The 5 Worst 'Alternative' Energy Sources

From The Daily Green:

Everyone agrees we're in an energy crisis, and everyone agrees we have to wean ourselves from foreign oil. General Motors sent its fuel-sipping Chevrolet Volt on a 1,776-mile drive from Austin, Texas to New York City, where it arrived on Independence Day last year. "Freedom from what?" I asked a Chevy representative. "It has multiple meanings," he said.

Indeed it does. There are a lot of ways to wean ourselves from OPEC crude, but unfortunately a lot of them have unforeseen problems—the cure could be worse than the disease. Let's examine some energy alternatives and the seemingly insurmountable problems they face:

Photos and captions courtesy of The Daily Green.

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Comments

[dendimelo]

01:59 PM on 09/22/2011

Maybe we should use less energy to begin with, American drive V8s that give 12 mpg, while the rest of the world drive cars that give 35 mpg and diesels that give 45 mpg. I drive a 89 toyota pickup that gives me 27mpg and my friends who drive suburbans say I am cheap, I think I am not fuelish, I do have a souped up 69 mustang, but that I only drive some weekends.

[osasun42]

04:36 PM on 09/21/2011

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[Michael Fic]

09:29 PM on 09/19/2011

Oh, maybe we can figure out how to get our energy from unicorn farts.

[flamflurm]

04:58 AM on 09/22/2011

Classic. He'll be out of a job soon too.

[Michael Fic]

09:28 PM on 09/19/2011

A good book to read is Robert Bryce's "Power Hungry". Solar and wind do not have the instant on capacity that we need, let alone how much land area solar panels and windmills need compared to a coal burning plant, natural gas plant, or nuclear plant. Also consider, electric cars are "dirty" because the electricity they charge on comes from mostly coal, so just figure it out for yourselves. Also, hemp guy, don't care what you do on your time and in your house, but hemp? Get real.

[energydem]

12:11 AM on 09/20/2011

Very sensible comments, particularly about hemp! Seriously, Michael is correct on all counts. First, there is the issue of low energy density of renewables compared to conventional fuels which translates directly into massive land use needs. Then add intermittency, cost, technical immaturity, the non-trivial, non-renewable materials that are needed to convert "free" energy into useful energy, and the 60 year life span of current energy infrastructures. Finally close with the fact that with our current coal-centric electricity system, conventional hybrids give us greater CO2 benefits than the much-hyped electric car and you have a much clearer, more honest picture of what our true energy challenges are. Honesty, technical understanding, appropriate policies that acknowledge that the road to a sustainable energy future is going to be long and tough, is a good place to start

[fireofenergy]

01:35 PM on 09/20/2011

Actually, greed prevents solar and wind from having the instant on feature. We have the technology to mass produce all these parts (including batteries) by machines, just not the will to prevent the profit gouging. Only 1% of the land would power (most) everything if just solar and batteries alone was used. Now imagine all those fractional bio fuels, wind, tidal, etc.
It could be done and should be done. Perhaps, even the integral fast reactor which is meltdown proof and "eats" LWR wastes. Again, there is no money in these abundant and cheap solutions... even though the renewable energy one would create vast installation and utility jobs...
Makes me feel like saying "They just plain want to watch us all wither away, ya, that's it"!

[energydem]

04:23 PM on 09/20/2011

Sorry fire, renewables are intermittent and you can't store electricity at utility scale. Even if we widely deployed these technologies, it would take decades and you would need natural gas peakers to manage the intermittency. Finally, renewable energy is free and clean but its conversion is not. it takes heavy metals, rare earth minerals that are so scarce they are only mined in conjunction with alot of other, much more disruptive mining, water (solar uses alot of water) and big metal things.

Promote science, not fairy tales.

[dvnes]

07:01 PM on 09/19/2011

There needs to be a more efficient way to build a sailboat ... or hot air balloon. Of course, a one year vacation would be necessary to circumnavigate the planet. What an adventure!

[dennishastings]

01:39 PM on 09/18/2011

The world doesn't have an energy problem. It has an overpopulation problem.

Even if we came up with the perfect, environmentally friendly power source, all it would do is encourage a population explosion and we'd be back to square one.

[fireofenergy]

01:15 PM on 09/19/2011

But it would be better to have that friendly and unlimited source, so that we could have the energy to solve our problems. Now, we are just slipping into fossil fueled depletion and subsequent (massive) decay. This age of awareness is good enough to train us into using less power (led, electric cars, etc.) And what's the big deal anyways, if the power was clean (as in robotically mass produce batteries and solar arrays)?
The ultimate objective (should be) a space based race that is not bent on profit gouging...

[dennishastings]

04:06 PM on 09/19/2011

But, as I said, the problem is overpopulation. If we got that friendly, clean energy source right now, tomorrow, all it would do is create an illusion that we could have more people on the planet. Then we would start fighting about water.

No, less people is the ultimate answer. Hydroelectric and solar would take care of us in an excellent fashion.

[Itsbeenalongday]

01:10 AM on 09/18/2011

What is needed is not simply cheaper fuel but adapting to a life that uses less altogether. Smaller cars or better public transportation, working and shopping closer to where you live.

The average American uses up to ten times the daily energy that people in other parts of the world use and double and treble that of other developed countries. In particular, American use twice the oil per day that the French do.

Horse and buggy days rule, and will again.

[energydem]

06:23 AM on 09/18/2011

Totally agree, although not so sure about horse and buggy. Our per capit CO2 emissions are 19 tons annually, India's are one and we need to be at one to meet emissions targets. Efficiency will lower this substantially

[kanda]

02:16 PM on 09/18/2011

yeah but more horses means more horse farts. That leads to polution. I think we should go back to the stone age and live in caves. ;) That would solve the issue for sure.

[energydem]

07:20 AM on 09/17/2011

Excuse me, the first sentence of my most recent post is missing the word "because". It should read "Genders accuses me of having industry masters BECAUSE I don't agree with him/her." Typical ad hominem attack, if I don't agree with you I must be an industry shill. I repeat, I do not work for industry nor do I rely on advocacy pieces for my information. Also the last two sentences in my recent post belong to Genders. I had copied in his/her comments into my post in an effort to respond accurately to his/her attacks and failed to delete Genders' last two sentences when I hit "post". As you can see however, Genders accuses people who do not agree with him/her of dishonesty, I try to stick to less value laden words like "uniformed."

[JerryAguy]

07:08 AM on 09/17/2011

Yeah a Toyota Prius has to have the nickel for the batteries mined in Canada than shipped to China for smelting and other dirty processes before those components are sent to Japan to be combined into the batteries than sent here where when the car is used up it will most likely find its way to the landfill to pollute for a few more years, to save some petroleum? I wonder which is really worse? not to mention all the deaths caused by small cars that the cafe standards are forcing people to drive. Of course we don't see the statistics on all of those deaths.

[energydem]

07:24 AM on 09/17/2011

I don't think the statistics on small car auto deaths are very compelling for your argument. All cars,big or small, conventional or hybrid, use alot of metal and other components shipped from around the world. We should all be driving smaller cars if not for climate change (important to me), for energy security, which should be important to Americans. Rule of thumb is 3 mpg increased efficiency of all passenger vehicles saves us one million barrels of oil per day. This is not linear and oil savings decrease per mpg the higher you go but it is quite significant.

[energydem]

07:07 AM on 09/17/2011

Genders accuses me of having industry "masters" I don't agree with his/her comments. I am not an industry person. If "tagging" helps protect groundwater, great. Genders' proposals on solar, offshore wind,waste biochar are fine but they will not be providing us with energy at scale for decades. They are too expensive, have too little energy density, and conversion methods are not environmentally benign.Solar and biochar are certainly not water negative.

Genders says that fracking creates a "conduit" to contaminate groundwater. As I said, "drilling" does contaminate groundwater, but it's"drilling" not "fracking". Any time you drill for anything, there is potential to contaminate groundwater. They have however been drilling in the producing regions of this country for a100 years and they manage the contamination from drilling. The current hysteria over fracking is just hysteria. I strongly support regulations for protecting groundwater, but I don't support regulation of the wrong problem nor am I uninformed enough to think that we are going to be powering our economy with renewables any time soon. Genders should also get educated on the scale of the energy need (enormous), the cost of renewables (what about poor people) and the urgency of climate change (we need to start now, we can't wait for renewables). We need to get rid of coal and use gas in power generation period.

Water drilling is shallow. Yes geothermal does have problems, similar to fracked gas.

Try to be more honest in your future comments.”

[Trekkiefandom]

05:59 PM on 09/17/2011

No fracking does containment water systems. Don't believe me watch a movie called GasLand.

[energydem]

07:15 PM on 09/17/2011

Gasland conflates more issues than I can count. The famous gas coming out of a faucet is not from fracking, which is very deep drilling, it's from hitting a pocket of shallow gas. I know people who have had gas in their faucets from putting in geothermal heat pumps. Any drilling can cause you to hit gas which is ubiquitous. Do not, do not, get your information on any of these issues from trash like Gasland. It is not technically or scientifically sound. And there are containment water systems from fracking throughout the southwest. You are just factually incorrect.

[WHOGIVESADAMN pluh]

09:03 PM on 09/15/2011

By time we produced any of these fuels in sufficient quantity, we would all be dead anyway...

[HLL]

06:02 PM on 09/16/2011

But the generations to come after us and the Earth itself would then have reason to be grateful to the generations that were willing to work to renew the Earth, and green our energy ☮

"Treat the Earth well:
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children."
~ Ancient Native American proverb

[librainstars]

06:06 PM on 09/16/2011

F and F

[WHOGIVESADAMN pluh]

09:03 PM on 09/16/2011

Very true indeed. Definitely a healthy dose of food for thought.

[Daniel Alman]

07:57 PM on 09/15/2011

Butanol is the way to go... Butanol is compatible with gasoline engines in cars.

[energydem]

10:20 AM on 09/15/2011

To Silverwolf13, you don't know what you are talking about. The Cornell study where this incorrect information comes from took enormous liberties with facts. It changed the widely used demoninator for calculating the forcing impacts of GHGs from 100 years to 20 years. The 100 year denominator is used by every credible climate change analysis organization in the world. When you take this kind of liberty, you can get whatever answer you want which is what Howarth did. He also assumed gas power generation efficiency using the capacity factors of gas peaking units which are rarely used and never for baseload generation which is what coal is used for. NGCC plants have efficiencies that are 30% higher than peakers. Again, you can get whatever answer you want when you skew your analysis in this way.

The other fuels in question contribute to climate change. Natrual gas power generation substituting for coal is the only means for large scale reductions in CO2 emission in the power sector for many years to come. We need to manage fracking issues but they have been doing that in the SW for 60 years. We need to get off coal and use gas, if we don't we cannot pretend to slow down temperature increases. Solar and wind are too expensive and we have not solved their intermittency issues -- they are a long way off from wide scale deployment sufficient to address climate issues in a meaningful way.

[Trekkiefandom]

07:10 PM on 09/15/2011

Solar and wind aren't the only other forms of clean energy, and I am not talking about Nuclear. Also many other countries are far ahead of the U.S in clean energy research, that is why its not usable in the U.S

[PoloniumMan]

08:35 AM on 09/16/2011

Why not talk about nuclear. Nuclear fission already generates 70% of U.S. CO2 free electricity. It's an extremely dense source of energy that is suitable for not only electric generation, but also industrial process heat, desalinisation, and hydrogen production.

[realityCheckInTheMail]

07:51 PM on 09/14/2011

What a stupid article.

The tar sands emit, at most, another 25% more CO2 over Saudi oil. You could recapture that additonal penalty by simply driving a slightly more fuel efficient car.

You can look at the tar sands on Google earth. Alberta is a big empty forest. The tar sands are a tiny speck.

Fracking has been around for 60 years. MIT recently gave the process it's stamp of approval with a blue ribbon study panel.

I imagine there are other errors here, but these are the two that touch on areas I've studied. (I'm guessing the author didn't bother doing any real study).

[Kyle Noe]

05:39 AM on 09/15/2011

"The tar sands emit, at most, another 25% more CO2 over Saudi oil. You could recapture that additonal penalty by simply driving a slightly more fuel efficient car."

1. The goal is to decrease carbon emissions, not increase them and then offset them with decreases so that you have no net loss.

2. Fuel-efficient cars often aren't fuel efficient in the long run - the CO2 emissions from the manufacturing process make them a less-than-ideal alternative.

[realityCheckInTheMail]

02:04 PM on 09/15/2011

Well, switching from an SUV to a Prius gives you a 300% reduction in CO2 emissions.

(The manufacturing emissions are amortized over the lifetime of the car, which for Prius appears to be quite a long time, as the Prius appear to wear better than normal cars).

So switching from an SUV to a Prius, driving the Prius for a solid 10-15 years, and getting your oil from the tar sands instead of the Saudis would give you a ballpark 250% in emissions.

So why don't people protest SUVs the way they protest the tar sands?

Oh yeah, because some of the people that protest the tar sands **drive** SUVs.

The protests are about making you feel good and building comraderie. They don't serve any purpose in terms of CO2 production.

[Trekkiefandom]

06:04 PM on 09/17/2011

Hemp fuel Hemp made cars, it could work. After all its a weed, it can survive pretty much any where.

[Genders]

07:31 PM on 09/14/2011

Good list.

Rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio char bio fuels are the good energies we need. Together they can provide all the world energy and fuel needs many times over: Forever, 24/7, cheaper than nukes, new coal, oil sands and oil wars. These tech are ready now to replace fossil and nukes in 7 to 15 years if we choose to. But big fossil and nuke money does not want that change, and they have 100 times as much bribe money. Vote for the CPC progressives if you really want good things.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/

Great chart of energy source amounts: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/

[energydem]

09:23 PM on 09/15/2011

Please get a clue. Renewables are not ready to replace conventional energy in 7 to 15 years. One, there are no current affordable solutions for storing renewable energy at the scale we need to to manage intermittency. You cannot store electricity. Furthermore, the materials required to produce renewable energy are not renewable and they are very expensive. Renewables are free, conversion of renewables is not, nor is it benign. Finally, there is no way to deploy that much renewable energy even if you could which you can't, in 7-15 years. Get an education. Do a reality check. You are spouting ideology and are uninformed.

[wtf is this]

01:24 AM on 09/16/2011

Genders has provided much more valuable information. Why don't you back yours up with some data?