Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy

MonteQuest · Last edited by MonteQuest on Sun Dec 04, 2005 1:12 am; edited 3 times in total

Since we have been flooded with spurious claims of late, I think this piece from FTW is apropos:

Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy

savethehumans · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 20, 2004 Posts: 1541

Thanks, Monte! Have saved, and am printing it out. . . .everybody should have a copy of this on hand!!

Devil · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 2:22 am Post subject:

Seems, on the whole, like a reasonable thesis. There are a few sentences that I could question in detail, but I do like the 9 questions.

1. How Much Energy is Returned for the Energy Invested (EROEI)?
2. Have the claims been verified by an independent third party?
3. Can I see the alternative energy being used?
4. Can you trace it back to the original energy source?
5. Does the invention defy the Laws of Thermodynamics?
6. Does the inventor make extravagant claims?
7. Does the inventor claim zero pollution?
8. Can I see blueprints, schematics or a chemical analysis of how it works?
9. Infrastructure Requirements -- Does the energy source require a corporation to produce it? How will it be transported and used? Will it require new engines, pipelines, and filling stations? What will these cost? Who will pay for them and with what? How long will it take to build them?

I suggest that all persons posting claims on these forums that such and such a technology is "the answer" does a cut'n'paste of the questions above and answer each one of them with a detailed analysis, if they wish to be credible.
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Devil

bobbyald · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 2:31 am Post subject:

Sounds about right.

Maybe also something about the quality (concentration) of the energy and scalability.
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Starvid · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 5:31 am Post subject:

Another three very relevant questions:

How much does it cost in $$$? (For example breeder reactors have an insanely high EROEI, but still aren't useful. Yet.)

How big is the potential, ie, is it possible to scale up? (Hydro power kicks ass but there are only so many waterfalls.)

What are the negative environmental effects? (There are ALWAYS some, even if they might be small.)
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Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4027

Devil, you seem to know quite a bit about energy tech. Can you answer the 9 questions for the most commonly mentioned alternatives?
1) Solar
2) Wind
3) Nuclear
4) Hydrogen
5) Biomass

Devil · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 7:35 am Post subject:

Bloody hellfire! That's thousands of questions you are asking (or more)

I don't mean to be nasty but
1) solar water heating, solar space heating, solar PV or solar concentrators etc.?
2) wind at what scale, offshore, onshore, type of turbine, generating electricity or grinding corn, direct or indirect (waves) etc.??
3) nuclear fission, fusion, cold fusion, MOX, pebble, breeder etc.???
4) generating hydrogen from coal, oil, natural gas, electricity, burning it in fuel cells, IC engines, gas turbines, boilers etc.????
5) biomass from cow dung, dried yak dung, human dung, trees, compost heap, poultry entrails, colza, hemp, coppice wood, cadavers, snake oil and used to generate NG, thermal electricity, space heating, refrigeration, diesel or motor fuel etc.?????

I guess answers to all these questions would fill volumes and certainly kill the database of this bulletin board :D Not to mention that I'd be dead long before I could possibly discuss all these points in detail.

Just to show good faith, I'll try to give the answers to one precise application of your choice, if I have sufficient knowledge to do so validly, but I reserve the right to refuse if I consider my knowledge to be too sketchy - or you can ask another. Note this applies only to Doly. Fair enough?
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Devil

bart · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 1:55 pm Post subject:

This thread is a bracing bit of fresh air.

So far, the criteria have been mostly technological, which is fine. But it is important to examine the political implications of energy proposals (which point 9 begins to introduce).

Here are some simple tests:

1. Cui bono? Who benefits? Do the parties making a proposal have a vested interest? E.g., coalmine owners, car manufacturers, PV manufacturers.

2. Will the energy proposal lead to a centralized government (e.g. nuclear) or towards de-centralizatioin (locally generated and consumed power). ?

3. Animated butterfly test. The more slick and Disney-like the presentation (and the fewer facts), the more likely the proposal is snake oil.

4. Watch the subsidy. Where does the money go? Look at both explicit subsidies (ethanol generated from corn) and hidden subsidies (US military machine protecting sources of oil). Be very careful when someone proposes a scheme as a "World War II scale effort" (or "Marshall Plan"); a lot of money will change hands without much oversight.

5. "We're all in this together". The more a proposer claims to be speaking for universal interests, the more likely he is pursuing his own agenda. For example, if someone criticizes the NIMBY philosophy (Not In My Back Yard), they usually have in mind a scheme which is MMBSIYBA (Make Money By Shitting In Your Back Yard).

Tyler_JC · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject:

Monte, you might want to make this a sticky. It seems like some of us need to ask ourselves these very important questions before we create dozens of threads about an untested energy technology that is being proposed by a penny stock company desperate for funding...
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ArimoDave · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:16 pm Post subject:

MonteQuest · Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 5:55 pm Post subject:

BiGG and Drive Electric,

Your posts on ethanol were deleted from this thread. Post them somewhere else! BiGG, you were warned once, now twice, third time and you are flirting with being banned from the site.

MQ

Devil,

Go ahead with your example, I think it will be a good addition, but everyone let's not muddy this thread with "alternatives" discussion, only discussion about evaluating them, ok?

MQ
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nth · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Feb 24, 2005 Posts: 1971

I think we can come up with better questions than some of these.

Original:
1. How Much Energy is Returned for the Energy Invested (EROEI)?
2. Have the claims been verified by an independent third party?
3. Can I see the alternative energy being used?
4. Can you trace it back to the original energy source?
5. Does the invention defy the Laws of Thermodynamics?
6. Does the inventor make extravagant claims?
7. Does the inventor claim zero pollution?
8. Can I see blueprints, schematics or a chemical analysis of how it works?
9. Infrastructure Requirements -- Does the energy source require a corporation to produce it? How will it be transported and used? Will it require new engines, pipelines, and filling stations? What will these cost? Who will pay for them and with what? How long will it take to build them?

My criticism of them:
1. There are different ways to calculate EROEI, but this is a must to answer for alternatives.

2. This is key also. (Sadly PO forecasters have not presented reviewable data, but that is another issue.)

3. Instead of saying "I", I suggest something like:
Has it been demonstrated to the public and available for review?

4. Rephrase suggestion:
Do you know the source of the energy?

5 thru 8 are irrelevant or cannot possibly be answered. Ability to demonstrate and went through peer review will elminate the idea being proven possible and still violating laws of thermodynamics and other wild claims. Also, trade secrets will prevent #8.

9. This is a good question and should be asked in conjecture with question #1. The lower the EROEI the cheaper the infrastructure must be.

SolarDave · Heavy Crude Joined: May 19, 2005 Posts: 371

Please consider adding:

Would you consider living (next to, under, over, near) this source of energy?

The_Toecutter · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 18, 2005 Posts: 1707

Even more prudent is to ask what politics surround the particular technology, if any. Also needed to be asked on the side is how much consumption of energy can be reduced or needs to be reduced, especially when the scale of the advancement is discussed, so as to determine whether botrh consumption reduction PLUS the alternative energy would then be viable. There's also cost, mentioned already in this thread. For alternative energy like wind and biomass(like biodiesel, ethanol is a net loser so far), cost isn't much of an issue anymore, even without subsidies.

You also have to look at the subsidies current energy sources receive in order to have an accurate comparision in cost as well. Such as the nuclear power currently generated in America versus solar. Kill nuclear's subsidies and count in the cost associated with handling the waste, solar becomes cost competitive with 60s and 70s era nuclear energy.

But as Devil clarifies, an entire volume of books could be written concerning this list.
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jpfrazer · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 08, 2005 Posts: 37

Good 9 questions - but as many have suggested, even if a technology passes the tests, there are social, political, cultural, psychological and even spiritual challenges facing any new way of doing things - major stumbling blocks to mass-uptake. There exist many small-scale, locally appropriate solutions that comfortably answer all nine questions (I can give examples), but are unlikely to pull us all out of a crash because they require fundamental changes to our way of life. If we are insisting on finding alternatives that allow 'business as usual', surely we are searching in vain? Overall, humanity is essentially living unsustainably, and I'm beginning to hope that PO does force a collapse (I prefer the term 'relax') before we make the planet uninhabitable for all but the extremophillic bacteria. I say 'force' because I can't see how we will voluntarily stop burning oil until its all gone (whatever the cost per barrel) - its just too damn convenient - and we may hit a runaway greenhouse effect threshold before that point.