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Green
Perspectives
Alternative Energy Zones
by S. L. Klein, Ph.D.
In California we are facing three converging crises: a water shortage
crisis, a transportation fuel crisis, and an electrical power crisis. This
last is due to an aging power grid infrastructure and a failure of
installed electrical capacity to keep up with growing demand. While we are
doing better in California than in many other states as far as power
consumption, the cost of energy in the electrical power sector, like the
transportation sector, is likely to continue climbing. At the same time,
the relentless growth in population, and reduction in snow pack due to a
warming climate are likely to put increasing pressure both on our energy
and our water resources. We have to be prepared to mitigate the economic
as well as ecological impact of these problems. Fortunately, the momentum
for change is growing. But I believe that we continue to make two major
mistakes:
First, we have allowed the price of gasoline to be a major driver at both
the personal and governmental levels, while not paying attention to the
bigger picture. Since the oil embargo of 1973, the Department of Energy
(DOE), many states, universities, national labs and companies, have been
seeking solutions to
our energy problems. Ironically, the effort was frustrated for many years
by the low price of oil, and consequently of gasoline. Oil prices started
heading down around 1985, and as the price of a barrel of oil plunged to
just above $10, we foolishly jettisoned much of our effort to become more
energy efficient and bought gasoline guzzling SUVs in record numbers. Our
dependency upon foreign oil imports grew from around 27 percent in 1972
to over 60 percent by the end of 2007. In other words, we set ourselves
up for later oil price shocks, a massive transfer of wealth to unfriendly
countries, energy blackmail, and more. We should never make this mistake
again.
The second mistake: We have not optimized our search for a solution. The
DOE has continued, commendably, to look for substitutes to hydrocarbons,
doing so even during the mid 1980s through 1990s when oil prices were
especially low. Unfortunately, its approach has been mainly bottom up;
that is, it has concentrated largely on the components of an energy
infrastructure such as solar panels and hydrogen fuel cell cars. This
approach has been encouraged by proponents of single component alternative
energy solutions. Examples are Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy
by George Olah and The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin. But
we have not made much visible progress; not even since September 11, 2001.
According to the EIA, the Energy Information Administration, across the
country we still get less than 4 percent of our energy from clean
renewable alternatives (other than hydroelectric) after 35 years of
effort.
What Can We Do?
To accelerate technological advancement in renewable energy, we need a
short term plan that will buy us time, a contingency plan that will help
us weather supply disruptions, and a long term plan that will allow
renewable energy technology to reach the point where it is in widespread
use. Today, even the leading alternative, solar energy, is neither cost
effective enough nor sufficiently efficient to merit widespread use.
Short Term Plan
Our short term plan must emphasize the elimination of waste, and most of
our citizens seem to recognize this. We are already heading in the right
direction by once again stressing conservation of energy and water through
greater efficiency: the change takes the form of more energy efficiency
appliances and electronics devices as well as lower emission, higher MPG
vehicles. Across the country, consumers are becoming more aware of their
energy choices and showing a desire to adopt a more sustainable life
style.
Contingency and Long Term Plans
But I think our contingency and longer term plans are in trouble. Progress
has been too slow. When I joined a state sponsored hydrogen highway
blueprint group in 2004 to actively investigate the possibilities of a
hydrogen highway, I was already worrying about an immediate future in
which hydrocarbons would still dominate. What would happen if there were
major disruptions of imported oil? At least 25 percent of the oil we
consume is at risk. It comes from countries that are unstable or hostile;
many are shamefully dictatorial and use oil money to oppress their people.
Will they also turn on us? In 1973 we suffered long lines with a 7 percent
drop in oil imports. Could we survive even a 7 percent drop in oil imports
today without massive disruptions to our now fragile economy? While we
have, since 2004, adopted a contingency plan, has it prepared us to
withstand a drastic disruption in oil supplies? The
website describing California's
contingency plan is not reassuring; it states,
"During the early stages of an energy emergency, the primary role of state
government is fact finding, monitoring, and exchanging information, rather
than direct intervention in industry efforts to restore services and
satisfy customer requirements."
From my work on the hydrogen highway blueprint, I recognized that not only
the creation of a hydrogen economy, but the establishment of any other
potential alternatives to hydrocarbons was going to be a more daunting
challenge than most people realized. But even taking into account the
challenges, I was frustrated by the slow pace of change.
These thoughts led me to ask why we were making such slow progress in
building an infrastructure based upon renewable energy and that got me
thinking differently about solutions. Instead of trying to build a system
from the components up, why not build it top down, starting with a model?
To use a top- down approach, you look at the big picture first then drill
down into the details – like viewing the whole forest from a mountaintop
first before checking out the individual trees of which it is composed.
More practically, taking a top down approach can be compared to building a
house from a blueprint. Top-down thinkers design a static or dynamic
computer model of an entire system first. Through the model, they
investigate, in increasing detail, how the whole system should operate.
With the model worked out in detail, they implement a prototype. Instead
of starting with questions like, "What can we do to make solar PV energy
or energy storage devices more cost effective and more efficient?" a
top-down thinker would start by asking, "What framework could we create
that would foster rapid improvements in technology to optimize the
system?"
There is at present no single entity I'm aware of in our country which
uses a top-down systems approach to our energy problems. I believe that
this failure constitutes a serious gap that needs to be filled. For such
an approach to work, however, we would need a central guiding principle;
guiding principles are regularly used by excellent companies and are worth
applying to our current problems.
What guiding principle would apply here? I would suggest "sector
integration." The advent of the plug-in hybrid
car has opened up the possibility of integrating the electrical
power sector with the transportation sector. This possibility should be
seized: the two sectors should be integrated using the electrical power
sector as the driver. Why electrical power? Electrical power should be the
driver because it provides more energy options: Hydrogen, solar energy,
wind energy, wave energy, biomass, geothermal energy as well as
traditional coal, hydroelectric and (though I don't advocate it) nuclear
energy, which can all be made available. We can solve the problems in both
sectors through an electrical plug. The federal government, which is
emphasizing hydrogen and ethanol fuel, is trying to solve the
transportation problems in the transportation sector. I'm suggesting that
the answer lies in the electrical power sector.
An Alternative Energy Zone
To succeed, we need to set up an energy micro-economy called an
"Alternative Energy Zone." An alternative energy zone is a defined area
in which a small but self-sustainable alternative energy infrastructure is
built top down from a starter model using the guiding principle of
integrating the transportation and electrical power sectors. Ideally, the
alternative energy zone would encompass an entire small city. Its aim
should be to create a community that is completely hydrocarbon free. It
requires a community of pioneering homeowners and businesspeople willing
to act as the hub of the system. The system would include a recycling and
biomass waste fuel recovery plant - possibly a
mini-grid as described by the DOE, home
electrical generators, alternative fuel cars, alternative fuel service
stations, and businesses, vendors, and utilities to help maintain the
alternative energy infrastructure. The alternative energy zone would
also drawn on whatever other local energy resource it has besides biomass
waste, such as wave, geothermal, or wind energy along with solar energy.
Within such an alternative energy zone, we could model, build, monitor,
measure, improve, and, with tailoring, standardize and expand key
developing technologies in synergy with one another, incorporating water
conservation and appliance efficiency into the mix.
An alternative energy zone establishes a framework for action. Among its
strengths, an alternative energy zone can be run as a controlled
experiment, while subjecting a new energy infrastructure to real world
conditions to motivate rapid improvement. The zone's size and
concentration of activity makes the energy system easier to develop and
improve than a spread out system like the hydrogen highway or a component
based enterprise, such as California's "million roof" solar initiative.
And it can incorporate and evolve from portions of an existing system.
Through alternative energy zones, we could demonstrate to doubters that an
energy system run completely on alternatives to hydrocarbons can work.
The likelihood that this approach will succeed is reinforced by the fact
that something like it has been tried before with notable success. Most
people may not be aware of it, but our AC power grid began with a system
built for a single city, Buffalo, New York. The creators of this primal
grid, George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla, made Buffalo into a real-world
laboratory around 1900. There, Tesla was able to experiment with and
improve his prototype AC power grid infrastructure before the grid was
spread across the country. Today we could do something similar but with
the use of far more sophisticated tools.
Technologically innovative California is the right place to create an
alternative energy zone based upon the Tesla paradigm using the vision of
electrical power and transportation integration. For renewable energy
vendors, alternative energy zones provide a guaranteed customer base. For
universities and national labs, they are a place to test innovations. For
customers, the zones encourage a sense of community and offer energy
independence at reduced costs. For utility companies, alternative energy
zones are a place to evolve a new generation of
smart grid in a local alternative energy
distributive system, reduce distance between power plants and the homes
and businesses that use the energy, potentially increase power
reliability, and reduce costs for everyone.
For states, the concentration of activity in alternative energy zones and
the use of a top-down systems integration approach can accomplish more for
less money. And for car manufacturers the zones are the place to prove
the latest plug-in technology.
What is needed is leadership at all levels. The question I have for
California is, if you agree with my assessment, will a city council that
represents a community of customers step forward to make a complete green
commitment as an alternative energy zone? If one does, it deserves all
our support.
S. L.
Klein, Ph.D, is Senior Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. She is also the author of
Power to Change the World: Alternative Energy and
the Rise of the Solar City,
BookSurge Publishing (April 8, 2008). She can be reached at
slk_klein@yahoo.com.
Links:
Rollout Strategy for the Hydrogen Highway :
http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/plan/reports/rolloutreport.pdf
Hydrogen Highway blueprint Plan:
http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/plan/reports/volume2_050505.pdf
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