Solar Power: Too Good to Be True

Excerpts from a review of "The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World" by Howard C. Hayden


There is an old adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That adage is especially applicable to solar energy. For decades, there have been delirious proclamations that the world would soon run on solar energy. Those statements always have sounded too good to be true ... and, sure enough, they always have been false. In the famous "Peanuts" comic strip, each year Lucy promised to hold a football so Charlie Brown could do a placekick. Each year as Charlie Brown charged the ball, Lucy pulled it away at the last moment, and Charlie Brown landed on his back. Likewise, each year solar promoters with no serious scientific credentials tell us solar energy is the answer to our problems.

Solar's Failed Promises

Hope springs eternal, however, so the news media continue to publish glowing stories of solar homes despite years of failed predictions. Coincidentally or not, most high-profile solar enthusiasts tend also to be anti-capitalist collectivists who wish every family unit operated off its own individual windmill or photovoltaic cell instead of the 1,911 U.S. power stations containing 9,493 power generating turbines driven by steam provided from water heated by coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, or liquid petroleum.

The usual socialist suspects have been polyannaishly predicting the success of the futile wind/solar venture for more than 40 years. Examples abound. In 1977 Dennis Hayes, founder of Earth Day, predicted that by the year 2000 40 percent of global energy would be from renewable sources. In 1978 Ralph Nader said all power would be solar in 30 years. In 1997 he repeated that claim. In 1996 Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) predicted solar energy would be the primary source of energy in the twenty-first century.

Beneficiaries of Tax Breaks

Experience tells us the wind in most places does not blow steadily enough and predictably enough to be an economical power source. Moreover, the sun's energy is too widely dispersed and the land area required to collect it too vast for solar to become a large-scale power source. At best, a pleasant niche exists in the remotest of places and for the most affluent enviro-zealots. In reality, solar and wind power remain on today's radar screen only as a result of wasteful tax breaks to appease the green community. But don't take my word for any of this. Read the second edition of "The Solar Fraud" by the Mr. Wizard of academic physics, Howard C. Hayden, professor emeritus of the University of Connecticut.....

Energy Efficiency

The United States today consumes 100 quadrillion BTU or "quads" of thermal energy each year. In 1950 the figure was 35 quads; in 1910 about 7 quads, not counting horses and other agricultural sources of energy. Hayden quotes Peter Huber, author of "The Efficiency Paradox" (Forbes, August 20, 2001): "The efficiency of energy-consuming devices always rises, with or without new laws from Congress. Total consumption of primary fuels arises alongside. The historical facts are beyond dispute. When jet engines, steam power plants, and car engines were much less efficient than they are today, they consumed much less total energy, too."

But the efficiency paradox is nothing new. In the nineteenth century, the efficiency of steam engines was steadily improving as a result of James Watt's steam engine. For a while, the consumption of coal decreased by as much as one-third, but in the subsequent 33-year period, Hayden tells us, the consumption increased tenfold. English economist Stanley Jevons commented on the paradox in 1865: "It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth. It is the economy of its use which leads to extensive consumption. It has been so in the past and it will be so in the future," Jevons noted.

Wind Power No Answer

Because air must leave a wind turbine with some velocity and hence some energy, only some of the kinetic energy of the wind is taken by the turbine. It turns out that only 59 percent of the energy carried by the wind could be extracted by a perfect wind turbine; the very best real wind turbines peak at about 50 percent efficiency, and then only under ideal conditions.

With the elegance of Einstein's equation of relativity and the delight of a Mr. Wizard, Hayden explains the physics and complexity of turning the wind's kinetic energy into electricity. Wind farms, he writes, can generate electrical power at the rate of 1.2 watts per square meter (w/m2) for most sites and up to about 4 w/m2 in the rare sites where the wind always comes from one direction--though Hayden has been unable to find any. Now suppose the goal is to provide enough energy to average 1 billion watts of energy (1,000 mw) around the clock, the power output of one typical traditional power plant. At 1.2 w/m2, the land area requirement is about 833 square kilometers.

Imposing Inefficiencies

Hayden puts that land area into perspective. He writes, "imagine a one-mile-wide swath of wind turbines extending from San Francisco to Los Angeles. That land area is what would be required to produce as much power around the clock as one large coal, natural gas, or nuclear power station that normally occupies about one square kilometer."

Hayden makes it clear that if wind were a viable power source, utilities would be champing at the bit to use it. Utilities use every technology available to cut their fuel costs; they would gladly use photovoltaic and wind turbines if they were economical.

Solar Cells Unworkable

There are not many people left who believe acres and acres of mirrors following the sun will ever answer any of our energy needs. Some of us still cling to the idea that we can efficiently heat a swimming pool or hot water for the home with direct sunlight, though the numbers of such solar-collecting devices are declining. However, because few of us understand the magic of the photovoltaic cell that runs our pocket calculators, many still hold out hope for them.

A short description of the solar problem is that no matter how you design the system it will always be inefficient and capture only a small, uneconomical amount of solar energy. The best solar cells available on a large scale have an efficiency of about 10 percent--they can only capture about 10 percent of the solar energy that strikes the cells. There is a seductive fallacy about solar cells: that more exotic materials and increasingly clever computer-type designs will cause the price of the cell to drop dramatically. However--unless you are still dazzled by the old alchemists' idea of turning lead to gold--Hayden will easily convince you this just is not so.

Hydrogen Not the Answer

The last tidbit of this book I want to share with you regards hydrogen as a form of energy. By now, most of our readers know hydrogen is not a new form of energy but only a conveyer of energy, and not a very efficient one at that. With current technology, the process of removing hydrogen from water or methane and then burning the hydrogen as fuel results in a net energy loss of 38 percent. Similarly, fuel cells typically are 60 percent efficient, meaning only 60 percent of the 140 megajoules of energy within each kilogram of hydrogen can be usefully squeezed out. Hydrogen, in short, shows no promise of being a near-term power source.

More here. [Funnily enough, the one efficient way to use solar energy is hydroelectric power -- but Greenies have a HORROR of dams!]







AT ITS GREATEST, HUMAN ACTIVITY IS TRIVIAL IN ITS EFFECT ON THE ATMOSPHERE

Excerpts from an article by G.W. Burrows retired analytical chemist and former director of toxicology and environmental chemistry laboratories

The contributions of human activities to global warming is a topic of continuing and intense debate. Unfortunately, the vast majority of articles and reports on the effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide are overstated and exaggerated....

So what effect have human activities had on climate? To some extent, quite a lot. Building large cites creates "heat islands," which cause localized changes in weather. Massive deforestation (for example, in the tropics) causes changes in the hydrological (rain) cycle. Pollution contributes to changes in atmospheric chemistry; for example, smog and particulates produce haze and ozone as well as other pollutants such as NOX (various nitrogen oxides). Refrigerants are blamed for destruction of ozone.

But what about carbon dioxide? Produced by all forms of combustion and fermentation, CO2 has been the focus of debate on climate change to such an extent that controls on CO2 production have been connected to world economics (Kyoto Treaty) and pollution bartering. At the present time, carbon dioxide makes up approximately 0.03 percent (or 300 parts per million) of the earth's atmosphere. In and of itself, that number is small when compared to the other major gases in the atmosphere. For example, oxygen and nitrogen are present at 21 and 78 percent respectively. To obtain a sense for how much heat carbon dioxide absorbs and therefore contributes to global warming, the following information must also be considered. More than 98 percent of all CO2 in the atmosphere is produced by sources other than by man. For example, CO2 is produced by forest fires, volcanoes, fermentation and animal and plant respiration....

Approximately 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are added to the atmosphere each day, of which 98 percent is naturally produced. In other words, only 2 percent is anthropogenic. Around 1.16 billion tons of water is evaporated each day. At any given time, there are 106 billion tons of carbon dioxide and 12.9 x 106 billion tons of water in the atmosphere. And so the important question is "What do all of these numbers mean?"

First, there is a lot more water in the atmosphere than CO2. Second, the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere by human activities is small when compared to the amount of water already in the atmosphere. Finally we also must evaluate how much heat energy both carbon dioxide and water are capable of absorbing. Pound-for-pound, water absorbs two times more heat energy than CO2.....

The amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activities (2 percent of 0.03 percent, which is 0.000006 percent) when compared to water that is always present (range of 0.5 percent to 4 percent) is a very small amount. Pound-for-pound, water absorbs two times more heat energy than carbon dioxide.

Too often, experts, and even scientists study and report the effects of CO2 on climate in a manner that is similar to the story of five blind men describing an elephant. Each one views the elephant as a completely different being because he doesn't include the information from any of the others. The situations with studies or reports on global warming are similar. Unless we consider all of the factors that contribute to our climate simultaneously, we are using an unscientific technique known as data selection, which is inappropriate in thorough and accurate research. By evaluating changes in climate or temperature over shortened periods, such as decades or centuries instead of hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, we either overestimate or overstate the changes that might or might not be occurring. Data selection can be used to verify any reasonable conclusion about climate change.

Because there is a lot more water in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide and because water absorbs so much more energy than carbon dioxide, we should conclude that the effect that these gases have on the warming of the atmosphere is largely caused by water. Man's contribution, although it certainly exists, is more like throwing a stone into the ocean, real and calculable, but barely noticeable.




It's the atmosphere, stupid!: "Greenhouse warming theory, of course, is an atmospheric theory, not a surface theory, under which the atmosphere warms first and the warmth reradiates downward. Given that the atmosphere inarguably shows no appreciable warming in the 25-year history of satellite and radiosonde measurements (initiated in response to the cooling panic), to assert that runaway global warming is as real as President Bush's re-election is an absurd proposition. This, instead, illustrates how responsibility for the greens' problems lies with unsupportable claims in pursuit of laughably premature and inconsistent scare campaigns."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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