SUN DAY Campaign reads EIA renewables numbers

[kristopher]

SUN DAY Campaign reads EIA renewables numbers

Washington, D.C. October 4, 2010. According to the most recent issue of the "Monthly Energy Review" by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), renewable energy sources (i.e., biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, wind) provided 11.14 percent of domestic U.S. energy production during the first six months of 2010---the latest time-frame for which data has been published.

This continues the steady growth trend for renewable energy. Renewables accounted for 10.71 percent of domestic energy production during the first six months of 2009 and 10.35 percent during the first six months of 2008.

Renewable energy sources provided 4.106 quadrillion Btus between January 1, 2010 and June 30, 2010---an increase of 4.91 percent over the first half of 2009 and an increase of 8.37 percent over the first half of 2008. The largest single renewable energy source was biomass (including biofuels) which accounted for 50.66 percent of renewable energy production, followed by hydropower at 32.56 percent. Wind, geothermal, and solar sources provided 10.91 percent, 4.53 percent, and 1.32 percent of the total renewable energy output respectively.

Moreover, renewable energy’s contribution to the nation’s domestic energy production is now almost equal to that provided by nuclear power. Nuclear power accounted for 11.19 percent of domestic energy production during the first half of 2010---compared to 11.14 percent from renewables. But, while renewable sources continue to expand, nuclear output in 2010 dropped---declining by 1.3 percent from its comparable 2009 level.

“When Congress...

Full article available at: http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/5293685997/articles/electric-light-power/renewable-energy/2010/10/SUN-DAY-Campaign-reads-EIA-renewables-numbers.html

[OnlinePoker]

1. The primary source of renewables and largest increase was biomass

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this require the burning of products and production of CO2 in order to generate the power? How many barrels of oil were used in producing the feed grain that went into the extra 175 Tbtu produced by that one source? Solar was the same year over year (not surprising for winter/spring period) and wind was up 79 Tbtu (21% year over year). Not bad, but a long way from making a serious dent in the supply given the backlash wind projects have been facing lately. They can't sustain as steady an increase as they've had over the past few years.

[kristopher]

2. Per your request, consider yourself corrected - biomass is CO2 neutral.

Pessimists have been predicting the end of double digit growth in renewables for a decade now, and they continue to be wrong. When you are tempted by that thought, it is handy to keep both the scale of the transition in mind (we are just starting to ramp up) and the fact that the evidence of AGW is actually very convincing for most of the leaders of the world. They are fighting a large group of very powerful interests, but their efforts are creating a set of economic circumstances that should balance the power/money equation with more than enough new winners to offset the entrenched energy interests trying to maintain their hold on the world's energy supply.

[Dead_Parrot]

3. It can be.

It isn't always

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2010/0120/After-the-earthquake-Haiti-s-deforestation-needs-attention

[kristopher]

5. And what do you think the EIA is recording data on?

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Apparently...

...it's "Wood and wood-derived fuels, biomass waste, and total biomass inputs to the production of fuel ethanol and biodiesel"

So you unless you are guaranteeing not one wood chip from a non-sustainable forest has wound up in there, I'm guessing it's a mix.

[joshcryer]

12. Most timber in North America is farmed, that is, for every tree cut down, one is planted.

So in that respect it's probably fairly carbon neutral. But emphasis on fairly here, since old growth forests sequester CO2 in far far greater quantities than those forests which are cut down and allowed to regrow.

[NNadir]

4. If you have one dollar, it is relatively EASY to increase your holdings by 100%.

If you have 1 billion dollars, its very difficult to do the same.

This is why all "renewables will save us" types talk in "percent talk," and why they can all be shown to be mathematically illiterate.

The actual figures for so called "renewable energy" are clear enough.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

Basically the entire renewables industry - as it has for many decades - consists entirely of burning wood, garbage and hydroelectric.

Together wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, blah, blah, blah...don't even produce 1% of US energy.

Wood burning is reported in many places in the scientific literature as having horrible effects on air quality.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH3-4VDH91D-6&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2009&_alid=1503700585&_rdoc=3&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_zone=rslt_list_item&_cdi=6055&_sort=r&_st=13&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=10&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a0883494c75184d7ed4178c5936fae7d&searchtype=a">Atmospheric Environment 42 (2008) 126–141

From the introduction of the paper, which is not accessible on line, but can be accessed in any good scientific library, we have:

Wood smoke is increasingly being seen as an important component of airborne particulate matter (PM), especially as the new short time standard for PM10—particles in ambient air, of 50 mgm3, set by the European Union (EU-Directive 1999/30/EG) is frequently violated in most urban regions in Europe. Finding effective measures to reduce these concentration levels requires detailed knowledge about the magnitudes of individual source contributions. Therefore the AQUELLA project was launched in Austria using a chemical mass balance (CMB)–receptor model as source apportionment technique...

I love this paper because it gives a very exhaustive analysis, by species, of much of the wood burned in Europe and the scary things that are emitted in the process.

A recent series of papers in Science (by Searchinger et al...) have interesting things to say about the climate impacts of biofuels.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861">Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change

This paper is a lot of fun, and has generated lots and lots and lots and lots of citations, which are a fun read. I have collected the original paper and many of the citing papers, and will write a fun commentary on another website - an anti-nuke one - where I sometimes write for amusement.

It's always fun to compare the faith based renewable industry with the real scientific literature. Were I a church going man - and I'm not - I might be inclined to mutter, "Forgive them, they know not what they do." But I'm not very forgiving. By belief is that ignorance kills, and, in fact, it does.


The idea that clear cutting forests and burning them is a "green" technology is ridiculous on its face. Likewise, probably, the idea that damming every major river in the world is questionably "green."

Without hydro and wood and garbage, the so called "renewables" industry is trivial and will continue, with as many decades of wild-eyed cheering as we have seen for the last half of a century, to do nothing meaningful to fight climate change.

[kristopher]

6. More of the same, eh?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=261737&mesg_id=262014
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x261737#262052

[NNadir]

24. Um, there are zero anti-nukes who don't whine when confronted with NUMBERS.

Over the last decade or so of the "renewables will save us" fantasy here, every single anti-nuke cries and cries and cries and cries when presented with the actual wind and solar numbers.

There are ZERO anti-nukes, ZERO, who are NOT apologists for the dangerous fossil fuel industry, every single one the famous examples of them of them, from Amory Lovins to Gerhardt Schroeder, to Joschka Fisher is paid by dangerous fossil fuel companies.

To wit:

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Amory+B.+Lovins">Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

Again, Denmark is a dangerous fossil fuel hellhole and the Vestas "vision" is Vestas Oil, Wind and Gas, which it clearly states.

2005 - Ditlev Engel becomes President and CEO of the company. Less than a month after taking up his new position, he published his strategy for Vestas for 2005-2008: The Will to Win. This includes, among other things, a new vision for Vestas. This vision is Wind, Oil and Gas, stating that wind power is to be a source of energy on par with oil and gas.

http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/profile/vestas-brief-history.aspx

Apparently Vestas consists of people who couldn't care less about banning oil and gas, even though every cognizant person on the planet - that leaves out 100% of anti-nukes - knows that oil and gas are not sustainable. In fact, however, every person who can understand simple math - fifth grade level or higher - knows that without oil and gas, the wind industry would collapse in 35 seconds or less.

To make it clear, since the number of anti-nukes who can read is zero, Vestas makes it clear - as does the Danish policy of drilling and drilling and drilling in the North Sea - that it not about banning oil or gas, but participating in it.

Have a nice BP greenwashing evening, and do let us know how many tens of billions of tons more dangerous fossil fuel waste you are willing to obliviously ignore before the high priced failed solar rich folks subsidy actually produces just one of the exajoules of hundred exajoules of energy your country consumes every year results in a microsecond of your silly and awful and willfully oblivious attention.

[OnlinePoker]

8. Our local landfill banned wood waste a year ago.

I just checked their website to see what is done with it and the primary usage is as boiler fuel. I know when I took scrap wood up there two weeks ago and put them in the bins, there was a hell of a lot of pressure treated, stained, and painted lumber in there. I can imagine the chemical soup being put into the atmosphere from burning that wood. Sure the wood would break down in the landfill and release a similar amount of greenhouse gas, but the other chemicals sent into the atmosphere (arsenic in pressure treated wood, for instance) doesn't justify using this as a fuel source.

[kristopher]

9. Thank you.

That sounds like an incredibility accurate and detailed analysis of the problem, have you communicated your findings to the National Academies of Science yet? Or better still, perhaps you should send it to the IPCC.

Bot groups seem to concur that biomass is a valuable tool in the effort to displace fossil fuels. Yes there are problems - there are problems with any technology. But honest to goodness detailed studies tell us that the particulate emissions problems that nnads usually posts about (I stopped doing more than skimming his screeds long ago) refers to indoor pollution in third world countries, not the use of biomass in modern boilers designed to capture particulate emissions.

But hey, send in your research; I'm sure it will be given the attention it merits.

[joshcryer]

11. The "detailed analysis of the problem" was cited by NNadir, which you summarily dismissed...

...by misdirection, trying to change the subject.

[kristopher]

21. With good cause I dismiss EVERYTHING nnads says.

This was posted by NNadir, note the last line: "It is interesting to note that the most transparently dishonest people are the first to accuse others of dishonesty."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=261737&mesg_id=262014


Then review what results from follow up:

http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/profile/vestas-brief-history.aspx

[OnlinePoker]

23. Could you respond to what he wrote in this thread for the time being?

What do you think of the information he presents here that refutes your assertion that biomass is "green" energy? Don't attack the giver of the information...attack the info itself if you can.

[kristopher]

25. No, I won't do that.

I've wasted far too much time tracking down his bullshit. He scores a 100% on misinforming, distorting and outright falsification. If you want to believe that his presentation is honest after seeing the example provided that typifies his ethics, that is your choice; you aren't a child.

[Nihil]

10. Also bear in mind ...

> other chemicals sent into the atmosphere (arsenic in pressure treated wood,

In a landfill, these would end up leaching through to the water supply.
(Yes, I'll admit that the timescale would be longer compared to combustion in
a suitable boiler - as it would for the CO2, CH4 and other decomposition
products - but it would still happen.)

In a proper biomass generator (i.e., not just burning the stuff on a bonfire
to keep warm) then the filters in place for pollution control (NOx, particulates)
will also catch some of this unwanted "other pollution" too.

I suspect that this is the better of the two choices but YMMV?
:shrug:

[OnlinePoker]

14. Thank-you. A much better answer than the snot's reply. n/t

[kristopher]

15. Sorry if you're offended but my tolerance for misinformation is in direct proportion

to the number of times it is repeated.

Read a book or two BEFORE you jump to conclusions.

[OnlinePoker]

16. It was not misinformation. It is a fact that serious pollutants are caused by incineration.

This site here is a very good one for the information you don't want to hear. What goes into biomass incineration that you think is so green? Municipal garbage, tires, wood waste, and agricultural waste are the primary sources. Wood may not be so bad, but the others are definitely NOT green.

http://www.energyjustice.net/biomass

[kristopher]

17. You are maligning a very broad array of technologies with very limited examples.

And when you were (politely) pointed in a more informed direction, YOU elected to continue to press your MISinformation strategy. As I said, there are problems with every generating technology. But it is the relative scale of the problems that is what matters. This issue has been subjected to very rigorous examination and overall biomass is an appropriate, GREEN, sustainable source of energy for many regions.

If you have a problem with local INAPPROPRIATE waste incineration then fight THAT fight; don't project your personal demon onto the larger discussion as if it is definitive.

[OnlinePoker]

18. Yes...you never fight your personal demon (nuclear) here, do you. n/t

[kristopher]

20. It just happens that the largest quantity of MISinformation comes from nuclear supporters.

The amount of false information provided by supporters of nuclear power on this forum us nothing short of staggering; so it might seem that it is my "demon" but the fact is my "demon" is the same one that bit you - an intense dislike of people who persist in deliberately misinforming on the role of energy in climate change and energy security.

[OnlinePoker]

19. dupe...delete

[joshcryer]

13. The wind farm resistance should lead to new power grid infrastructure.

Those turbines are being built where they are because that's where the grid is. Once we invest (eventually, 20 years from now), in a good grid to tie things together, wind might be able to actually grow at the rates promised by its advocates.

[kristopher]

22. It is ongoing

One example: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x262394


As for "the rate promised by its advocates"; perhaps you could tell me where such "promises" have been made. The ONLY "promises" I've ever seen are the ones stating that wind growth is directly tied to the degree of commitment to change that is evidenced by government policies.

Renewables are extremely responsive to policy support (not just in the form of subsidies) in both rate of growth and in DELIVERING substantial cost reductions that are directly correlated to increased market share.

Nuclear on the other hand, just keeps getting more expensive (and arguably more dangerous) the more we support it.