies (though we sure have a tendency to want to do that, don’t we?) They’ve already lost the war, by becoming obsolete due to environmental issues, and economic trends as well. Even Shell Oil says that by the year 2060, all of our civilization’s energy will be solar in one form or another. All we’re talking about is the timeline by which these folks go away.
Btw, I’ve been asked why the pic of me in this side was taken with my hand on my face. My new answer: If it’s good enough for Bucky Fuller, it’s good enough for me. 🙂
I just finished reading “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors”, second edition, by Rurton Richter.
In the book, Richter explains climate change in considerable detail. He suspects that we will have to limit the temperature rise to a lower amount than previously stated if we are to limit the bad effects to a tolerable level.
Richter also goes into all the current forms of energy, including coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, and nuclear. He firmly believes that unless nuclear provides a very large portion of our energy there is no way we can get CO2 emissions down to an acceptable level. In any case, fossil fuels must become obsolete with the possible exception that they may be used in small amounts in remote areas.
Richter draws an analogy between eliminating the use of chlorofluorocarbons and eliminating the use of fossil fuels. As he explains it, eliminating the use of chlorofluorocarbons was relatively easy because satisfactory substitutes were soon found and their use was easily implemented. On the other hand, eliminating the use of fossil fuels will be, by comparison, very difficult and expensive, but it must be done.
I strongly recommend reading the book.
Sounds like a good one. He’s certainly correct about the difference between CFCs and fossil fuels. Thanks for the note.
Eliminating CFC was easy because you were only requiring multi-national corporations to reformulate their products. On the ground, heavy fines for not recovering refrigerants from systems is largely unenforced and nonenforceable. This also adds evidence to the idea that the most effective place to stop pollution is at the manufacturing level rather than the level of use.
In the case of fossil fuels we try very hard to not wage war on an industry as that may go against the economic interests of politicians. We can try and say that natural gas is better than the other fossil fuel options, but over time I think it will become clear that it is as bad or worse, simply because it is a potent greenhouse gas without ever being used (burned)and leaking largely uncontrolled and virtually uncontrollable. So once again the place to stop the problem with natural gas is with the production. http://www.alternet.org/environment/ticking-time-bomb-could-cause-such-rapid-global-warming-wed-be-unable-prevent-extinction
Adherents will always tend to cherry pick information. Nuclear energy is a concentrated energy source like fossil fuels. Solar energy is diffuse so we are required to collect and concentrate the energy.
If a storm blows over a wind farm or a solar field the environmental damage is minimal. Although it might be costly, there are no hazards to leak into the environment. The risk is therefor privatized and contained within the normal channels of ownership. The economic effect follows cause in a very understandable way.
A nuclear power plant is an entirely different matter. The potential risk is so large that no nuclear power plant would have ever been built if the risk was not accepted by the government. The spent fuel issue was never resolved (beyond the goal of using some of the material to make bombs) and again spent fuel disposal was underwritten by the government. So nuclear power risk is subsidized by the government which means that each of us is “on the hook” for some portion of any cost of damage from a nuclear power accident.
We have had approximately 55 years of using nuclear energy. There are 442 nuclear power plants world wide. https://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm We have had 3 major accidents in that time. The most disastrous, at Fukushima may not be cleaned up for 30 years, “because we don’t presently have the technology.” http://www.dw.com/en/fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-could-take-30-years/a-15636914 It is an accident beyond our understanding of how to fix it.
Concentrated energy sources require focus and attention to harness the energy. When one little thing out of hundreds goes wrong can be a disproportionately large thing. We use the term “asymmetrical” more often these days to describe political leverage or war. We can do the same in describing the “asymmetrical” risk associated with nuclear energy. A design flaw at a solar power plant may cost a private corporation some money. A design flaw for a nuclear power plant can cost thousands their lives and expose a country or the world to further risk and expense.
… so we can leave the AC on when we are not at home? Even with no new technology or infrastructure it is estimated that we could save 30% of our energy use in conservation in our buildings with no change in quality of life? This is approaching the energy mix of the US that is attributed to the burning of coal.
But with every bit of respect to BF and you Craig I don’t think that a new model of conservation will be enough to eliminate coal. That is still going to require legislation and human understanding. It is an unfortunate war on an industry. We love life but not all life. We destroy diseases and microbes. We cheer when smallpox is eliminated worldwide.
Breath,
One must consider exactly what caused the nuclear accidents before reaching too many conclusions.
Chernobyl was the result of disabling all safety devices to run a dangerous test. Also, there was no containment structure; it was in a warehouse-type building. In addition, that reactor was designed to produce plutonium and getting power from it was simply an added attraction. There have been few of that type of reactor made and all were in the Soviet Union. So, that disaster should not be counted.
There was no excuse for the Fukushima disaster. It was a result of a failure of the emergency Diesel generators which had been foolishly located below the level of known tsunamis. The actual death toll, of any, was minuscule compared with the death toll caused directly by the earthquake and tsunami.
Three Mile Island caused no casualties. The tiny amount of radiation released was only a small fraction of the natural background radiation. The damage was to the investors.
The author, like the noted earth scientist, Dr. James Hansen, asserts that we cannot get CO2 emissions down to acceptable levels without nuclear power. China is already emitting more CO2 than we in the U.S. are and in all likelihood India will eventually be doing so also. The intermittent nature of solar and wind power, which is covered and quantified by the author, makes it impossible to have reliable power without considerable storage. For days, or even weeks at a time, the sun may not shine and the wind may not blow so storage requirements would be enormous.
Unfortunately the U.S. stopped doing research on alternative reactor types back in the 1960s. Fortunately China and other countries are doing research so probably eventually we will have better, safer, more economical, and more efficient nuclear technologies available. France went from zero nuclear power to 80% nuclear power in only 17 years. It is unlikely that that could be done with renewables. So, considering the possibly serious disaster that may result from not curtailing CO2 emissions, I think that we should be expanding nuclear power as fast as possible using existing nuclear technology until a better nuclear technology becomes available.
The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor is not new technology but it has emergency cooling water tanks located above the reactor level thereby making emergency cooling possible without power; it’s passive. That may be the reactor we should be making until something better becomes available.
Also, I suggest that you read the book. It is available in both paper from and in electronic form for use with an electronic reader.
The methods used to phase out coal is excessively complicated. What they should do is implement a carbon tax and gradually increase it.