by DeAnander
Sat Jul 14th, 2007 at 09:37:55 AM EST
Until recently I guessed that the maximum contribution from renewables would be something like 50%: beyond that point the difficulties of storing electricity and balancing the grid could become overwhelming. But three papers now suggest that we could go much further...
Brought over by afew
[continued]
Last year, the German government published a study of the effects of linking the electricity networks of all the countries in Europe and connecting them to North Africa and Iceland with high voltage direct current cables. This would open up a much greater variety of renewable power sources. Every country in the network would then be able to rely on stable and predictable supplies from elsewhere: hydroelectricity in Scandanavia and the Alps, geothermal energy in Iceland and vast solar thermal farms in the Sahara. By spreading the demand across a much wider network, it suggests that 80 percent of Europe's electricity could be produced from renewable power without any greater risk of blackouts or flickers.
At about the same time, Mark Barrett at University College London published a preliminary study looking mainly at ways of altering the pattern of demand for electricity to match the variable supply from wind and waves and tidal power. At about twice the current price, he found that we might be able to produce as much as 95 percent of our electricity from renewable sources without causing interruptions in the power supply.
Now a new study by the Center for Alternative Technology takes this even further. It is remarkable in two respects: it suggests that by 2027 the United Kingdom could produce 100 percent of our electricity without the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power, and that it could do so while almost tripling its supply: British heating systems (using electricity to drive heat pumps) and transport systems could be mostly powered by it. It relies on a great expansion of electricity storage: building new hydroelectric reservoirs into which water can be pumped when electricity is abundant, constructing giant vanadium flow batteries and linking electric cars up to the grid when they are parked, using their batteries to meet fluctuations in demand. It contains some optimistic technical assumptions, but also a very pessimistic one: that the UK relies entirely on its own energy supplies. If the German proposal were to be combined with these ideas, it's possible to see how one might reliably move towards a world without fossil fuels.
If Hansen is correct, to avert the meltdown that brings the Holocene to an end we require a response on this scale: a sort of political "albedo flip." The British government must immediately commission studies to discover how much of our energy could be produced without fossil fuels, set that as its target then turn the economy round to meet it. But a power shift like this cannot take place without a power shift of another kind: the UK needs a government which fears planetary meltdown more than it fears the CBI.
footnote
as we all know there is a long tradition of asserting that an automobile can be run on water, the evil oil companies just suppressed the miracle carburetor...
however in this case, we have efforts by many people -- Nomad and my humble self making a tiny contribution -- to figure out how much energy is really necessary for a pleasant, healthy and decent life; and we have new research and new ideas surfacing that suggest we can meet that baseline (and much more!) with renewables (tide, solar, wind).
however, it is genuinely true that industry and finance capital have a stranglehold on government throughout the world, except perhaps in a few backwaters like Cuba or Bougainville or Tikopia which contribute nearly nothing to the problem. and there is far more money to be made by investing in, and profiting from, a last desperate flare-off of the remaining fossil fuel reserves at steeply climbing prices, than in using them to retool for sustainable energy production in future.
there is going to be entrenched resistance to a shift to renewable energy sources. how to overcome it?
