The big picture is an advantageous perspective when looking to the future and wondering about the future choices we have for energy.
Lately we seem to be more aware about our energy and environment; there are important discussions about fossil fuels; global warming, oil pipelines, natural gas fracking, oil wars, electric cars, solar and wind. These are hotly contested discussions around the future of energy. At some level we all realize our dependence on energy to survive. It also happens to be a very big business and of national interest. It is great that these topics are on our minds, however if we are to make meaningful progress in these matters, I wonder are we really looking at solutions that will make a meaningful impact? What are the hidden motivations from the various opinions, and are these new solutions really practical and scalable to meet all of humanities needs? Can we do this in time before we really alter our planet in such a way that we can no longer sustain our population? The big questions.
A tops-down approach is used to create complex systems; buildings, city planning, computers, and in this case an energy delivery system to provide mankind's energy for the future. Taking a larger, top-down perspective we can see the more complex system interactions, the architecture, a holistic view. From there we can figure out the important details. Let's begin by asking the high level question: what is the root-source of energy today? Can we get more of the same?
Looking at it from the largest point of view we start with our 14 billion years old universe. Where and when did uranium and fossil fuel come from? These happen to be two of the main sources of energy today. Our basic elements like carbon, iron and oxygen and on to the heavier elements like uranium are created in solar furnaces with fusion reactions. The universe as we know it, now took some time to create; at the early stages no organic material that would have been around to create fossil fuels, the heavier elements like uranium simply did not exist. Fusion was it - converting hydrogen to helium. Organic matter and uranium were created at the death of giant stars in the act of a supernova - scattering the building blocks of life into the universe to form new solar systems just like ours. The iron atoms in your blood are the remains of a once gigantic star, long gone. Beyond creating matter - our sun's radiation is the primary form of energy that life on earth depends on today. Radiation is often put to work immediately, such as a tree's leaves absorbing radiation. Fast forward to today: the clever species homo-sapiens has devised a way to unlock stored solar energy from the past. All of our fossil fuels are chemical based energy forms - ancient algae living at the time of the dinosaurs, having absorbing the sun's radiation millions of years ago. Ergo the name fossil fuel.
Since the stars are the root of all energy, how much star power is out there and how long will it last?
The Hubble telescope has given us a beautiful and humbling glimpse of what is out in the universe beyond our daily lives here on earth. The observable universe contains a few 100 billion galaxies - and the average galaxy contains 100's of billions of stars. Each of these little white dots is another star is radiating unimaginable amounts of energy. It is incomprehensible to us humans, and so it is out of mind. Yet it is all that really matters with regards to energy, this is the root of all energy. Knowing this you can see the big picture of energy.
Star power runs the entire universe - and has done so since the dawn of time. Let us focus on just one star, our star the sun. It provides unimaginable amounts of power - so much that the tiny fraction that arrives on earth's surface can, in a few hours, supply the human population's entire energy needs for a year. There is plenty of energy - even a tiny fraction of one star is far more than we need today and in the foreseeable future, we just need to harvest it. We have tried for decades to recreate a small artificial sun in a fusion reactor with no success. So why do we not just "plug in" to our sun? Does it take a miracle in new technology as well?
All life uses energy - modern humans much more so. In the past we discovered ways to radically improve our lives here on earth as homo sapiens - our thirst for energy grew exponentially. Just in the last few decades (1950's to today) the USA alone now requires 6 times more energy per person to survive (graph courtesy of Novatlantis).
Go back, say 200 years, to a pre-industrialized planet and imagine how much energy we required back then - wax candles, wood fires, and whale oil... homo-sapiens are very clever creatures - inventing magic ways to convert black rocks (coal) to heat, the movement of water to hydro electric power - converting this to light so we can read at night. We have turned crude oil to aspirin and jet fuel, crushed rocks (ore) to craft jumbo jets - all these things we take for granted as we sip on a chilled gin and tonic at 40'000 feet on a trip to London. Our lives today would appear as pure magic relative to a human life a few centuries back, even to a king. We can do almost anything we can imagine - within the bounds of science and economics. Energy consumption inevitably accompanies economic growth - which seems to be a large motivating factor for most; a nice home with cars and mechanical slaves to serve our every need and whim. Recently the people of China and India wish to have the same life style as well, with a population far exceeding the developed nations today. Energy is an environmental issue, and yet at the same time energy is linked to broader issues such as world peace, politics, and economic growth. Is it possible for everyone on earth to have a pampered and comfortable life? How about just a basic and prosperous life?
What "fuels" this incredible life style so far is cheap and abundant energy. We have done very well so far converting all the low hanging fruit of the energy tree of life. We also have been very lucky; our curious scientists stumbling upon methods that allow us to convert the sun's radiation directly to electric power, "plugging in" to the sun directly - using a crystal made of silicon. Electricity is one of the most valuable forms of energy, and silicon is one of the most abundant elements on earth. Another clean and pervasive form of energy is the wind. The sun's heat is the source of wind - therefore abundant and renewable. So just how much does modern homosapien need these days, and what will it take in physical space and economic investment if we were to transition to solar based energy sources?
We currently need about 14 "Terra-Watts" (TW) of power to keep earth humming along, that is fourteen followed by twelve zeros, or about ten billion hair driers running all day and night. Currently our most powerful power generators are based on nuclear fission. A typical nuclear power plant creates about 1 Giga-Watt (GW), so about 14'000 nuclear power plants would be enough. However the USA has only 100, many are smaller than 1GW. There are about 435 civil nuclear plants world wide and 71 under construction, with little reason to build many more after Fukushima and Chernobyl. Although stars created the fuel for fission power plants, this resource is not renewable here on earth, mining the fuel is toxic and destructive, more importantly we have yet to figure out what to do with the toxic waste. Since nuclear fission is not scalable, what other forms of energy can we use?
The reality we face today is that we have harvested all the fairly easy low hanging fruit, some turned out to be rotten choices in hindsight, and yet we need more energy for our future - much more due to a growing demand. We have built all the hydro electric dams we can, oil is on its way out (peak oil), and coal is extremely destructive to burn and mine. Chernobyl and Fukushima were the ghastly events that will haunt us for generations, so incredibly bad that they triggered a renewable energy renaissance in Germany and Japan - now leaders of the world in solar and wind. We humans seem to require hard lessons to change our ways. Natural gas requires messy fracking and certainly contributes to global warming. We are at the end of our rope of conventional and easy energy sources. We have some tough choices ahead - this is clear. How long will we push out the hard decisions?
In the 1970's the USA had plans in place to transition in 30 years to a more benign and self sufficient energy future, however since it took effort and resources we later chose to dismantle these plans and decide later. Later is now, and now we are getting desperate. This greatly affects our actions and politics. This is best demonstrated by the USA recently leading an invasion into a sovereign nation to secure precious resources such as oil - if the USA wants to have any moral foundation to stand on this behavior must end. History shows this is not the first time; the British empire tried desperately to hold onto it's oil colony in Iran for the same reason, overthrowing a democratic government in 1953, the consequences of which we continue to feel today. Far too many homo sapiens are so addicted to energy that we will do whatever it takes to feed our appetite for it. We all have overlooked the consequences of using it, morally, economically, and environmentally. This recent war of the USA cost countless lives (over 100'000), and 3-4 trillion dollars. Uncle Sam has become the thug with a gun robbing the gas station. What are the long term ramifications of this action? Is the world really that desperate? What happened to our moral compass? Imagine running out of affordable oil and electrical power today, and the future may seem frightening.
There is no easy replacement for low cost fossil fuels - these took hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate - millions of years ago in a rare super-greenhouse condition on earth; ancient algae dropping to the ocean's floor, storing ancient sunlight in a chemical carbon based form - baked by the earth's heat heat and trapped in special geological formations - non renewable. Fossil fuel such as oil is very precious as a building block for advanced materials, food, and medicine, far to precious for us to just be burning it. A much better use is to turn it into carbon fiber for lightweight electric cars, such as BMW is doing today. As humans we have just burned through most of the good easy to reach stuff in less than 100 years - oil is out, now what?
A few nations do indeed have plenty of coal and natural gas, and hard to develop oil - however unless we really want to drastically alter the climate and trigger another anoxic event while poisoning our planet even further with heavy metals we need to stop using all fossil fuels. So just because we have it does not mean we can use it, this is difficult for most humans to understand due to lack of perspective - the big picture. Many regions here on earth never had oil or coal resources and rely on imports and other forms of fuel. Some have experienced the tragic consequences first had of using other modern forms of energy such as nuclear fission- when something goes very wrong. People from these regions are now the renewable energy leaders, by necessity and by misfortune - by learning the hard lesson that a mistake will devastate an entire region (1000 square miles for Chernobyl) for generations. As far as more benign forms of energy such as hydro power - we humans have built the last big hydro dams (e.g. Three Gorges Dam), and these power plants do have a finite life as well - unless we want to dig out all the silt after a few decades these are also non-renewable in some sense. So most of our traditional sources are out or can not be expanded. We are left with so-called Alternative Energy - it does not exist world-wide in large amounts today since we procrastinated once before. When exactly do we need our alternative renewable energy sources to be available to us before we go beyond being desperate?
We should be able to transition from our current sources of energy, assuming they will continue to operate for a few more decades. San Onofre was once a mighty nuclear power plant for southern California, it is now being decommissioned in the wake of Fukushima. There are 38 other such U.S. power plants with high risk factors, with only 100 in operation in the USA, that is a very significant problem. The other nuclear power plants are very old and have at best a few decades to run, that is - assuming we figure out what to do with the waste - another unresolved problem. So a few decades for nuclear - best case. Coal, oil, and natural gas are the other big contributors today, and they are all based on fossil fuels with emissions that will alter this planet. There is no agreement on exactly when fossil fuels need to end precisely because it is too complex to model. And it gets even more complex when you add in geography. Every country has a different path and time frame to transition, China and India are just starting to ramp up their energy needs and emissions. Certainly there is no way to change our ways in a few short years, like the Titanic, we are heading towards an unhappy future if we do not change course - this much we do know. In summary: we do not know how fast we are going, the exact course we are taking, and where the disaster lies, the complexity of the problem creates a fog of controversy, keeping us off a clear new sustainable path - otherwise we are fine.
Like it or not, we cannot hold on to our old ways - history will judge us on the actions we take now - either good or bad, we cannot escape our current situation, and now is our moment to act. There is nothing from the past to guide us - we must therefore think anew, and act anew. We have done our best to devise plans to avert the worst predictions of our near future, yet if we follow these plans (e.g. the 450 scenario) we have low odds of succeeding it appears - possibly we have waited too long already.What is alarming, and is a fact, is that the measurements we make on climate controlling factors (e.g. man-made greenhouse gasses) are unprecedented. That is unless we go back to massive volcanic eruptions of the ancient past. These climate changes generally occurred at a slower rate than what we are facing now and were nonetheless followed by mass extinctions. We face a very uncertain future now. We imagine a future where the current population is being fed, as well as ocean levels maintained to support our current borders and countries, yet it is much more likely to change sooner - and much more drastically than we hope. Yet very few people have any sense of urgency, or even seem concerned about these matters, why is that?
One fact about humans is that we like patterns, we get set in our ways and continue down a path once we have created it, it is less mental work and takes less energy. Using less mental energy allows us to eat less and increases our chances of survival - or in short, we are lazy. We are however uniquely endowed with large brains giving us the ability to contemplate and predict the future, as well as reflect on the past, but it requires effort. Sometimes the logical path is unknown and uncomfortable - causing fear, something we like to avoid. This ability to not live our lives just in the present - and imagine the future, as well as revisit the past - sets us apart from most other life forms on earth. We used our wonderful brains to create this situation, so my hope is that we will use our brains to change direction - the fear is overcome by logic and moral values. For sure we will act when all hell breaks loose. What does alternative energy possibly look like?
Given this perspective of an uncertain future it would seem wise to harness the endless energy source that powers the universe - reducing the speed by which we alter our future planet. Hopefully we are not just arranging deck chairs on the earth ship Titanic. We can climb up into the energy tree of life and continue and improve our modern life, where energy is abundant and inexhaustible. No need to dig poisonous fuel from the crust of the earth and dump it into the air we breath, the sun shines on us all and everywhere - no geopolitical advantage for a few fortunate nations. Imagine not having another oil war. Do any respectable and well intentioned people come to this conclusion as well? And what are the motivations of the solution providers?
Thomas Edison shared this thoughts in 1931 on this matter: "We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that." It is very heartwarming to know that other geniuses like T. Edison are working on providing solutions today for the very same reasons, one such noteworthy individual is Elon Musk with his ventures in Tesla Motors, and as chairman of Solar City. His thoughts are:"We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world" Simple and to the point. Below is an image of Thomas Edison and an electric vehicle of his time, the solutions we have to our disposal have been around for decades.
There are also the "dark forces" at play, somewhat analogous to Star-Wars, with the impressive, easy, and seductive solutions. Those that have vested interests in the past solutions will naturally try to take control of the unavoidable change we have ahead of us - and keep us on our current heading at all costs and as long as possible. Lacking any interest in long-term humanity, they have plenty of resources and followers to back them, fear and doubt can easily override logic and morals. So solar, wind power, and electric cars gets plenty of bad news - it is an easy to dish up fear since these alternatives are unknown. So, it may be important to see what the motivation is by any energy provider or solution we are offered, including solar and wind. The Koch brothers come to mind with regards to fossil fuels, they have a keen interest in preserving the status-quo, and plenty of resources to make it so, including controlling the media and political powers. Here too the big picture is important; what is really motivating people with regards to energy?
When will we overcome the old and unsustainable habits of our past? When do we realize that everyday actions have fairly grave consequences? We need to make the uncomfortable changes in our lives now, the solutions are here and affordable, ones that can comfortably power us into the future. Do we really see the big picture yet?
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