Final(test) Flashcards
Energy & us?
We commonly criticize our society for being addicted to energy and ask why do we seem to want more?
Energy & Humans?
archaeological & anthropological studies suggest that acquiring fire was roughly equivalent to developing agriculture in human history,
fire is fundamental development to social evolution
Fire may have allowed humans to…?
Fire may have allowed humans to migrate North & South and adapt to a more fully exploit challenging situations
Nordic Creation mythology
The world as we know it began at the interface between ice and fire
The importance of fire to humans?
Cooking/protection/Light/Warmth/Harden spear tips/Land management
1) Cooking-allowed people to process foods that were otherwise not palatable(some nuts/plants/animal parts)
2) Protection-from wild animals and other humans
3) Light-seeing in the dark opens up health and cultural advances
4) Warmth-ability to move and to improve health
5) Harden spear tips-fire is a tool to improve hunting, create tools for artistic expression, pottery, etc
6) Land Management-much of the “American Wilderness” was a result of hundreds of years of fire management by Native Americans
What is Fire?
An exothermic(heat releasing) chemical reaction that requires fuel, oxidant, and a spark
- “fuel” is produced by photosynthesis(CO2+H2O=organic matter)
- Oxygen is the primary oxidant
- Respiration is essentially a metabolic “fire”, where heterotrophic organisms(like us) metabolize food products and release heat and nutrients
Who is Melvin Calvin?
Berkeley chemist who unraveled key steps in the mechanism of photosynthesis
A timeline of Fire:
- Oxygen content of the atmosphere became high enough <billion years ago to support any fire
- Landplants(fuel) increased rapidly in the Paleozoic era and evidence of fire started to become common
- early humans developed ability to capture, create, manipulate fire maybe about 1 to 2 million years ago.
- Maybe 100,000 years ago people learned to use fire for landscape/hunting management
- Wood or plants was the primary fuel up until 200 years ago(fuel that formed and was used on very short time intervals)
- Fossil energy(long formation times)replaced wood at dawn of Industrial revolution
Human use(and need) for external energy
- Animals us energy in proportion to their body mass
- Humans, by acquiring much external energy, have the “equivalent body mass” of 2 whales
- The extra use of energy has predictable impacts on our biology: as animals get bigger(we are “big” energy-wise), their birth rate drops, life expectancy goes up, age of first reproduction goes up
- As energy use increases, there is a tendency for that population to actually drop below replacement rate(use more than we replace)
- Our need for external energy is driven in part by our big brain, and our slow childhood development. This requires a social network to supply additional resources.
Energy and the modern society(fossil fuel based): A view of an “energy pessimist” such as Pro. Vaclave Smil
- We are socially & economically organized around a fuel that can not easily be replaced
- We can’t extend energy use in developed countries to under-developed countries(same level) either with oil or other forms of energy
- he argues as technology makes things more efficient, humans use things more, negating any improvement
- Our infrastructure(industry) demands high energy per unit area, while non-fossil fuel energy is low energy per unit area
- He argues that the world needs to adjust to 2000 W per person in order to avoid disaster
Energy & the World’s poor
- While Smil and others note we can’t supply the rest of the world at our levels, there are maybe a billion people suffering form energy poverty
- No Electricity(for lights & evening education, social development, security)
- Solid fuels/fires(air pollution kills women & children/women spend enormous amounts of time finding fuel).
Story Of Stuff: Allison Cook’s motto?
-You are relationship rich, stuff poor!
Make sure you watch Story of Stuff! We will have at least one question on the exam from the film. It outlines the…
Outlines the:
-supply chain/ extraction, production distribution, consumption, disposal
-how it all relies on external resources and energy
Our society measures success based on GDP, which requires us to continue to produce & consume
-how it is embedded with externalizes(be able to list a few of these)
Story of Stuff
What are a couple of ways to personally adjust your behavior to reduce your consumption of “stuff”?
I can reduce my consumption by not buying into perceived Obsolescence. By not purchasing the new phone every time the model switches.
Get more involved with collaborative consumption.(bike share, tool library, zip cars)
Story of Stuff
What does “flex your citizen muscle” mean?
As you build power to change the game, your citizen muscles grow. It means to work to ensure that local solutions grow, get copied and scaled up.
-When they get push-back form corporations, they team up with likeminded thinkers to combat that opposition.
Oil-the good:?
has allowed us to have a cultural revolution of
-Less work, more food, technology, education, leisure, etc.
Oil-the bad:?
It will (soon) run out and we don’t have a backup plan
- economy is tied to cheap energy
- food is tied to abundant cheap energy
-
Oil-Geopolitical problem?
The users are not always the same countries that are producers, and producers are in many places in unstable governments or unfriendly(to consumers) places
What is Peak Oil?
- When supply can no longer meet the demand
- When a country or planet reaches maximum production rate
- Production will not increase not matter how high the price
- Ironically, it is a point reached when about 1/2 of the resource still remains, but becomes increasingly difficult to extract
Some likely consequences of Peak Oil?
- Rapid energy price increases
- Impact on global economy
- food shortages or high costs(which will impact the poor the most(Why?)
- Impacts on global politics and stability
Who proposed the Peak Oil Concept for USA?
M King Hubbert is the geoscientist who proposed Peak Oil
-Predicted 1970(was he right?)
Are Oil producers beyond peak Oil?
Yes, many oil producers are now well beyond peak oil
-The key to the global oil are those large producers who(hopefully from an economic view) still have capacity to increase output-especially Saudi Arabia
How do Peak Oil Pessimist and Optimists differ?
Peak Oil Pessimist(we are at peak oil now) or optimists(still a few decades away) differ only by about 20years
-Peak oil concept is based on a given set of available technologies. The present change in drilling techniques has mad previously un-available oil in the USA available, so we may hit a “second peak” (soon) under these new constraints.
Oil and the economy:?
All global recessions in past 50 years linked to a spike in oil prices
-Think of the multitude of ways that an increase in energy permeates the economy.
A history of oil prices:
- early 19th & 20th century oil prices were driven by booms and busts
- In the 1930’s, the Texas Railroad Commission was given the authority to essentially act as a body to control the supply and price of petroleum(something it could do because the US was the worlds biggest producer)
- In 1970, the TRC lost ability to control prices because USA hit peak oil and could not supply its needs
- OPEC then was in a position to control price
- The post OPEC oil market has been rocky: embargoes caused global recessions, its not clear that production could keep up with demand in the early 2000s
- Saudi Arabia(with about 20% of earths known reserves) is a ‘valve’ that can be turned on and off to maintain stable oil prices
- As the 60 min video on the Saudi oil industry pointed out, it is in their best interest to maintain oil prices at a level that discourages the mass intrusion of alternative energy sources
Challenges to Arrive at a Carbon-Free Future?
1)
1) Its too difficult
- We have a Carbon-based infrastructure, need to retool for new energies
- This is what people said about Edinburgh Scotland’s sewer(or lack of sewer) problem two hundred years ago(it will never happen).
- Richard Alley(Penn State climate scientist) relays the evening ritual of emptying chamber pots directly onto the streets of the city. People thought it would cost too much( a new infrasture of sewers, water treatment sanitation smart grid).
- Cost was really only about 1% of the economy, about the same as some estimate it will take to transform our energy sector today
- As professor Socolow and Pacala point out, we can make a huge dent in climate/energy issues with simple/well known methods(the “wedge” approach). The key is because the problem is so big, it will require multiple(in their model 7) wedges to level off our C emissions and shift them in a downward trajectory. (refresh your memory of these wedges)
Challenges to Arrive at a Carbon-Free Future?
2)
Its too expensive
- What is the cost of transformative system
- I broad number, a renewable electrical energy system for much of Europe might be in the 0.5 to 1.0 Trillion dollar range: for comparison, its less than what is reported the USA has spent in post 9/11wars. Also, Saudi Arabia alone may be spending nearly 100 billion on new infrastructure to drill, process, and ship oil.
-alternatives are "expensive" because oil/coal is sill cheap. We presently do not pay the full cost of oil: Externalities of (1)global warming (2)Pollution in locales of production(recent law suit in Ecuador, Nigerir,) (3)Disposal of coal ash (4)environmental effects of strip mining.
- Many economists argue that a $25 per ton of Carbon tax would make the market amenable to a more rapid transformation to non-C energy: and example is that after the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the USA and other countries spent unprecedented amounts (and made significant gains) in conservation, new technologies, etc.
- an “Externality tax” is called, by economists, a “Pigovian tax”(after Arthur Pigou)
- Due to cheap oil, government investment in alternative energy has been declining in most countries
-While there has been much written about the failures of Stimulus funds devoted to the Green Energy sector, the 60Minutes video points out some important facts:
A.Most start-ups are failures, and the energy sector is particularly challenging since its up against a cheap(usually)source(coal,oil)
B. some of the well-publicized energy tech failures are being purchased by Chinese investors who are taking a longer financial view that some American Corporations(or public)
-Finally(on this topic), one has to recognize that the press and politicians dwell on failures, but(as with Tesla) are sometimes slow to recognize potential success.
Challenges to Arrive at a Carbon-Free Future?
3)
Its too inconvenient
-The irony of many renewable or non-Carbon projects is that they are met with opposition: the ‘not in my backyard’ response
EXAMPLES
A)WIND:Kills birds, obstructs views, lowers property values are 3 key points of opposition(National Academy of Science report acknowledges bird fatalities, but points out that cats cause more problems;LBNL reported a study that property values do not decline
B)SOLAR: take space(usually in deserts), opposition over wildlife and vegetation
C)NUCLEAR: probably the biggest is that it is dangerous(human & environmentally). Some points about nuclear to consider:
-Biggest challenge today is economics: more expensive(so far) than coal
-The movie Pandora’s promise reveals that background level’s of radiation we are exposed to is equivalent to radiation around Chernoble and Fukushima.
-Chernoble style reactors not allowed/or commissioned in USA or in Europe
-Coal mining and use has been far more dangerous over time than nuclear
Scientist and entrepreneurs are designing new generations of reactors.
