Getting Off Carbon:
How Energy should work for B.C.
---------
completely rewritten December 2008
Bill Meikle bcmeikle@shaw.ca
This is a third version of this page. My first thoughts from May 2004 are here.
In truth I disagree with many of the things I believed only 4 years
ago.
I've found myself feeling pretty negative
lately, always saying 'that's not how energy
should be done here...' I mean I see that huge haze of smog over
Vancouver each summer
when I go to the beach and the forest fires and floods....Problems all
over the world...
I thought I'd take a moment and visualize
how I think it SHOULD
work..
*******
The most important quote to begin with is from a BC Hydro web page:
"More than 90 per cent of BC Hydro’s electricity is generated by water
powering turbines at 30 hydroelectric facilities on 27 watersheds
around British Columbia"
This means that BC is a global leader in clean electricity
production.
Even a
jurisdiction like Iceland that creates a large percentage of their
power
from clean hydroelectric and geothermal, does not reach the lofty
heights of
90%!!(Renewable energy in Iceland has supplied over
70% of Iceland's primary energy needs since 1999 ) For
the most part in the U.S. electricity is generated by coal. OK 49.7 %
of US power comes from this filthy source, while Nuclear, and other
dirty sources like burning oil make up most of the balance. Here's
a page that shows Paraguay as the world leading nation state with
99.9% of electricity coming from Hydroelectric. There are many other
small nations that have impressive records, noted there.
But of course electricty
generation isn't everything. There is transportation, heating, and
other energy needs. How clean are these in B.C.
Our
Electricity Should Be Sold as Fine Wine
More than 50% of retail customers
in the United States now have an option of purchasing a
green power product directly from their electricity supplier. This
means that people voluntarily pay a premium price to support their
utilities in purchasing green power. B.C. electricity, needs to be sold
at this premium price.
BC Government gets it!
When I first wrote up this
page, I was just a voice in the wilderness, calling for a B.C. with
green energy in all sectors. Today
that thinking is mainstream. The
Province will introduce new legislative measures this fall that will
mandate greenhouse gas reduction targets and provide legal tools to
implement government’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
33 per cent below current levels by 2020, Premier Gordon Campbell
announced today at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities
convention.
So rather than a shrill diatribe on how
things should be but probably
never will, it is time to offer constructive suggestions on reaching
these goals.
some feisty
thoughts
Carbon Fixing by
Plants
We see a world coming where carbon output is taxed.
Where electricity generation outputting carbon is regulated...but
what about increasing carbon fixing? B.C. has miles and miles of dry
scrubland (think Kamploops)
where irrigation can increase the carbon fixed by a great deal. I would
suggest that within the economy
of saying no to carbon burning, we need an economy of saying yes to
carbon fixing. Yes we can tax the
fuel a farmer uses to run his diesel machinery, but we also must REWARD
that farmer when he
takes an acre of scrubland and puts it into efficient crops..
This is a very important thing to look at before we
proceed. It is
the output of different crops in oil per acre of bio fuels.
Crop kg oil/ha litres
oil/ha lbs oil/acre US gal/acre
corn (maize) 145
172 129 18
cashew nut 148
176 132 19
oats 183 217
163 23
lupine 195 232
175 25
kenaf 230 273
205 29
calendula 256 305
229 33
cotton 273 325
244 35
hemp 305 363
272 39
soybean 375 446
335 48
coffee 386 459
345 49
linseed (flax) 402
478 359 51
hazelnuts 405 482
362 51
euphorbia 440 524
393 56
pumpkin seed 449
534 401 57
coriander 450 536
402 57
mustard seed 481
572 430 61
camelina 490 583
438 62
sesame 585 696
522 74
safflower 655 779
585 83
rice 696 828
622 88
tung oil tree 790
940 705 100
sunflowers 800
952 714 102
cocoa (cacao) 863
1,026 771 110
peanuts 890 1,059
795 113
opium poppy 978
1,163 873 124
rapeseed (Canola) 1,000
1,190 893 127
olives 1,019
1,212 910 129
castor beans 1,188
1,413 1,061 151
pecan nuts 1,505
1,791 1,344 191
jojoba 1,528
1,818 1,365 194
jatropha 1,590
1,892 1,420 202
macadamia nuts 1,887
2,246 1,685 240
Brazil nuts 2,010
2,392 1,795 255
avocado 2,217
2,638 1,980 282
coconut 2,260
2,689 2,018 287
oil palm 5,000
5,950 4,465 635
Chinese tallow 5,500
6,545 4,912 699
Algae (actual yield)* 6,894
7,660 6,151 819
Algae (theoretical yield)** 39,916
47,500 35,613 5,000
As you can see, corn is completly dwarfed by Algae, to a bizarre
extent. (Seeing that corn is the main
crop presently used to create biofuel)
As well as having a low output, corn requires a great deal of input, in
the form of irrigation, fuel for
planting, harvesting, fertilizing... In a true irony, if a farmer does
NOTHING to his field and doesn't plant
corn the weeds that come up may be fast-growing Poplar trees and switch
grass. This will actually produce
MORE biofuel...
It could be argued that rather that all the schemes our team of experts
come up with for B.C. it would be
more cost effective to get 100 guys on 100 excavators to build some
huge rice patties, where we could
grow a great deal of algae. If done with luck (and a crack team of UBC
scientists) this algae might offset
all the carbon put in the atmosphere by the entire province!
A page showing carbon
emissions per capita by country
_______
GENERATION:
how we should make power:
My proposal is that we double our power output of clean electricity.
Some of this would be to power the province's
fleet of plug-in hybrid vehicles, and the rest we sell as fine wine.
Other areas to consider:
1.Negawatts.
Starting with the basics, insulation is a great provider of negawatts.
Tight well insulated structures are all that's worth heating...
There is probably quite a bit to be gained by simple investments in
efficiency through industry too, updating appliances...that sort of
thing. It isn't sexy, but if we just changed most of the 60 and 100
watt lightbulbs in the province over to the new 7 watt fluorescents
we'd save a ton of energy...weather stripping and insulation before
power plants!
2.Heat pumps/geothermal.
Having spent 7 years in the woods homesteading, I have some experience
in generating my own energy.
What I found is that lighting and a stereo or t.v. are easy. Heat is
the most difficult problem in day-to-day energy use around a house.
Modern heat pumps are amazing. There are greenhouses in holland that
store ice in winter and hot water in summer, and use it all year round
to produce energy. Heat pumps can create energy out of any difference
in
temperature: A source of hot and a source of cold. These greenhouses
EXPORT energy. That is these
large stuctures have too much heat, so some is turned into
electriciy
while they are cooled...
In B.C. where we have oceans next to
ice caps, and rivers next to icey air...these are a huge unexplored
area..
This
link from B.C. hydro suggests an average household can save 50% of
heating costs with a heat pump. If we mass produce
and install them in most homes, a huge provincial saving would be
incurred...
2a: PAHS passive annual heat storage buildings are
possible. These store enough heat all summer to heat the structure all
winter...
3. micro hydro electric/hydro electric
We already have a big and powerful hydro system in B.C.
The 3 rainy mountain ranges are key. Moisture flows off the pacific and
hits the vancouver island mountains, making the west coast wet. Then it
hits the coastal mountains, making North Van wet. Then it hits the
Monashees, Purcells,
and rockies, making some pockets of the interior wet.
The trick to hydro-electic power for us is protecting fish
spawning,while maximizing
hydro output. Large dams may not be as necessary as lots of small
systems.
4. Wind
This is part of a 'new mainstream' system. To actually make 10% of b.c.
future power with wind would take a huge effort,
but we have some locations that are perfect...Squamish, parts of the
west coast of vancouver island etc. Also high altitude wind
that utilizes jet streams show a lot of promise...
5. Solar.
Because our solar is only good in some areas, it would have to be very
aggressive there... Osoyoos,
Merrit, places in the rainshadow, would all have to have every home
with solar tiles on the roof...
The big price breakthroughs in this area in the past few years have
been in solar concentrators. It is expensive
to trap sunlight with photovaltaics etc. but reasonable to concentrate
that light on a small surface. Systems using
mirrors focusing on a sterling engine have made price breakthroughs...
6.Waves/tides...otec's...Here is a paper showing that 'energy
rafts' 'less than a square of 30 by 30 kilometers.'
could replace the worlds nuclear production, (7% of power generated)...
They work better, in hot places, but what about placing one in
international waters? We also have
a prototype
tidal
station in B.C. which I hear is the most constant of renewable
energies.
Oregon is pushing wave
power.
7.
Biomass/Firewood as a source of rural community winter heating. The
trees can offset the carbon in terms of greenhouse gases. Plant more
trees and burn some wood in clean heating systems.
Clean, centralized woodstoves with filters, could probably heat (or
supplement) some small towns using local resources.
In the new climate of carbon awareness, it's important to understand
that biofuels, even if they burn with pollution are using carbon that
was recently taken out of the atmosphere by plants. This is much better
than say, burning oil or gas, which involves taking sequestered carbon
that has been underground for thousands of years and putting it in the
air.
Transportation:
With electrical generation 100% clean
and exporting, we should turn our attention to the transport sector.
Plug in Hybrids might be the answer. B.C. is a particularly good
candidate for this because the electricity we plug into is clean,
so making cars run cleanly is as simple as plugging them in. Hymotion
is a canadian company that will sell me a plug in hybrid conversion
next year when the warrenty runs out on my existing hybrid..
HYDROGEN
This form of energy storage is like packing beach balls
that are already inflated into your tank.
To make it work the hydrogen has to be bound into a molecule that can
pack it in a compressed form.
Hydrides can do this. So can Ammonia, and compounds like it.
Proton is a place you can
buy your electric hydrogen maker...
Stuart energy in toronto
sells hydrogen gas stations...
if you are in a remote place where shipping in gasoline is very
expensive,
but you have a source of
electricity, say hydro-electric, it may already be worth it go
hydrogen!
What's a zinc fuel cell
? We just sold magnesium fuel cells to the chinese.
Here's a site with great
working hydrogen
toys.
Himac says they can get 80%
efficiency gains
Or maybe a compressed
air car is the way to go?
It is imperitave that the energy system be designed by technicians
rather than politicians. Or at least that the technical
possibilities of energetics are clearly defined.
We need to think outside the box, and dream the good dream. Zero
pollution. Zero
corruption.
Maximum diversity of ownership in harmonious interconnection...
We can be world leaders in the carbon free lifestyle. We can show that
it can be done and should be done. All we need to do is move forward.