First, municipal waste can also feed biochar — wood and paper wastes can be burned. Second, decomposing matter such as sewage can firstly provide natural gas (methane) in a sewage digester plant, and secondly can become a nitrogen-rich fertiliser after this composting (“digesting”) process.

So we end up with some flammable material (green waste i.e. garden prunings, etc plus the natural gas).

If we combine this with some biochar production, you also get some net CO2 draw down (charcoal to be buried) and more gases, including flammable ones (methane, carbon monoxide) plus carbon dioxide and nitrogenous gases. These latter can be then percolated through your microalgae pond, producing another fuel substance.

So from mainly waste components, with the option of some biochar material from either dedicated crop or food crop wastes, we end up with some CO2 sequestration (charcoal), some useful fuel (biodiesel and biogas), and positive inputs for agriculture (the biochar, and any left over composted sewage as organic fertiliser).

It would require a bit of study to work out whether the output from each stage of the process will be enough to adequately feed the next stage(s). But I think if this system is workable it would be a fairly easy industrial plant to build on a small-to-medium scale. The basic gas separation units, ponds, biochar ovens etc are all fairly low-tech as far as I understand. This would mean it could be mass-produced to a degree and set up at the local level across the country (as the inputs, sewage and green/agricultural wastes, are largely managed on a local or small regional level). It could also be built for export and help poor countries achieve some level of energy self-sufficiency without embarking further down the fossil fuels road.

At a recent GCEP meeting at Stanford, one of the most interesting talks was by Caltech’s Nate Lewis about converting sunlight + water directly to hydrogen & oxygen without doing normal electrolysis, using nanostructured (but common) materials and some interesting membrane ideas from plants to get much higher efficiencies than algae or other plants.

His general points included:
a) Need good end-to-end efficiency.
b) Need to use common elements, not rare ones
c) Need hope of volume manufacturing
d) For storage, really want to use the chemical bond.

See p. 52 for the general idea, p12 of good chart about usage of elements.

Of course, the “hydrogen economy” is tough, but this is the first I’d seen in this direction that might have some long-term promise for distributed solution.

Often, I hear “pumped storage” thrown in with other storage solutions for renewable energy. Is your omission of pumped storage deliberate?

I ask because I’ve been watching efforts to put a pumped storage plant in Southern California. I oppose it because it needs a good chunk of our local forest which is under enough pressure as is, and also, the economics (not we environmentalists) are killing it. It is expected to lose $120 million a year for its life. I’d enjoy hearing your view of pumped storage technology.

thank you

Whilst I wouldn’t classify myself as being to any degree sanguine about our chances for a smooth energy transition, I completely concur with your comments at #6 about the dangers of ‘running out’ of energy.

I guess my musing was with respect to how our trajectory to avoid an overall ‘sustainability crisis’ might look once we’ve overcome the energy issue. Given the recalcitrance of governments around the world in dealing with both Peak Oil and with AGW, and with current natural resources depletions, I wonder at what point action will commence on a truly global, truly workable sustainability initiative.

What has to happen first for such to occur?

Think Soylent Green.

With relatively rare exceptions, countries/states with “too much” oil tend to be pretty corrupt, oil wealth is very concentrated, and its existence tends to stunt the rest of the economy, as people focus on extracting their chunk of the money from government.

She recommended Klare’s article Palin’s Petropolitics, which was quite helpful in understanding Alaska with echoes of Huey Long in Louisiana many decades ago.
spoke a few weeks later, and was good … and scary (consider the Caspian area).

“A brilliant exposition on one of the gigantic problems facing society. Klare is a top expert on the politics of energy and resources. Read him!”—Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Dominant Animal

“Four centuries ago, as the conquistadors roamed through South America, it was the search for gold that drove the clash of empires. A hundred years later, as the great powers fought over the West Indies, it was the quest for land that could grow sugar cane. Today, the key commodity is oil. No one knows this subject better than Michael Klare, and his book is a trenchant and informative guide to what the fatal thirst for oil means for the tensions and rivalries of our fragile planet.”—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost

“If you want to understand the future of international relations, worry less about ideology and more about oil reserves. Michael Klare’s superb new book explains, in haunting detail, the trends that will lead us into a series of dangerous traps, unless we muster the will to transform the way we use energy in this country. As illuminating as it is unsettling.”—Bill McKibben, author The Bill McKibben Reader

“Once again, Michael Klare has vividly spelled out the geopolitical ramifications of resource scarcity as he did in both Blood and Oil and Resource Wars. His new book deals with our pending clash as we enter an unprecedented time of surging demand for oil while its conventional supply peaks. The book is a serious must read for any student of geopolitics.”—Matthew R. Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert

“When danger looms, ignorance is not bliss. Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet defines a new benchmark for understanding the perilous complexities of strategic natural resources and how they shape the modern world. Klare articulates his message with sober honesty and appropriate urgency. If knowledge is power, it is also empowering; let us use this information to rekindle hope and commit to action, vigorously adopting the practical and profitable solutions that already do exist.”—Amory B. Lovins, author of Winning the Oil Endgame

I don’t have a solution, just the dictum ‘don’t waste phosphate, recycle it.’

But I’m not convinced that having less energy at this point helps the sustainability agenda all that much. If people start running out of energy then they run out of food and access to clean water. As well as being bad for humanity, this makes for desperate people who will look to do desperate things to survive – including pillaging the last remaining vestiges of the natural world in order to secure the necessities of living. It will also provoke a sharp increase in the number and scope of conflicts, and my strong fear is that this could ultimately result in a nuclear conflagration.

Globalisation has many bad points, but it also has the potential for people to avoid soiling their own local nests with inappropriate land uses (managing a larger ‘commons’ allows, in theory, for more sensible resource allocation). We won’t fix sustainability by continuing the ‘business-as-usual’ mindset. But I don’t see that we’ll fix it by running out of energy either.

Exactly how would this impact on the planet, especially if such as replacement brings the other 80% to our style of resource use?

This is an earnest question. Watching forests, catchments, fisheries and other ecosystems buckle (or begin to do so) as they have, and seeing the strain on water and non-fuel mineral resources, I can’t help but think that we are somehow replacing one brick wall with another.

What is the picture of the planet post fuel-bottleneck?

there si so much excellent sfuff regarding peak oil, I recommend work by prof. Charlie Hall, e.g. here: http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/charles_hall

and another excellent popular book by prof. David MacKay: Sustainable energy without hot air:
http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html

there is a small chance that peak oil will “save us from ourselves” ;-)

best,
Alex

Re: UFFs: the worry (for me) is the CO2: useful energy ratio.

Hansen is pragmatic that we’ll burn all the oil and gas – he regularly says this. I’m not convinced that needs to be the case – I suspect we’ll end up only burning about another 500 billion barrels before it becomes too expensive to bother and we end up using it to make other high value products (if at all) – in other words, we won’t burn all the oil because of the same reason Hansen states – it’s too useful.

I mentioned James Hansen’s talk earlier thread here, and again, p.31- is relevant.

Hansen thinks we’ll burn all the oil because it’s just too useful. He assumes that all the CO2 from oil gets into the atmosphere with little sequestration possibility.

*Coal* is the big issue, as can be see from page 31. [and also the UFFs]

Of course, the longer we can stretch oil (& gas), the better the chance are of:

a) Improving efficiency of transport.
b) Electrifying more transport.
c) Scaling new renewable electricity supplies [wind, solar, geothermal] and maybe 4th-gen nuclear.
d) Figuring out algae (I have friends trying that, and it is hard work), Venter’s oil bugs, or practical Nth-generation ethanol based on miscanthus or something better, etc.
e) Maybe getting CCS to be useful in some places.

BEFORE overpowering pressure comes to do more coal-to-liquid, tar-sands, shale oil, methane, and more unsequestered coal.

Put another way, I’d *love* to have more oil&gas if it reduced (unsequestered) coal use.
Everything argues for stretching oil as far as we can to get time to avoid worse things.