A Fish Out of Water struggles to survive, finding a path toward a safer environment. FishOutofWater is a thoughtful, engaged scientist, passionately struggling to help us find our way toward a prosperous, climate-friendly future. Here is a guest post laying out how, with just two renewable sources, the United States could power its way out of our climate challenges — making legislation like Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy & Security (ACES) Act simply unnecessary.
The climate bill was killed by health care bill delays, says Politico.
“The reality is [the health reform bill] is going to happen before cap and trade,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Collin Peterson, who’s been working with farm-state senators on the climate legislation. “Who knows if it will ever come out of the Senate?”
The climate bill didn’t do what is needed to save the climate: transition from dirty coal to cheap and abundant wind power. The death of this bill gives us a chance to get it right: transition to renewable energy. Wind Resources in the contiguous United States, specifically in the central plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current demand for electricity in the United States.
Democratic senators in the midwest and plains states have derailed both the health care bill and the climate bill.
Industrial and farm state Democrats have serious concerns about the legislation, which they fear will hurt manufacturing- and coal-dependent areas that are already struggling through the recession. And conservative Democrats say voters will oppose another expensive government program in wake of the $787 billion stimulus and the trillion-dollar health care reform package.
“I think the whole spending issue in Washington will affect climate change and health care more than one will affect the other,” said Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, one of the Senate’s most conservative Democrats. “Stop the spending.”
These Democrats are not just dead wrong, they have it backwards. The midwest and great plains are the untapped Saudi Arabia of wind, according to a recent report by a Harvard University based team published by National Academy of SciencesPDF.
The United States has far more than enough wind power to meet all its foreseeable energy needs. The great plains of the U.S and northern Quebec, Canada have enormous potential for wind power production.
A network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbine restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms.
Ammonia produced from wind power is capable of replacing hydrocarbon based transportation fuels.
Addiction to imported petroleum carries with it huge economic, environmental and national security risks for the United States and other developed countries. The search for a domestically produced, economical and environmentally friendly fuel has led to one acceptable solution, anhydrous ammonia. Also known as “the other hydrogen”, ammonia is the closest thing to a perfect transportation fuel.
Ammonia is an ultra-clean, energy-dense alternative liquid fuel. Along with hydrogen, ammonia is the only fuel that does not produce any greenhouse gases (GHG) on combustion.
Hydrogen combustion: 2H2 + O2 2H2O (water vapor)
Ammonia combustion: 4NH3 + 3O2 2N2 + 6H2O (nitrogen and water vapor)
The midwest, great plains and northeastern Canada have enormous wind reserves that could generate both power and ammonia for fuel, making the U.S. and Canada truly energy independent.
By PNAS
Large numbers of unemployed workers could be hired to produce wind turbines in factories in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and other midwestern states hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs. Detroit could get to work transitioning cars and trucks from hydrocarbon fuels to ammonia. Unemployed construction workers could be put back to work constructing wind power facilities and an improved power grid.
There is one major problem with wind power.
There’s less wind in the summer season when power demand peaks and wind variability may correlate across the U.S. creating periods of low power. Solar thermal power potential peaks just when wind is at its minimum, making solar and wind perfectly complementary. A Solar thermal manufacturing plant in Las Vegas is already one of the few bright spots in Nevada’s badly depressed economy.
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) – Ausra Inc. announced plans Thursday for a Las Vegas manufacturing plant for solar-thermal power systems – and said the 130,000-square-foot plant should be operating by April.
“Ausra can fill four square miles with solar collectors every year from this one factory, enough to provide market-priced, zero-pollution power to 500,000 homes,” said Bob Fishman, Ausra president and CEO.
Bakersfield, CA, Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Plant, mirrors manufactured in Las Vegas.
Expansion of that plant and construction of more generation facilities would be a boon to Nevada’s unemployed workers. Nevada Solar One, using European manufacturing is successfully producing power now. America needs to support development of American solar technology manufacturing to remain competitive in the global marketplace.
Nevada Solar One uses 760 parabolic troughs (using more than 180,000 mirrors) made by Flabeg AG in Germany[10] that concentrate the sun’s rays onto thermos tubes running laterally through the troughs and containing a heat transfer fluid (solar receivers), in contrast to the power tower concentrator concept that California’s original Solar One project uses. These specially coated tubes, made of glass and steel, were designed and produced by Solel Solar Systems[11] as well as by Schott Glass in Germany.[12] Motion control was supplied by Parker Hannifin, from components by Ansco Machine Company. The plant uses 18,240 of these four-meter-long tubes. The heat transfer fluid is heated to 735 °F (391 °C). The heat is then exchanged to water to produce steam which drives a conventional turbine.[13]
Solar thermal power plants designed for solar-only generation are well matched to summer noon peak loads in areas with significant cooling demands, such as the southwestern United States. Using thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal operating periods can be extended to meet base load needs.[14] Given Nevada’s land and sun resources the state has the ability to produce more than 600 GW using solar thermal concentrators like those used by Nevada Solar One.[15]
Nine parabolic concentrator facilities have been successfully operating in California’s Mojave Desert commercially since 1984 with a combined generating capacity of 354MW for these Solar Energy Generating Systems. Other parabolic trough power plants being proposed are two 50 MW plants in Spain (see Solar power in Spain), and two 110 MW plants in Israel.[16]
It has been proposed that massive expansion of solar plants such as Nevada Solar One has the potential to provide sufficient electricity to power the entire United States.[17]
A total of 12 forged letters — all appearing to come from local groups unhappy with a climate-change bill — were sent to three congressional offices this summer by a Washington lobbying firm, according to the pro-coal group for which the firm was working.
Congress must hear the truth. Wind and solar power create good secure long-term jobs in America. American manufacturing can be revived by manufacturing renewable energy systems. American construction jobs can be revived building wind and solar power plants. Jobs, the economy and the environment are compatible. We don’t lose jobs and hurt the economy by moving from fossil fuels to renewable power and fuel. We build the economy of the future.
The answer to America’s jobs energy and economic problems is the answer to the climate change problem. Renewable energy is the answer.
2 responses so far ↓
1 A Siegel // Aug 6, 2009 at 1:45 pm
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2 Chris Leyerle // Aug 7, 2009 at 10:29 am
Great post. The jobs bogeyman is being used to distort the debate. What’s needed to counter the fear-mongering is a bottoms-up calculation of the manufacturing, construction, O&M and other jobs that would result from creating this industry and the solution it provides to our energy economy. In the same way that questionable federal programs in defense and elsewhere are often sold by spreading the jobs impacts around to every legislator’s district, the renewable energy industry needs to assemble a credible plan of how jobs will be created, not destroyed, district-by-district. Only then will the mid-country politicians pay attention.