FAQ: What about Solar power, wave power, or biomass can't we replace the energy we get from oil with more of these?

Solar Power

Solar power will undoubtedly be part of the solution, but like wind not on its own.

The current cost of solar panel is prohibitively high, especially here in the UK , and especially in terms of payback. They are approx £5000 per kilowatt hour installed cost. However the price is decreasing and there is lots of work going on in R&D which is decreasing the cost substantially every year.

There are obvious problems with intermittent supply, ie no sun = no electricity.

Solar century is the largest solar panel maker in the UK , their site has some good info, http://www.solarcentury.co.uk/content.jsp?sectno=0&subno=3

Greenpeace has some good articles on solar on:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?SitekeyParam=D-B-A&MenuPoint=D-B

But the main issue in the short term is amount of currently installed solar generation. It is tiny compared to fossil fuel use. For solar to make any sort of impact we would need a huge effort and investment to bring us the amount of energy we need.

An interesting document is this from the Exxon Mobile web site, which gives a sense of the scale of the problem in terms of how much energy we have to produce to maintain our present very wasteful and extravagant lifestyle.

Wave Power

Similar argument go for wave power. There is very little installed capacity, and very few tried and tested solutions. There is great potential but it has yet to be realised.

Here is one of the first in the UK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1032148.stm

There are several companies making wave generation devices :

www.oceanpowertech.com is one.

 

Biomass

Many think that Ethanol from biomass is currently used in transportation, not because it is commercially competitive but because it is mandated and highly subsidized. Certainly in the USA it is high subsidised and is in effect a pork barrel project for mid western farmers. The key question for biomass (or indeed any energy supply) is what is the energy returned on energy invested. This is known as the EROEI ratio. If more energy goes into tilling the land, growing the crop, fertilisers, harvesting and then processing into ethanol , then it is a waste of time. It is not an energy source. It is not clear whether this is the case or not in the US . However in Brazil petrol is currently a 78% fossil fuel petrol/ 22% ethanol mix. All petrol cars in brazil have to be made to burn this fuel mix. It is claimed that there is a positive EROEI, and people are pioneering doing it organically and therefore more sustainably.  

Biodiesel fuel is a subject of considerable current interest, but it too is not yet commercially viable. Again, a major R&D effort might change the biomass outlook. A fuel made form waste cooking oil clearly is sustainable as you are using a waste product, however converting virgin oil into biodiesel is again a question of EROEI.

D1 Oil, an AIM listed company on the London Stock Exchange, symbol DOO, is a good example of people thinking ourside of the box, and putting some pretty good arguments for biodiesel. They are primarily proposing producing biodiesel from jetropha oil, mainly from plantations in third world countries. They have processing plants that would process the oil near to where it is being grown, and then selling it into those markets. The jethropha plant seems like a very good solution for producing oil as it is a perrenial crop, grows in arid climates, (Saudia Arabia is in the process of planting 100,000 hectares!), and will produce for 30 years. All of which might well make for some impresive EROEI figures. However i don't know if they have produced any figures yet.

 

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