10 Renewable Energy Myths
The debate between renewable energy versus conventional energy carry many myths.
Myth 1: solar power is too expensive to be of much use.
Today’s bulky and expensive solar panels capture only 10 per cent or so of the sun’s energy, but rapid innovation is making the next generation of panels thinner and lighter, they capture more energy, and cost a fraction of what have in the past. First Solar, the largest manufacturer of thin panels, claims its products will generate electricity in sunny countries as cheaply as large power stations by 2012.
Myth 2: wind power is unreliable.
During part of 2008 wind provided almost 40 per cent of Spain’s power. Areas of northern Germany generate more electricity from wind than they require to meet their needs. Northern Scotland could easily generate 10 or even 15 per cent of the UK’s needs for electricity at a cost that would match today’s fossil fuel prices.
Myth 3: marine energy is a lost cause.
Designing and building machines that can survive the unforgiving conditions of ocean waters has been difficult and past decades have produced repeated disappointments. In 2008, however, Britain installed the first tidal turbine to be successfully connected to the UK electricity grid in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, and a group of large-scale wave power generators was installed 5 km off the coast of Portugal.
Myth 4: nuclear power is cheaper than other low-carbon sources of electricity.
The new nuclear power station on the island of Olkiluoto in western Finland is an obvious example of the expensive and unpredictable cost of nuclear plants. Electricity production was due to start in 2008, but the power station will not start generating until 2012. The impact on the cost of the project has been striking. When the contracts were signed, the plant was supposed to cost 3 billion Euros. But the cost will probably be more than double. A new plant in Normandy appears to be experiencing related problems. In the US, power companies are declining nuclear projects over fears over unmanageable costs.
Myth 5: electric cars are slow and ugly.
We are very close to developing electric cars that match the performance of conventional vehicles. The Tesla electric sports car amazes all those who experience its drive. With a price tag of more than $100,000, the Tesla creates a luxury market for the electric car. The Tesla has demonstrated that electric cars can be sexy.
Myth 6: biofuels are always destructive to the environment.
Many believe that making motor fuel from food is a disaster. It causes hunger and increases the rate of forest loss, as farmers have wanted extra land on which to grow their crops. However the failure of the first generation of biofuels doesn’t mean we should reject the use of biological materials completely. Soon we will be capable of turning agricultural wastes into liquid fuels by splitting cellulose, the most abundant molecule in plants and trees, into simple hydrocarbons.
Myth 7: climate change means we need more organic agriculture.
Most studies show that yields under organic cultivation are over half what can be realized elsewhere. Unless this figure is greatly increased, the world cannot feed its people and produce huge amounts of cellulose for fuels if large acreages are converted to organic cultivation.
Myth 8: zero carbon homes are the best way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.
Buildings are responsible for about half the world’s emissions, and domestic housing is the most important single source of greenhouse gases. But making a building genuinely zero carbon is extremely expensive, and just focusing on the about 1 per cent of the housing stock that is constructed each year has no effect on the remaining 99 percent. In Germany a mixture of subsidies, cheap loans, and marketing is succeeding in getting hundreds of thousands of older properties eco-renovated each year to very impressive standards and at reasonable cost.
Myth 9: the most efficient power stations are big.
New types of tiny combined heat and power plants can turn around half the energy in fuel into electricity, almost matching the efficiency of huge generators. These are now small enough to be easily installed in ordinary homes. Not only will they generate electricity but the surplus heat can be used to heat the house, meaning that all the energy in gas is productively used. Some types of air conditioning can even use the heat to power its chillers in summer.
Myth 10: all proposed solutions to climate change need to be hi-tech.
More advanced countries are preoccupied with creating hi-tech solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these are expensive and may create as many problems as they solve. Nuclear power is a good example. It may be cheaper and more effective to look for simple solutions that reduce emissions, or even extract existing carbon dioxide from the air.
Read more about Investing in Renewable Technologies: Wind, Solar, Geotherm, Hydro, Biomass
You may need to re-think Myth 7 –
Check out what Converted Organics is doing with the fertilizer it is producing and also what it is made of.
The statements of 1 and 2 actually underscore the truth of the alleged “myths”: Solar is hoped to cost less “by 2012″, and wind is plagued by very uneven production that is not related to actual demand.
Adendum to Myth No. 6: Nobody is calling for “rejecting the use of biological materials completely”
That is a strawman argument. What can and should be questioned, however, is whether the current very high subsidies to biofuels, and the highly ambitious mandated levels of their use, make sense. The subsidies work out to be a very expensive way to cut carbon (even if one assumes a 90% reduction compared with petroleum products); the economics of the technologies (and feedstocks) are still widely uncertain; and there is still lots of room for unintended environmental damage. Yet the mandates basically lock us into a path in which transport will still be dependent on liquid fuels.
Being against mandates and over-generous production (as opposed to R&D) subsidies is not “rejecting the use of biological materials completely”.
Let’s not forget that world’s seas and terra firma are excellent sources of energy and heat pumps in gigantic proportions should creep into world’s energy equation. We have not yet started using these resources in earnest and it is a puzzle to many why we are not reliably informed as such! MAYBE SOMEONE WILL EXPLAIN IN TERMS OF ‘SLEPT’
Hal-Luke Savas MBA FCIM MBIFM ICIOB aff.CIBSE
londonmanagement@aol.com
These myths can be converted to opportunities if tried with refined technology specially myth No.1 ,6 and 7. Biofuels doesn’t mean only from cereal or food crops. It should be from waste agricultural products which otherwise create greenhouse gases if burnt as in case of paddy straw in rice growing countries. For organic agriculture we need to develop crops which can be grown in organic conditions through biotechnology.
The rebuttal to myth # 1 is only talking about “refinements”, not technological breakthroughs. Breakthroughs are what is needed for solar to be practical.
An addendum to myth # 2 should be the Pickens Plan. This would a good place to start when it comes to Alternative Energy.
As for the rebuttal to myth # 6, I happen to be one of those people that think it’s foolish to make food into gasoline. Using agricultural waste for energy production sounds good, but you can bet that if a farmer can get more money for his corn by selling it as waste, then he will.
Turning cellulose into hydrocarbons sounds good too, but I’m reminded of the early ’60’s when everyone said that in ten years everyone will be driving turbine powered cars. In other words, I’ll believe it when I see it!
In conclusion, I think that the Pickens Plan provides the best starting point for large scale use of Alternative Energy.
Reducing energy use before going for renewables should be so obvious that it is always done first; so much for logic. There are huge electricity costs available in delivering services in houses but the critical system research and the component development and demonstration programs have not even been acknowledged, let alone started. Perhaps embarassment in not seeing the obvious possibilities (you have to use SI units for it to be obvious) is one of the main blocking reasons against such research and development. Many appliances in houses use small-motor systems that are less than 10% efficient (using 500 W to deliver 50)! We could make them five times less wasteful if we did a bit of research and a lot of development and demonstration.
A new program to develop and demonstrate 70+% reductions in household energy use is having trouble getting funding. Surely it should at least be investigated; if we can put a man on the moon we can reduce massive energy waste and power demand peaks! What we need is someone to support intelligent energy efficiency (not conservation with the negative connotation of freezing in the dark).
condensed solar energy at a fixed spacial location is the
only way of the cheapest energy for a diversified applications with unprecedented efficiency, already patent been granted recently.
On industrial scale solar power may be too expensive, but for individual homes it is not so.In personal spending nobody worries about pay back. It is just like installing any capital item.My experience is that solar water heater is a good investment, as I could get hot water even on cloudy days( in India).It may not be so attractive in cold climates.
There are a number of wind farms in south India, that generate good quantum of power economically, especially in hilly areas.
Bio fuels don’t affect environment as viewed by many. In conventional system organic wastes are used and energy crops are planted in non arable land.Hence it is an economical and attractive option to generate enectricity and bio fertilizer for the plants. Obviously this has dual advantage.
Hybrid power stations could be developed by R&D to optimize cost.
You did not list one of the most prevalent myths, and one certain industries enjoy. That is the myth that solar energy is electricity. The fact is that solar energy converted to heat is a far more efficient process than any solar electric venue and can be stored in mass for sunless time uses. It is measureable as watts of power, just as electrical power, and replaces the equivalent energy needed in fossil fuel or electricity. Solar heating is also distributed energy production. That means everyone can get their own without buying it from a utility. It is therefore true that any solar electrical energy produced for heating purposes is money wasted, because that money spent for solar heating is far more productive. Over half of domestic and industrial energy use is for heating purposes, yet the solar heating industry has no collective lobbying or PAC fund to feed the suck of political funds our corrupt machine demands.
I am glad to see some body start to realise that solar
energy collected to a single spot is a very powerfull
tool for a diversified applications,condensed solar energy
to a single spot is the” Solar Wheel”, if you know what I mean