The TerraWatt Scale

The TerraWatt Scale

Can Renewables Compete?

Two Main Challenges

• Electricity Production: per capita consumption is increasing faster than energy efficiency and global demand is rising rapidly on the terawatt scale

• Electricity Distribution: Aging grid already at capacity; can not easily handle new capacity additions are a large distributed generation system based on renewables

A Century of Change (1900 (=1) vs 2000)

• Industrial Output: 40

• Marine Fish Catch: 35

• CO2 Emissions: 17

• Total Energy Use: 16

• Coal Production: 7

• World Population: 4

No More Fish by

2100 at this rate

of Consumption

From 1950-2000 electricity generation scaled as

(Population growth)3.5

Waveforms of Growth

Implications

• This Century can not scale in terms of material consumption the way that the last century did BAU can’t be supported

• We are starting to run out of raw materials needed for basic infrastructure

• We are definitely running out of rare materials needed for some advanced technologies

Energy Literacy 101 Numbers

• 100 Million • 1 Billion• 1 Trillion

• Number of Households capable of buying, storing and generating electricity

• Dollars per day we spend on gasoline

• Continuous generated power by 3300 power plants; 10% (100,000 MW) of which is lost in transmission

Business As Usual Scenario

• Population stabilizes to 10-12 billion by the year 2100

• Total world energy use from 2000 to 2100 is 4000 Terra Watt Years

• 40 TWyr is compromise between current 15 TWyr and scaled (ridiculous) 235 TWyr

Ultimately Recoverable Resource

• Conventional Oil/Gas• Unconventional Oil• Coal• Methane Clathrates• Oil Shale• Uranium Ore• Geothermal Steam -

conventional

• 1000 TWy (1/4 need)• 2000• 5000• 20,000• 30,000• 2,000• 4,000

Other Possibilities

• Hot Dry Rock• Sunlight/OTEC• Wind Energy• Gulf Stream• Global Biomass

• 1,000,000• 9,000,000• 200,000• 140,000• 10,000

In Principle, Incident Energy is Sufficient but how to recover and distribute it in the most cost effective manner?

Dollars Per Megawatt per unit Land use per unit Material Use

• 20 KW power buoy • 5 MW Wind Turbine• LNG closed cycle• Wind Farm• PV Farm• Stirling Farm• Pelamis Farm

• 850 Tons per MW• 100 Tons per MW• 1500 MW sq km • 600 MW sq km• 50 MW sq km• 40 MW sq km• 30 MW sq km

The Current US Situation

• Electricity power is at .97 TW (2007)• Approximately 450,000 MW (0.45 TW) is

provided by Coal• Annual Coal emissions for electricity

generation are almost exactly equal to total annual emissions from gasoline powered vehicles

• National Goal replace 450,000 MW of coal fired electricity

But replace with what

• Beware the nuclear comeback would require building 450 new nuclear power plants (currently 109 exist)

• LNG this is our current path• About 95% of new generating capacity added

over the last 10 years is NG fired electricity• LNG path is fraught with political peril; Russia

and Iran have more than 50% remaining supply

Large Scale Renewables

• CSP 40 MW per square km 100 x 100 km section of central Nevada 400,000 MW (about equal to current Coal) but only for about 6-8 hrs per day

• Great Plains Wind Project 1 10 MW Turbine per 10 square km 450,000 MW (but at about 50% wind reliability)

More Possibilities

• Off shore wind/wave energy devices make hydrogen (electricity carrier) and fresh water

• Aleutian Island corridor about 200,000 MW available there

• 1000 km Gulf Current Turbine corridor 1 TW available

• Regionally: Multi-element Tidal fence topped with Wind Turbines across the straits of Juan de Fuca 50,000 MW.

US Wind Energy Generation

Good Trajectory but still only 2.4% of US Nameplate Capacity

2003 1.8 MW 350’2000

850 kW 265’

2006 5 MW 600’

Recent Capacity Enhancements

But main growth is wind

Vestas Exa ple

• 3600 turbine blades per year

• Requires 2500 workers

• Requires 2 x 400,000 square feet facilities.

• 1200 2.5 MW wind Turbines per year

• 3000 MW per year 150 years to replace 450,000 MW of Coal

• Off shore blade problem

• 63 M blades

• 138 M high tower (tower to blade is usually 2:1)

• Clipper systems plan 7.5 MW using 90 meter blades (off shore)

200 MW in 2007 to 1840 MW in 2012

Total installed is 636 I 2007 and 5180 in 2012