Video Found At : Energy Bulletin

The Earth keeps turning, the Sun keeps burning, and the future will look a lot different than today as we drag down Carbon Dioxide emissions “by hook or by crook”.

We have to be wary of possible “crooks”. There are still technology “snake oil salesmen” out there, trying to impose Genetically Modified crops on us, or Nuclear Power, or Carbon Capture and Storage (to justify the continued use of Coal), and using the vehicle of science to push their wares :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/8048917/Climate-change-threatens-UK-harvest.html

“Climate change threatens UK harvest : Climate change could push up food prices by causing large-scale crop failures in Britain, the Met Office has warned. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published: 08 Oct 2010 : Rising temperatures could mean events such as the drought in Russia this summer, which pushed up grain prices, hit countries like the UK. But they said the worst effects of climate change could be limited by investment in better farming and the development of new drought resistant or heat tolerant crops. This could be done by aid money, breeding and new technologies like genetic modification (GM)…”

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/908/crop_failures_set_to_increase_under_climate_change

Look out for terms like “new crops”, “crop development” or “modified crops” :-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101007092817.htm
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034012/

See the use of the word “biotechnology” in the actual research paper :-

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/3/034012/pdf/1748-9326_5_3_034012.pdf

But, as everybody can probably guess, most farmers in the world will not be able to afford Genetically Modified crops, and anyway, nobody really yet knows if GM crops confer the benefits claimed – there is some evidence that “life scientists” don’t know the full range of effects on organisms from gene splicing.

Nuclear Power ? The promotion of new Nuclear Power has, to my mind, been a massive propaganda exercise on behalf of the world’s mining companies that want to stay in business digging up Uranium, even as wind turbines will be built from scrap steel, not new iron ore; and new cars will be built from recycled aluminium. Interestingly, the belief in the “bright future” offered by an undoubtedly costly, unreliable new fleet of Nuclear plant is waning, according to a “Crooks” who is actually quite reliable (note : search the headline in Go Ogle to read the article in full) :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad15fcfe-bc71-11df-a42b-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=8992c4a2-bc70-11df-a42b-00144feab49a.html

“Nuclear: New dawn now seems limited to the east : By Ed Crooks : Published: September 12 2010 : The renaissance of nuclear power is a much fabled beast that is often talked about but rarely seen. A new wave of construction of nuclear power stations, bringing to an end the lull in the industry since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, has been widely predicted for much of the past decade. Growing concerns about energy security and dependence on fossil fuels, combined with the fight against climate change, have prompted a resurgence of interest in nuclear power. In terms of intentions, at least, there is plenty of evidence of a revival. Worldwide, there are plans to build 149 reactors, and proposals for 344 more, according to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), the industry group. If all those projects went ahead, they would more than double the number of reactors in operation, which is about 440. However, many of the hopes and claims made for the nuclear renaissance have been excessive. Industry executives and analysts suggest most of those new reactors are unlikely to be built on their proposed schedules, if at all. The pace of development of reactor projects is slow in Europe, and even slower in the US. Any upturn in construction is happening in emerging economies, above all in China…”

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2010/10/07/nuclear-again/

“(1) Nuclear power isn’t going away any time soon. Nuclear plants generate a lot of power and most of them seem likely to outlive their originally planned operational lifetime. So, there doesn’t seem to be much point in being “anti-nuclear” in the sense of hoping for a world without nuclear energy – that horse bolted decades ago.”

“(2) Except in China (and maybe India) nuclear power isn’t getting bigger any time soon. Following the failure of Obama’s energy bill and the GFC, the US “nuclear renaissance” is dead in the water, and the same is true in Europe. While residual anti-nuclear sentiment plays a role here, the big problem is economics.”

But it is in the field of mobility that we are most prone to being duped. The Tesla has just been subject to a product recall – can we rely on the promise of electricity-powered racing cars for everyone ?

Considering the real difficulties in replacing the vehicle fleet, either with lightweight, super-fuel-efficient one-person buggies, or with new electric roadsters, we should all consider our private transport of the future to be an (electricity-assisted) bicycle or moped.

For public transport, for long journeys, we could be reduced to expensive trains, or BioGas-driven coaches, operating in a huge new network. And for local hops in urban settings ? Biogas-powered tuk-tuks – powered by the fermented output from public toilets ?

Image Credit : NowPublic

I still don’t know what all the fuss is about Nuclear Power, when the BioMethane from all the toilets, farm slurry, hospital and food waste in the country could trounce the amount of power available from atoms by 2020.

Without all that nasty radioactive leftover, massive expensive building projects, social tension, election nightmare and increasing security issues.

With a bit of time on my paws over the “Christmas Vortex” (everything gets sucked up by Christmas and nothing ever gets spat out again until January), I started to dig into Professor David J. C. MacKay’s excellent tome, available free online, Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air :-

http://www.withouthotair.com/

I was amazed that he only only seemed to mention BioMethane, or BioGas when discussing a source of Energy to power an Algae BioDiesel plant, in a note at the back of one of his “Technical” chapters, D, named “Solar II”.

“Putt (2007)…Putt describes the energy balance of a proposed design for a 100-acre algae farm, powered by methane from an animal litter digester. The farm described would in fact produce less power than the methane power input…”

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cD/page_288.shtml

Back in the good Professor’s chapter on Nuclear, he does a fair analysis of what would constitute a “sustainable” output of Atomic Fission Power, globally. Of course, not written into the text, is the obvious fact of life that the Global North (Industrialised West) would get the lion’s share of any Nuclear Energy, because of “factors”, but even so, the calculations of electricity produced, per person, per day, taking in practical development and deployment issues is not that huge.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_161.shtml

In his chapter 27 “Five energy plans for Britain”, his plan E “Producing lots of electricity” assumes that somehow the Economics of Nuclear Power can be made to work in the UK, despite the financial troubles faced by many of the European and American companies that would be relied on to construct and work the new installations. He puts output of Nuclear Power at 44 kWh (kiloWatt hours) per day per person, noting “This plan has a ten-fold increase in our nuclear power over 2007 levels.” Given the current state of the Economy, and the lack of readiness to spend the readies on massive new Nuclear plant, this therefore is highly unlikely. The current plans for 10 new reactors only amounts to a “replacement” programme of the plant that needs to be de-commissioned by 2023 :-

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c27/page_203.shtml

Other plans that MacKay outlines are in the region of an electricity contribution from Nuclear as 10 or 16 kWh per day per person. This is marginally more realistic, but still rather on the optimistic side, even if you assume massive reorientation of the fiscal regime to grant Nuclear Power a kind of Low Carbon status, and ply the industry with offers of free insurance and guaranteed sales contracts.

The plain fact is that poo can do better.

According to a report from National Grid : “Renewable Gas”, “upgraded” BioMethane, suitable for delivery through the current Natural Gas pipeline network could offer 18,432 million cubic metres by 2020 :-

http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/9122AEBA-5E50-43CA-81E5-8FD98C2CA4EC/32182/renewablegasWPfinal1.pdf

Studies of current yield of BioMethane show that 4,650,000 cubic metres yields 45,983,333 kWh, after deducting the Energy used to anaerobically digest and clean the BioGas.

To convert it all into “MacKay” units of measurement, this means that by 2020, if the population of the UK is counted as being approximately 60 million, each year, 3037 kWh per person could be produced, or roughly 8 kWh per person per day.

Hmm. Quite a contender when compared to the as yet unborn, potentially sluggish, constipated Nuclear “renaissance”. By contrast, Poo Power has natural “intestinal transit”, as production is a constant fact of life.

Roughly 20% of current UK Natural Gas consumption from slurry ? And all it would take would be renovation of sewage and water treatment plants :-

http://chartsbin.com/view/63n
(2009 current gas consumption UK is 93,904,213,944 cubic metres)

Let’s hear applause for Number Two’s…

Energy is a faecal issue…

I’m cheering for that day when the animal waste product hits the spinning gas turbines…

Come on, pull out all the old scatalogical jokes, won’t you ?

Sustainable Energy comes from doing what comes naturally. Wind, waves, sunlight. And pooping.

With some fairly minor adaptations to all sewage treatment plants, and a little AD – Anaerobic Digestion – we could hook up our off-gassing into the National Grid, and reduce our Fossil Gas use, big-time.

Watch this technology for meteoric rise. Cheap, cheerful, but slightly pongy. But they do BioGas in China and India all the time, and 2.4 billion Chinidians can’t be wrong.

Something of an irony, the nation’s first commercial Liquid BioMethane bus test will be done at East Midlands airport :-

http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=51659

“Gasrec begins trial of Liquid Biomethane fuel for ground vehicle at East Midlands Airport : Monday, 09 November 2009 – the UK’s first commercial producer of Liquid Biomethane (LBM) – is entering into a six -month trial with East Midlands Airport (EMA), to run a Cobus 3000 passenger bus (which is used to transfer passengers from aircraft to the terminal building), powered by Gasrec’s LBM. LBM is a fuel produced from decomposing organic waste which is suitable for powering a wide range of commercial vehicles. When LBM is used as a vehicle fuel to displace diesel, it can achieve up to 60 per cent reduction in CO2…”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6876945.ece

“From The Times : October 16, 2009 : British Gas owner could use cow manure to heat homes : Robin Pagnamenta : British homes could soon be heated by gas produced from cow manure and sewage slurry, under plans being considered by Centrica, the owner of British Gas. The company, which has 16 million UK customers, is drawing up plans to build a plant that would use organic waste to produce biomethane that could be injected directly into the national gas network. National Grid has estimated that such biogas could supply 18 per cent of total UK demand for gas — or 18 billion cubic meters of the approximately 100 billion total consumed in Britain every year. A spokesman for Centrica said that biogas was an “interesting technology” and that it was studying the option of constructing a plant in Britain that would process an array of materials, from abattoir and farm waste to municipal food waste. John Baldwin, a biomethane consultant with CNG Services, which is advising Centrica, said that the industry remained “embryonic” in the UK but was well advanced in continental countries. However, he said that the economics of British biomethane production would be transformed in April 2011, when the Government begins a subsidy scheme called the Renewable Heat Incentive…”

http://www.icis.com/blogs/green-chemicals/2009/06/poo-power-rises.html
“Poo Power rises”

http://www.upd8.org.uk/activity/96/Poo-power-or-nuclear-power.html
“poo power or nuclear power ?”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/28/lunen-germany-biogas-power
“Poo power to the people”

http://www.yorkshirewater.com/education-and-learning/school-zone/poo-power.aspx
“Using poo as a source of energy”