This is the first in a planned series of posts on energy policy, arguably one of the most critical, long-term problems facing not only the United States but the world, and an issue that is already being discussed in the current electoral campaigns.
Fundamentals – The nature of energy
What do we mean when we talk about energy? Most people think of oil, and when they think of oil they think of gasoline prices. Some of the more broad-minded think also of electricity, natural gas, and coal. In the end, some nonsense about energy independence is spoken in most discussions about energy policy, with proposals for the future involving some combination of biofuels, wind power, nuclear, and other non-petroleum-based forms of fueling our lifestyle.
The problem we face regarding energy use and future sources is extremely complex, and solutions cannot be analyzed without a good working knowledge of the underlying science and technology. Unfortunately, it is questionable whether the average American citizen has a good working knowledge of science.
This may seem too basic, but it needs to be remembered that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It changes form (including going to and from matter via the infamous E=mc2 relationship), but it has to come from somewhere. Some of the forms energy can take are taught at the middle school level, such as kinetic energy, which is associated with motion, and gravitational potential energy related to elevation changes in a gravitation field, like being on a hill. When we drop a ball, we are converting gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy.
Chemical potential energy is what makes gasoline so useful to us, and that chemical energy is converted to heat when the gasoline is burned in our cars. Some of the heat is then converted by the engine to kinetic energy used to move the vehicle, while most of the heat is wasted.The point is that the energy is not created, nor is it destroyed, it merely changes form. This fundamental law must be kept in mind during any discussion of energy policy.
Many of the misconceptions regarding the feasibility of different technologies associated with energy arise from a lack of knowledge of the nature of energy. A prime example of a misconception of this nature involves biofuels from corn, switchgrass, or some other plant source grown solely for the purpose of making fuel. Close examination reveals that biofuels are merely a highly inefficient form of solar energy. That is what plants do, use the energy from sunlight to drive chemical reactions to create useful organic molecules. We then add more energy to convert those organic molecules that were useful to the plant into organic molecules that are useful to us as fuel.
The energy we put into making biofuels isn’t limited solely to converting the biomass into fuel, we also have to transport the biomass from the fields to the conversion facility, and even before that in the case of corn we have to use fertilizers, pesticides, and tractors for tilling along with pumps for irrigating. This is why the ethanol made from corn or switchgrass is not the perfect solution that some fervently advocate. It makes one question if this is really better than direct conversion of sunlight to electricity through the use of semiconductor solar cells and then using that electricity for making fuels from biomass left over from food production.The use of arable land for making corn-based ethanol is one of the suspected of many causes underlying recent increases in food prices.
I suspect most agree that food for our bodies is more important than food for our cars.
Petroleum has been such an economical and useful source of energy we have forgotten what life was like before the oil age. It is an energy resource that starts out in a relatively easily transportable liquid form when we pump it out of the ground, and the process of refining it into useful forms, while not trivial, is very straightforward. Regardless of the origin of the oil we pump from the ground, whether from dead dinosaurs, anaerobic bacteria, or some other method of formation, we are benefiting today from energy captured and converted long ago into the chemical energy of the organic molecules. The use of the term deposits is telling, because we are using up the energy banked so long ago and now have to move to either another bank account (nuclear), or pay as we go (solar and wind power converting energy real-time into a form we find useful).
Question one we should ask when considering any energy policy is, “Where is the energy coming from?” In the case of biofuels, it is coming from many sources, including the sun along with the energy we put into the process, and we need to evaluate whether the amount of energy we get out of the process is enough in excess of what we put in for it to be feasible.
It is highly unlikely we will find another energy resource as convenient and cheap as petroleum has been because the laws of thermodynamics are against us. The next entry in the series will discuss these laws, but for now accept this admittedly cynical summary:
0. There is a game.
1. You can’t win.
2. You can’t break even.
3. You can’t even get out of the game.
—
Cross-posted to Random Fate.