Cheap, Copious, and Clean Energy Needed
LANL’s Rajan Gupta noted that the 20th century was one of cheap, copious energy (at least in the developed world). In this century, we need to add “clean” to that list. “There’s a tremendous amount of fossil fuel out there,” he said. “The challenge is the greenhouse gases.”
He sees harnessing solar power as the solution—though he also observed that geothermal has “tremendous potential” and, “in principle,” we could increase nuclear by a factor of five to six to provide needed baseload capacity. The problem with all renewables is their low energy density and the need for energy storage.
Whereas the 20th century was dominated by fossil fuels, the first half of the 21st, in Gupta’s view, needs to use oil (for transportation) and gas (for power generation) as backup and storage, rather than as the dominant fuels. Hybrid vehicles are part of this “transition” scenario, as are solar thermal and heat pump technologies for heating and cooling, energy efficiency best practices, and a smart grid.
His holistic approach to the global 21st century energy challenge includes:
- CO2 sequestration.
- Promoting incentives for public transportation.
- Population stabilization.
The European Union and Japan are better positioned to go green, he said, because they’ve reached zero to negative population growth and do not need to plan for new systems. They also have efficient public transportation systems.
The bottom line: We need top-down and bottom-up solutions. For an overview of one bottom-up piece of the solution, see the forthcoming story in POWER’s Global Monitor department on the Global Energy Observatory, which seeks to become the mother of all energy databases. This wiki project, which was conceived and developed by Gupta, is being headed up by LANL.
Smart Grids and Slow Learners
Two other opening day presentations addressed grid-related issues. Though the concept of a smart grid has been around for at least 20 years, it’s still mostly a concept rather than a reality, the presenters acknowledged. One reason for that is the difficulty of getting anyone to foot the bill for new transmission lines and new interfacing technologies.
That’s starting to change now that huge, multinational companies see an opportunity to leverage government funds to jump-start new business lines, but we’re still a long way from a fully integrated continental grid whose operations are optimized by sophisticated models, software, and market mechanisms.
In the meantime, stay connected to POWER for updates on smart grid developments.
—Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER’s managing editor.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
