Towards Renewable Energy in Botswana

In my writings so far (collected in my blog), I have been discussing current and future energy dependence and possible renewable sources - mostly in general and based on books and articles from the global North. For me and others down here this discussion has lacked structure but that can now change, hopefully, by initiatives from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its workhorse, the Conference of Parties (COP).

Earlier, it has been a lot of flimsy reasoning and speculations by “greens and deniers”, pragmatic perma-culturists and serious researchers. Everything from 0 to 100% renewable energy proposals have been on the board. Now nations from all over the globe is discussing urgent climate change issues (as they are felt everywhere) and now it is possible to see a light at the end of the speculation tunnel. That must be the basis for continued writing and discussion – a structure to use as the basis for Our Renewable Future! The decision makers have a forum, albeit often on opposing sides of the table and now we have to include the common man, otherwise we will not reach the important goals, in my opinion. The problems in the global North are not the same we have here in the South – a bit simplified we can say that they created climate change and we are only suffering observers also hoping for a viable future.

Looking in the back mirror, we also realize that some “green” enthusiasm is needed. Ancient technology and concepts are important knowledge for the future but impossible as a single basis for it. The ecological balance in the olden times has been totally changed by the industrial revolution and we have to base a future life on the often disastrous results of that – consequently our fight against climate change, the result of earlier neglect.

To be fair, the 100% renewable energy needed for the global North to keep up their expensive life styles, is theoretically feasible but not viable in a future without cheap fossil fuels – and we have to find a way of surviving the effects of earlier neglect even if it will mean less energy per person (e.g. a proper balance between South and North). Saving electricity will be an important issue.

So let’s see how our African “global South” can achieve a decent energy basis – a question argued in the last COP meeting in Marrakech. The global North is disagreeing with a few queries/opinions from the South and that is a matter of concern. It has to do with conceptual matters, geography, pollution and finance.

Now, there is an interesting sub-board at COP – it’s labeled NDC for Nationally Determined Contributions. I have some issues to discuss and propose for our readers and delegates to the subsidiary meeting in May/17 (in Bonn) and the next COP 23 in Nov/17 on Fiji. Let me argue the following, a way of “reflecting before”:

We are since long used to the frustration that comes with big megaprojects – Morocco for instance has such a one just a short trip to the east of Marrakech called the Quarzazate Solar Plant. I guess most delegates have admired that project and I will be back on this issue in future writings about the myth of mega projects..

I start my conceptual discussion with this pictorial metaphor – picture 1 is a simple home with some solar panels and picture 2 is something like a Sua Pan covered by solar panels – in order to find a viable energy concept for Botswana:   

As intended, the illustrations span from simple roof panels to a mega-plant but there are logical steps in between. However, I like to propose that we start simple with a step by step concept, as Pic 1 indicates:

Step One - let’s create a program for improving and saving electricity by lessen the power used for individual houses and install solar panels everywhere including community service buildings. With GoB support, BPC can make it a “purchase loan scheme” like the ones they (and the Housing Corporation) already have. Raising the value of the national housing stock by increasing standards with cheap loans is in fact making a wealthy nation – often used in the Scandinavian countries.

As the BPC power is already there in most cases and needed to overcome the intermittent power problem, it seems to me very simple: some panels, transformer/converter and a battery installment is all that’s needed as long as there is the BPC backup. Consequently, it is an energy saving concept rather than a complete renewable future solution and a step towards a more decentralized provision. The savings will also be used to power the 20% of the rural villages not covered so far and upgrading of existing power grid.

Step Two could be to start medium scale solar and wind plants, scaled for small villages and urban neighborhood units – between 2-5 ha unused fields or natural impediments are needed, only. This is often a concept used in the Nordic countries I’ve seen, and the scale is acceptable environmentally due to the minimal impact. In short, this kind of planning will improve savings and also result in an improved employment situation and not a conclusion in the learned books we have been penetrating.

Furthermore. many large consumers like urban industries seldom have their roofs plastered with solar panels (to my astonishment not even for hot water) as well as most greenhouses for vegetable production that also need lots of power are seldom using solar panels. Here are more savings possible that might result in fewer large scale plants out of reach financially for us and often with negative environmental impacts). The problem here is the energy storage and we return to this later.

This medium scale, decentralized energy plants can be illustrated like this pic below and we can easily imagine an African village with a disused field near and filled with solar panels albeit this is a Scandinavian small town.

 

My choice of illustrations doesn’t imply that we only have a plan A (pic 1) and B pic 2) to choose between. Rather meant to indicate where we must start and where we might end. I’ll try and explain pros and cons and futher encourage our outspoken ministers, vocal on this issue of “renewable energy”.

What’s neglected in most conceptual writings about the “renewable future” is the important issue of the social inclusion of the common man, thus the education about the necessity of saving energy. So, we have to find a step by step approach here and find a long-term viability of proposed concepts as well as being able to meet costs and it means less energy per capita as savings start at home.

If we dare to get into heavy debts on behalf of our next generations, we are hand cuffing them to a forever ongoing dependency syndrome. And if the costs and debts are not met, they are forever sentenced to structural adjustments, austerity and unemployment. Please note, that the renewable future projects already implemented here and there, consequences like the ones I mentioned are a fact!

The social, common man involvement is crucial, as I see I, but I’ve noted recently that the issue is part of the BOCONGO and BCC concept for their Selibe-Phikwe project. That’s fine but it must also be part of the future energy solution for the country. It is seriously needed if the “dependency syndrome” should be avoided – more self help is preferable! And this will have impact on future energy concepts, to be sure.

The storage of renewable energy/electricity is possible in the low and medium range of intermittent power. The BBC News online pages recently had an interesting project presented – “The Cryogenic Energy Storage (CES) in an article dated 10/12/2016. In short it spells out the following:

The CES project, now leaving the experimental stage (5 MW) for reality (200–1200 MW already in the design stage) is using some electricity produced to freeze air (cleaned of CO2 – a very old technology today) into a liquid state and stored in containers of different kind. When warmed up, the liquid air expands 700-1000 in volume and will drive “steam” turbines producing electricity when solar or wind turbines are “sleeping”. Thus, the need to depend on the existing traditional grid is eliminated. A solar plant can be self sufficient in other words.

And here we have another plus for our country with rather bad waste management: Combined with waste treatment, it can be run on the electricity produced by the refuse tip/landfill! This part of the project is nowadays routine in developed countries but not here, yet. And there is more interesting news and let’s hear it from this source:
Highbrow Power’s demonstrator plant is next to Pilsworth landfill gas generation site in the Manchester plant. The large insulated tanks are between this site and the new cryogenic plant. The rubbish burning generates methane gas produced from decomposing rubbish to produce electricity, not enough to be of serious interest for large scale housing and industrial areas though, but enough to produce and heat liquid air, essential for the cryogenic process.

And there is a remarkable side effect – when putting in both electrical and thermal energy, the amount of resulting electrical energy can in some cases end up being more than the electrical energy you put in!

Those are very interesting news to us here in the global South – we can combine efforts for a better environment and, so to say, have two birds with one stone! But as a conclusion, I think some quotes from renewable energy experts are prudent. The first one from Prof M Mooiman, at UB 2015/16:

“One of the axioms of the energy business is: It takes energy to get energy. We have to expend energy drilling into oil deposits, pumping, refining, and transporting the oil before we can use it as petrol to power our cars; we have to expend energy mining, processing, and transporting coal before we can burn it; even in the renewable energy field, where we have free fuel sources, such as sunlight, we have to expend energy creating the components of solar panels, transporting, and installing them. Every energy source requires an investment of a certain amount of energy to recover energy that we can use somewhere else. The trick is to be sure that the energy invested is less than the energy produced. This concept called EROI – energy return on investment (also referred to as EROEI – energy recovered on energy invested). The formula for EROI is straightforward:

EROI = Energy recovered/Energy Invested = Energy output/Energy input

One always wants the EROI to be greater than 1, i.e., one wants to recover more output energy than input energy. There are many ways to calculate the inputs and outputs, but the most rigorous way is to undertake a life-cycle analysis and compare all the inputs and outputs over the whole life of the project. The range of EROI values in the energy field is wide: for hydropower, it is of the order of 80; for ethanol from biomass, it is of the order of 5… “ 

and the EIOI coefficient for solar power, often promised by manufacturers to 10-12 is in reality down to 2-3.

Another interesting voice on the internet is Prof Ugo Bardi, a distinguished member of the Club of Rome:

“I still want to know if the following can be done and does the EROEI include it all (plus the extra energy demand I haven’t thought of):

1.   Mine the raw materials using equipment powered by solar panels.

2.   Transport and convert metal ores, eg. bauxite-aluminum, using equipment run by solar panels and in a factory built using the energy from solar panels.

3.   Make the finished panels in a factory run by solar panels, including building and maintaining the factory.

4.   Transport, install and maintain the solar panels using equipment running on solar panels.

All this is presently being done (mainly) with the energy from fossil fuels. How will it be done when they are gone?”

Let me conclude with some positive news – naturally we cannot for the future go on by hooking solar panels to buildings and build plants over useful land. We must do that only for the existing built up environment. The long term solution is to include the energy gadgets among the construction elements. Solar panels of the type we have today will be roof construction material, for instance. Its an architecture, engineering and planning issue to be solved. For instance, the bright innovator Elon Musk is already presenting roof tiles and shingles with solar collection qualities, expensive for a start as well as his battery cars but a right innovation.

We can also do that! Already in year 2000 there was a report that especially Egypt, Botswana and the Philippines were ideal for solar energy production!

Well, there we are and the discussion must continue!

Jan Wareus                                                              

janwareus@yahoo.com

janwareus.blogspot.com
 

Our Renewable Future 5

On Feasibility and Viability of Renewable Energy        

I start this writing with a pictorial metaphor that is the theme for this essay– picture 1 is a simple home with some solar panels and picture 2 is something like a Sua Pan covered by solar panel – which way Botswana?

We sure live in interesting times – energy experts and researchers, even some academics have often demonstrated very split minds and results on the feasibility of future renewable energy. Especially so regarding the very crux of the matter – the EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) and the EPBT (Energy Pay Back Time) to the confusion of worried people and the pleasure of the so called “deniers”. Of course, this is bickering in an ebony tower, mostly, and it’s like the passengers of Titanic trying to choose a life boat with the best warranty.

However, the so called “greens” have grown strong lately. Their objections to “no-worry-deniers” (often in media and various authorities) and still wide spread ignorance among ordinary salary people (to make a difference to unemployed wage people), and a resilient concentration on avoiding a possible end of life on Earth, is maturing, as far as I can see. It must be the “climate change” effects that even a blind can see (as my grandfather use to say) . And population migration, xenophobia, no money to buy the products of an industrialism running without harness – remember old Henry Ford (my worker must be paid enough to buy a car)? Hurricanes, no electricity for days, beautiful beach houses flooded and polluted air/water. Just to mention a few modern drawbacks!

So, of course the number of worried people increases – and they are often basing their opinion on their intuition. As well as many “experts” must do – and that’s a crux that makes people turn to their inside instead of listen to facts and turn to metaphysics of the time (the space, more praying and so on). Are we mentally lost in a globalized world? But many have mobilized – we even have a TCM (The Climate Mobilization). Many people are now acting and this is encouraging to me!

We are today forced to make use intuition and guesstimates. Nothing can be fully “EROEI’d” prior to action! And action is needed urgently and should have come latest in the 1960’s to be fully in use today. Is it better late than never? We don’t fully know but we know that we can hardly pay for it today. Some brains are telling us, that we now have a last chance albeit it will cost more than we have in our pockets.

My question is – can we take it step by step or must we mimic US and the G20 here in Africa? Let’s start and see what the chances are for the already industrialized world, maybe “postindustrial” is a better word. We have to study a number of late texts, books and blogs by writers like McKinnon, Heinberg, Greer, Sarkar and others to find an answer on the feasibility to start, and we will find that the feasibility is there but what about long time viability?

In other columns, I have given Richard Heinberg and David Finlay of the Post Carbon Institute ample attention on the feasibility of renewable energy and discussed their eye opening book “Our Renewable Future” but management and viability are in the concept, too – more on this later! In fact, most writers from G20 are dealing with their country-centric problems. But we must realize - their problems are not exactly ours!

Let us quickly look into their problems – of which 100% renewal energy is the main one to keep them going as currently (e.g. including the industries, world military rule, petro-dollar and subsequent money-printing, media imperialism, lifestyles a s o). In short, they realize that money must be spent to keep a modern colonialism alive. It is therefore absolutely natural that they are not making the financing a great problem –  invincibility rules and must continue! I’m sorry to say this – but it’s the truth for African countries and many others!

We cannot put much hope to a writer like Bill McKinnon (from the 350.org fame) when he’s writing a book about “A World at War”, underpinning that the West is at war regarding the resources (well, we know that!). He can go on writing the Democratic Platforms for coming years (he wrote the one for this year). But even an excellent writer like Richard Heinberg from the famous Post Carbon Institute is unfortunately basing “Our Renewable Future” findings on the same  – but it doesn’t work completely for him, as we will see later.

Today there seems to be an understanding that US can go on as it does today at a cost (and we here know where the payment comes from). This is irritating when discussing our global human survival, as I see it. South America, Africa and Asia must discuss it from another angle! The G20 people is a minority and we are the big majority and instead of proposing more technology, we probably have to pinpoint what less technology can do – and this needs more “footwork” by distressed peoples.

I now have to confess that I’m heavily basing my conclusions on an Indian professor, Sakal Sarkar. He finds the “war” metaphor very inappropriate and tries to discuss the future where “G120” have something of a consensus (or ought to have). His points are:

The “feasibility concept” might be very unfortunate. Even blinded by muscle and optimism, the 100% renewable basis is doubtable – the hope for more expensive technology is, maybe, feasible but not viable. But he agrees with McKinnon that we “need to build a hell lot of factories to turn out the thousands of acres of solar panels and wind turbines at the length of football fields and millions and millions of electric cars and buses”. Sakar is also referring to David Roberts that puts it as follows, very vividly:

“Well, have a look at Solar City’s gigafactory, … It will be the biggest solar manufacturing facility … covering 27 acres, capable of cranking out 10.000 solar panels a day – a gigawatt’s worth in a year. At the height of its transition to WWS (wind, water, solar), the US would have to build around 30 gigafactories a year devoted to solar panels, and another 15 a year for wind turbines. That’s 45 of the biggest factories ever built, every year. It is [even for an American] a mind boggling pace of building…”

My comment – maybe that’s the business idea? There’s already about 50 wind turbine factories in the US but most solar panels are Chinese – pocket the Chinese ones and the US corporations are forever in business and able to print “sun-and-wind dollars”!

How we here in Africa should handle 100 m high aluminum turbines standing on several thousand tons bases and many hundreds of hectares of solar panels will be a subsequent dilemma for us. The little water we have is already earmarked – we here in Botswana have salt, perfect for concentrated solar plants but not the needed water!

However, the viability problem will sort this out in the G20, I’m sure. Already it’s clear that a wind turbine has only a 20 year lifespan and in Germany a 1000 of their ab. 25,000 turbines must be exchanged every year and Germany has so far just been able to replace coal and nuclear electricity (some days). That’s only a ¼ of the energy cake – there is something like a ½ cake made by fossil fuel left to replace. Another thing is – the climate change results in so much bad winds that old statistics never indicated. What hurricanes do to renewable can be seen from photos on the net! Imagine – climate change is met by renewables but is often winning round 2 (the viability round). I think we seriously have to look into “appropriate technologies” including energy savings here in Africa!

But Prof. Sarkar is giving Mc Kinnon right regarding “we are building a huge amount of shit” from the renewable drive. Quoting him we read:

“Remember that all machines and all products wear out and have a limited lifespan. The same holds for solar panels, wind turbines and machines with which we make them. They have to be replaced, sooner or later, even factory buildings. Remember also that inorganic nonrenewable materials cannot be fully recycled, because the entropy law also applies to materials. As many in the ecology movement have been saying for quite a few years now, if it should go on like this, we humans would soon need at least two more planets – one as our resource base and the other as our waste dumping site”.

Myself, I suddenly remember – not many years ago some EU countries wanted to dump their waste here in Africa, and worst thing - there were many country leaders interested in the proposed deals with the ones that robbed us of our resources and then wanted to dump “shit” here! Conclusive colonialism? Another Sarkar quotation:

“…the true production process in the industrial age … is not a cyclical but a continuous linear process, that begins with resource extraction and ends with dumping waste in landfills or in the atmosphere or in the waters, while midway (if we are lucky) giving us consumers some satisfaction and fulfilling some of our material and immaterial basic and non-basic needs.”

This install started with some words about EROEI and Prof. Sarkar’s writings on this issue are also highly interesting and giving me new doubts about the feasibility and viability of a hefty and costly 100% hurried renewable future here in Africa.

We are not curing our increasing obesity, now - we have to start dieting, saving and get the right dress by time! Let us see what Prof. Sarkar says about EROEI and Net Energy (abridged by me):

When we change to so called renewable energy and can pay for initial transitional costs, we must remember that (if we are able to implement just some few small steps) that the concept is neither free from CO2 emission, nor generally pollutions-free, nor sustainable – for instance: clean energies and engines today are just a little cleaner and still have emissions. And it must be understood that all kind of energy, produced of any kind of machines, for many years are produced by a decreasing amount of fossil fuels and emitting scaring amounts of pollution!

It’s interesting that Richard Heinberg, the co-author of “Our Renewable Future” lately (Sept 2012) has responded to comments on the book as follows:

“We concluded that, while in theory it may be possible to build enough solar and wind supply capacity to substitute for current fossil energy sources, much of current energy usage infrastructure (for transportation, agriculture, and industrial processes) will be difficult and expensive to adapt to using renewable electricity. In the face of these and other related challenges, we suggest that it likely won’t be possible to maintain a consumption-oriented growth economy in the post-fossil future, and that we would all be better off aiming to transition to a simpler and more localized conserver economy.”

From all studies so far it is clear that it is assumed that solar and wind energy yield an sufficient amount of net energy – and probably done to attract investments in a world where a few owns much more than governments and nations. (Note that investments are going down significantly now when oil is very cheap!)

The difference between feasibility and viability is crucial! This is an interesting fact that we must keep in mind, prior to take loans from IMF/WB or even AfDB for becoming “green”. The private investors know this and are already withdrawing from the ring or field. The crux of this matter is the financing – by our neo-liberal, global investors profit makers or a more balanced concept of public welfare?

Before I discuss my idea of how to handle the matter here in Africa, I cannot but knock down another fine contribution to the dilemma by another professor. His name is Ugo Bardi and a distinguished member of the Club of Rome:

“I still want to know if the following can be done and does the EROEI include it all plus the extra energy demand I haven’t thought of):

1.   Mine the raw materials using equipment powered by solar panels.

2.   Transport and convert metal ores, eg. bauxite-aluminum, using equipment run by solar panels and in a factory built using the energy from solar panels.

3.   Make the finished panels in a factory run by solar panels, including building and maintaining the factory.

4.   Transport, install and maintain the solar panels using equipment running on solar panels.

All this is presently being done (mainly) with the energy from fossil fuels. How will it be done when they are gone?”

I have a proposed conclusion how to do it a non-US-centric way here below (a quotation from my own writings, for once):

Proposed feasible and viable first steps to a renewable future for a not very industrialized country:

Step One - let’s create a program for improving and saving electricity by lessen the power used for individual houses and install solar panels everywhere including community service buildings. With GoB support, BPC can make it a “purchase loan scheme” like the ones they (and the Housing Corporation) already have. As the BPC power is already there in most cases and for the time needed to overcome the intermittent problem, it seems to me very simple: some panels, transformer/converter and a battery installment is all that’s needed as long as there is the BPC backup. Consequently, it is an energy saving concept rather than a complete renewable future solution and a step towards a more decentralized provision than the “G20” advice we read about.

Interestingly, savings of domestic and institutional consumption might make BPC able to do necessary improvements on their delivery network to make possible inclusion of larger scaled wind and solar production units (and include the 20% of settlements still not connected). It is often stated that existing, conventional production and delivery system cannot take more than 5% of “outside” intermittent energy without expensive and time consuming upgrade of existing facilities. But a hurdle already overcome in many of the G20 countries – reports are available on the net and too many study trips can be avoided, for sure!

Step Two could be to start medium scale solar and wind plants, scaled for small villages and urban neighborhood units – 2-5 ha unused fields or natural impediments. This is often a concept used in the Nordic countries I’ve seen, and the scale is acceptable environmentally due to the minimal impact. In short, this kind of planning- wise approved initial steps might improve savings and also result in an improved employment situation and, thus, recommended by this writer, and not a conclusion in the books we have been penetrating. Many large consumers like urban industries seldom have their roofs plastered with solar panels (to my astonishment not even for hot water) as well as most greenhouses for vegetable production that also need lots of power but are seldom using solar panels. Here are more savings possible that might result in fewer large scale plants (that often have negative environmental impact).

Food for Thoughts !?          

Our Renewable Future 4

Ending Part 3 of the “renewable” columns, I touched upon the question of the possibilities of financing a transition from fossil fuels to a renewable energy concept for the future and here. I find my worry very important against the financial meltdown we are currently experiencing and the huge costs for the complete transition, currently implemented in the industrialized countries.

The well researched book (Our Renewable Future – available online) clearly indicates that the feasible concept is tapping sun and wind using now well known sustainable technologies (around there for many decades, already). However, the technologies are high-tech and expensive as well as much resource and energy consuming. Furthermore, based on conventional industrial products using what we try to eliminate – fossil fuel dependency. Everything must get worse until it gets better, they say!

To take an example from Germany that has about 25 000 wind turbines today at $1.5-3 million each (sponsored 70% by government) with a life span of c. 20 years – there was a photo of a fallen 19 yr old one in Part 1. These very big high-tech “monsters” are 300-foot towers with a 60-ton generator nacelle and the 200-foot blades often on thousand tons of concrete and rebar foundation. Aluminum and concrete have a huge carbon footprint, among the biggest in the construction industry. And, of course, a wind farm with many hundreds of them will need good roads for maintenance and repair trucks. Germany is now busy exchanging 1000 of the first built ones every year to the pleasure of many manufactures. Wind turbines produce electricity cheaper than conventional energy plants – but are such costs acceptable for not so industrialized countries in need of loans?

I think we must worry about the chosen technology and do research to find cheaper and better, a more appropriate technology, the day we are considering wind turbines, for instance.  And we now have institutions as a University of Technology (BIUST) and the Innovation Hub! But the revelation day is still a bit into the future as we will see – there are smaller steps that will be needed for a start. However, let us first have a look into our situation on the Limits To Growth (LTG) chart:

Fig 4.1 From Limits To Growth 2004  - based on LTG chart 1972

It is interesting and frightening to see the finance and oil based industrial output coinciding with the resources decline and also that all (except resources) is based on the industrial era development that after 1950/60 took a steep upturn – this is when neo-liberalism (and globalism) started blossom – I leave this to friends interested in ideology and political/economical doctrines (and note that the problem started when the gold-dollar became petro-dollar and the oil for future had to be secured). Great worry must be given the indication that the food and population curves are very far from each other in 2050 – this is alarming as it often is the cause of riots and wars and we experience this even today, but just a start of something bigger. In these times of tumult we are supposed to switch to renewable energy – oops! We also see that pollution will go up and we have to build a renewable world that, unfortunately, will result in increased pollution for the transitional period. So – worse before better but can Gaia take it?

When should a feasible transition have started? Probably latest in 1965 when my Professor Georg Borgström wrote about “Limits for our Existence”. I have a saved Cohiba cigar for the good answers I’ll be given.

Back to the financing of Our Renewable Future – Part 3 of my articles had an illustration from a net-blog and it’s repeated here below:

Fig 4.2  From Mike Roscoe finance blog in May 2016 (end curves 2013)

The charts ends in 2013 and now in 2016 the situation is – debts owed is ab. 200 trill and world GPD ab. 50 trill. The 2/3 gap is probably a ¾ gap today. Sounds horrible for the future loan/dept situation but ab. 1/3 of the dept curve isn’t based on real wealth! The upper 1/3 of the dept curve is “paper debts” - i.e. artificial and based on newly printed money, overvalued mortgages, bonds, hedge funds, derivatives and other so called Wall Street constructions that most banks and economic pundits are basing their dementia reporting on (in papers and even radio/TV). As usual, this will result in a big bubble bang but this time too big to be covered by tax money/governments to the demise of the banks “too big to fall” – that’s is the fact that Barclays is basing their current downsizing on! Be that what it might be – the debts are just too big to cover for a change of the energy tools we need right now. When a big finance bubble is bursting, people and nations must rely on basic footwork and now it’s time to speak about a feasible change to renewable and proper steps to take.

We start, again, with a chart from the book we use for our discussion – Our Renewable Future (chapter 9):

Fig 4.3    Selected countries’ public investments in renewable energy research and development

Looking at this chart, it must be remembered that it deals only with improvements to the existing electricity sector (ab. 20% of energy demand today).However, it’s clear that it is only fully fledged industrial countries (and a few “semi” ones) that so far are into the first step to a 100% renewable future. Hardly any former “colony”!  Why? We have to be on this chart as we are pride of having a BIUST and an Innovative Hub – hope you agree. Or are we still looted and do we have to ask for “discount, sir”?

I think I have to conclude this presentation of an eye opening book. I choose by sticking out my glass-chin (old boxer as I am) and present how I think a country in the Southern Africa should meet a renewable future, step by step. But I’m not a specialist and there are few others around here – but it is necessary to meet the future with our feet steady on our ground. We should not accept so called “global treaties” but do it our own way – for instance: coal is a bad pollutant and soon there are no buyers. What can we do about it – we can clean the pollutants which today seemingly cost more than a transport to the east (and cost for transport and cleaning makes it no deal to them). But, no transport and cleaning here might become basis for the temporary lee time we need, isn’t it? With or without a new railway to the west (or east)! As road based transport is a enormous problem for renewable energy, I guess the railway will soon pay its cost.

Now to the first trembling steps I think we must take to a renewable future: It normally takes years to start up new programs/projects - consequently we must use ongoing ones. And there are possibilities as I see it in the many recent projects we have e.g. ESP (Economical Stimulus Project) and Ipeleng and others. And, for a start, there isn’t a single young fellow that can’t climb a roof and put a solar panel into use. And a lot of retired BPC workers that can attach the wires to an existing fuse box and attach a volt converter (very cheap today) in between. With some project supervision, these locals could be used in a small first step towards renewables.

Thus, step one: Let’s create a program for improving and saving electricity by lessen the power used for individual houses by installing solar panels everywhere including community service buildings. With GoB support, BPC can make it a “purchase loan scheme” like the ones they already have. As the BPC power is already there in many cases and for the time needed (the intermittent problem), it seems to me very simple 2 panels, transformer/converter and a battery installment is all that’s needed as long as there is the BPC backup. Consequently, it is a energy saving concept rather than a complete renewable future solution.

Interestingly, savings of domestic and small institutional consumption might make BPC able to do necessary improvements on their delivery network to make possible inclusion of large scale wind and solar farms (and include the 20% still not connected). It is often stated that existing, conventional production and delivery system cannot take more than 5% of “outside” energy. But that has proven wrong I many countries that have substantial renewable energy sources – after upgrading of existing network, of course.

A second step could be to construct medium scale solar and wind farms scaled for small villages and urban neighborhood units – 2-5 ha unused fields or natural impediments. This is often a concept used in the Nordic countries I’ve seen, and the scale is acceptable environmentally due to the minimal impact. In short, this kind of initial small step might improve savings and also result in an improved employment situation and, thus, recommended by this writer, ant not a conclusion in the book we penetrate.Many large consumers like urban industries seldom have their large roofs plastered with solar panels (to my astonishment not even for hot water) as well as most greenhouses for vegetable production that also need lots of power but are not using the sun. Here are more savings possible that might result in fewer large scale plants (that often have negative environmental impact – see fig 4.4!

Fig 4.4  Wind Farm in California 1986 – they started early!

This photo is interesting – First, it is from 1986 (from the Altamont Pass in northern California) so, the technology has been around for long and obviously to acceptable cost, there. Now, costs are through the roof and GDP’s very problematic. We are embarrassed, aren’t we, as we didn’t even try, then? Second, we clearly understand the importance of physical planners and landscape architects, don’t we? I could add a third point – there is a myth that wind farms allow for undisturbed agric production. It look so on the pic, but in fact, today each and every one of the mills must have truck access – and there we have a problem regarding  “undisturbed agric”.

However, this “renewable future” has an interesting history and it is underpinned in the book – it is so called “high-tech”, a word that makes me worried, indeed. I’m hoping for a retro/appropriate technology and ditto scale. Not a new trough for starving entrepreneurs and corporations! It is obvious that we have to (re)find and (re)discover our renewable future and make changes to our energy use (as well as scaling it down) if we want to give a chance of well living to our children and grandchildren. And consequently a fine picture of what I want (fig 4.5):

Fig 4.5  A German high tower wind turbine of late – high-tech top but locally made tower/nacelle, more appropriate to us, isn’t it?

Jan Wareus

janwareus@yahoo.com

Our Renewable Future 3

It is manifest from the book we are examining (Our Renewable Future by Heinberg and Fridley of the Carbon Institute) that we have to rely on sun and wind as main sources for future energy.

Reasons are evident – we have urgently to stop further pollution of our atmosphere with temperature rising carbon emissions and the fossil based energy is finite and we have already burnt most of it (resulting in severe climate change). Time is up, we have missed earlier chances and are facing a last chance, obviously. The book is scrutinizing this last chance in an analytical way and we have to be serious despite the many economical, industrial and commercial high levels of wishful thinking based on a continued 6-8% GDP growth level forever into the future.
But this wont be easy – that’s mainly the message of the book and we are going on with some major findings, or rather major conclusions by a great number of scientists and researchers that is the basis for the authors message. In our opinion, it is highly interesting and important to the development professionals, architects, planners, engineers and the like, interested in a changing future, and we will now continue the presentation:
An illustration (and some text) from the book is clearly indicating the change from fossil to renewable energy and it follows here (it is based on the US situation in 2012) – and we here are trying following the same development concept:

Electricity constitutes only a portion of the energy the world uses daily. In the United States, 21 percent of final energy is used as electricity (for the world, the figure is 18 percent); of the U.S. electricity supply, 38 percent is generated from coal, 31 percent from natural gas, 19 percent from nuclear power, 7 percent from hydro, and 5 percent from other renewables.^[1]

Figure 3.1. US final energy consumption by fuel type, 2012. NGL = natural gas liquids. LPG = liquefied petroleum gas. Source: International Energy Agency and U.S. Energy Information Administration. Obs - blue is Natural Gas & NGL

Since most solar and wind energy technologies produce electricity (as do hydro, geothermal, and some biomass generators), replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy sources is happening fastest in the electricity sector. Further, this means that hopes for accelerating the energy transition hinge on the electrification of a greater proportion of our total energy

As you realize, a large section (3/4) of the energy consumption illustrated in the diagram will and must be changed to renewable energy in the form of electricity. And this is the bolts and nuts of the interesting chapter 3 of the book – the headings are: Renewable Electricity, Falling Costs, Variability/Intermittency and Scaling Challenges. The problems are not avoided and we will highlight a few of them:

Regarding the intermittency character (due to the sun and wind variability) regarding the production of solar and wind power, there will be a problem during an establishing period. When the renewable power is available, the existing grid cannot without severe problems take on an input of more than 20%. Then the existing grid and production cannot deliver as per contract. This means that the storage issue will come very early in the transitional process. Consequently, the redesign of the grid is an imminent problem and an expensive one. But never the less important – we might say that it is a timing/planning problem. Note – when we hear that Portugal just had four consecutive days on renewable electricity and Germany from May 2015 filled almost all its electricity needs on renewables for a month, it means that they at least have overcome the mentioned problem but also we must keep in mind that electricity currently represents only 20% of final energy use.

On the storage of electrical energy, the authors are very alert. It is a huge problem that varies a lot with the geography of the plants for renewable sun and wind electricity. The cheapest way of storing energy we find in mountainous regions with good sites for dams – we here can forget this but it is mindboggling.

It is about pumping water from a low lying dam to a higher lying dam and use the hydropower concept with water powered turbines to mitigate the intermittence problem – it is the most efficient storage of power we know so far! What about a country like ours, then, to get a more permanent input to the grid?

For us on the flats, the most feasible storage concept might be to store compressed air in underground caverns. A rarely used concept so far but vividly researched as it is theoretically effective for storage of intermittence energy as above mentioned hydropower. Energy can also be stored underground as hydrogen but losses are large, unfortunately. Hydrogen stored in tanks has a very short “best before” as the small atoms will seep through most tank materials. However, hydrogen can be very economic for immediate use in industries, manufacturing and even domestically as well as fuel for light vehicles.

Now to the storage of energy we are very well used to and used very often by the previous generation here (and we are returning to more and more often, actually – and you know why). That’s batteries and a perfect storage for energy that we all know about – and they are getting better day by day! Our grandparents used very primitive ones to store energy from wind pumps with small generators to have a few 12 volt lamps for a short evening plus listen to “the wireless”. Had the wind/ water/ generator pump been a bit more effective then, we are sure that the low volt system had still been around and with individual solar panels on the roofs, the 12 volt system might very well have a renaissance in the future.

Modern batteries have a theoretical upper energy density of around 5 megajoules (MJ) per kilogram but the best batteries of the day are only around 0.5 MJ – but Tesla is working hard on that. Unfortunately, battery materials are scarce, already, as well as many materials for cell phones, pads and the like (including solar panels). Maybe gold is a fine surrogate!

Joking apart, recycling of what we have might be a right step – it is often totally out here in Africa and a kind of sustainable business in the old industrial countries. And by the way, the authors are putting our attention to waste as a “renewable energy” source. Mostly for making heat and we have already that in amounts but hot water can even propel generators via steam, our grandfathers say.

A re-design of our conventional power grid will step by step be most essential for the future. The first priority is to make less energy losses - about 1/3 of energy is today lost in the grid supplying power and, then another 1/3 is lost on the user side. And we still have to live with this antique delivery system during some decades when saving is the major thing. In fact, half of the energy we produce and use today is essentially “waste”.

The electricity grid is often described as the largest machine ever created by human beings – unfortunately invented at times of abundant cheap fossil fuel and little concern of feasibility and losses as well as impact o the environment. It is most often centralized and here comes an interesting note from the authors.

In the long run (with possibilities for 100% renewal energy) the energy will most probably be located in a dispersed pattern and thus, decentralized. That doesn’t mean that the “large machine” isn’t needed – on the contrary, much needed to connect all decentralized power farms and in that way becoming more resilient for unsuitable sun and winds and interchangeable. In fact, we are then storing sun and wind with…sun and wind! Here we have the question of demand management, and this involves changes in the current way of life, communication, living, culture and more – lifestyles in another word. Not to mention the trend towards self reliance regarding domestic power via individual solar panels and batteries in private housing. It’s already clear that most one family homes are possible to be self sufficient on power and most large energy farms will be needed for industrial production and heavy delivering trucks (maybe by hydrogen). Air traffic will contract to a level that can be based on bio-fuel and some sea transporters are already taking down speed (from 32 to 24 knots saving 1/3 of fuel) and, believe it or not, contemplating the help of sails! There will be changes indeed by time.

Some countries are lucky to experience the possibility of tidal and wave generators although the cost equation and EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) is not very positive. Not very interesting to a landlocked country but mentioned here that local/regional solutions are highly important for the future. On this issue, I remember that in the 80-ies a local architect (Ian Harley Marshall) designed a few public buildings here that were very energy friendly, unfortunately not appreciated but the ignorant users – too early, perhaps, but more of this local design is needed!

As the authors are stating that it is sun and wind that are the feasible energy sources for the future, we seemingly are a bit short of wind if I remember the planning answer book right. For instance, a colleague that wrote the climate chapter for a 1981 Development Plan stated: “The prevailing wind is northeast to southwest – but most days there is no wind at all”.

That was long ago and maybe modern wind turbines are more sensible to low and medium winds and we have that card to use, too. But I’m in the blue about feasible wind conditions here – maybe we have to concentrate on solar panels. Seemingly wind turbines are terrible expensive, about US$16 million each (of which Germany has about 28,000 in use since many years and now replacing about 1000 a year as the lifespan for such a one is only 20 years). Renewable energy doesn’t come cheap, that’s for sure but it is still regarded a better investment over time than conventional energy plants (that also have an enormous external costs environmentally).

“Our Renewable Future” is in our opinion very US/EC ethnocentric. Cost is discussed but not as seriously as we in the developing countries must do, often being forced to take substantial loans from Bretton Woods institutions with governments as guarantors. And when we look into the financial facts in today debt market, it’s frightening. This is the state of it in 2013:

 

 

As can be seen, world GPD in 2013 was c.60 trill or 1/3 of total debts 180 trill. Today ab 50 and 200 trill respectively. Debts are mostly oil exploration and countries with Britton Woods loans (UK is great here). 1/3 of the debts is finance based (overvalued bonds, hedge funds, derivatives and other artificial wealth related factors and thus, a bubble about to get bust (again). This time it is not possible that finance institutions can be bailed out, as we understand. It is a very dangerous situation for needed renewable energy projects and it is not a trouble free future for a renewable future when we are in a financial dive and debt burden globally.

We must ask ourselves if the needed very expensive and probably upfront financed projects will be implemented in a global financial crash? Fortunately Botswana has a fat reserve of about P85 billion and not much of loans but the private markets are more or less counted out due to their heavy loans. It’s an understatement to say that the thing is volatile.

How it goes with the finances, one thing is evident – the development professions (architects, planners, engineers, surveyors and realtors) will be the ones shaping the renewable world and the lifespan of what is created is 50-100 years. Mistakes can easily become serious hurdles for a renewable future which must be considered and starting now!

This “negativism” as the ignorant (even “green” people) will say is not any criticism of the book – it clearly indicates a way to our renewable future! The authors will have the last words:

“Cities and suburbs will need to be redesigned so that all people have good alternatives to private car ownership, with a focus on mixed use and clustered development. Transportation priorities will need to shift profoundly, with new road building coming to a halt and investment shifting to infrastructure for public transit, bicycling and walking…. and… electrified public transit between and within communities.”  And further on:

“…the renewable energy transition will not consist of a simple process of unplugging coal plants and plugging in solar panels and wind turbines, it will imply changes in how we live, how much energy we use, and how we use it. Historic energy transitions (the harnessing of fire, the advent of agriculture, the fossil fuel revolution) changed societies from the bottom up and from the inside out. There’s no reason to assume the renewable energy revolution will be any less transformative.”

Jan Wareus 28/06/2016                                                       

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