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The Forum > Article Comments > The only way forwards is backwards: A budget reply > Comments

The only way forwards is backwards: A budget reply : Comments

By Cameron Leckie, published 17/5/2011

australia needs a budget that halves our oil consumption over the next decade, eliminates the greater proportion of the debt currently outstanding and halves our population over the next half century or so.

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Mr Windy,

Too true, but there are two factors giving hope - potential for improving the efficiency of our energy use, particularly in energy-intensive industry; and the potential for widespread and innovative harnessing of solar energy. Solar energy collection and utilisation must be considered to be still in its infancy, and I feel certain ways will be found to make solar an extremely productive input. Geothermal and tidal or wave power may also become effective, and further tapping of hydro must be possible. With these, once the infrastructure is in place maintenance should not incur input other than from renewable sources. And finally there is thorium or uranium.

My best thought so far on how to achieve these innovations is through government collaboration with industry to plan both efficiency measures and alternatives development - employing both grants and tax concessions as incentives, on a proposal by proposal basis. Much like with the Murray-Darling, investment in efficiencies can achieve a large part of the relevant objectives.

130-150% deductability or rapid amortisation (depreciation) of capital inputs could be a massive incentive to industry, particularly if price control on outputs was also implemented - as say for electricity - and if staged efficiency targets were implemented, with penalties for non-compliance. To me, the best bang for the buck would be for government to employ project engineers to vet and oversight implementation of efficiency and innovative projects, rather than employing accountants to oversight a carbon tax.

As a measure for containing budget costs, a possibility may be for industries receiving concessions or grants to agree to repay this in future profitable years - say like a Hex, bond or term loan.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and we need visionary thinking and entrepreneurial capacity to meet the energy challenge. Solar electric and solar hot water for every home, and for offices etc should also become mandatory in future years - in my humble opinion.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 27 May 2011 1:44:07 PM
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Saltpetre, solar and wind energy may well be in their infancy and may be more viable in the future as they are developed further. But the fact remains they will NEVER match oil for energy density and will NEVER sustain the current global population and current consumption levels in the west.

Do you agree that evolution ALWAYS finds the most energy efficient solutions to the problems of survival?

If your answer is yes then you must agree that plants/photosynthesis is the most efficient method of harvesting the energy available in sunlight.

Large herbivores then eat the plant material and covert it to muscle power and hence beasts of burdon must therefore logically be the most efficient way that humans can harvest solar energy to run our economies. Logically solar voltaics and solar thermal cannot be any more efficient than photosynthesis and beasts of burdon.

And we all know we would never maintain the current level of economic productivity nor sustain our current populations if we had to return to beasts of burdon dominated economy. Therefore logically we will do no or little better by converting our energy systems to run on solar voltaics and wind turbines.

Therefore such conversion of our energy systems must go hand in hand with population and consumption reduction.

The reason why oil works so well is because it amounts to hundreds of thousands of years of photosynthesis condensed into a VERY small volume.

Based on the laws of thermodynamics etc, solar voltaics and wind turbines can never matich oil.
Posted by Mr Windy, Friday, 27 May 2011 4:53:06 PM
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"Large herbivores then eat the plant material and covert it to muscle power and hence beasts of burdon must therefore logically be the most efficient way that humans can harvest solar energy to run our economies. Logically solar voltaics and solar thermal cannot be any more efficient than photosynthesis and beasts of burdon."

Let me clarify this.

Photosynthesis and beasts of burdon may have a lower energy yield than say concentrated solar voltaics. But then by the same token the energy required to produce and maintain beasts of burdon is VERY low compared to the energy required to implement, run and maintain a concentrated solar voltaic power station.
Posted by Mr Windy, Friday, 27 May 2011 5:06:47 PM
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Mr Windy,
No matter how hard they try to develop wind power they can
never overcome the mathematical limitation of wind power.
All windfarms should be close to the Southern Ocean.
The one at Albany appears to get close to 40% output, only because of
the nature of the Southern Ocean.
Possibly the west coast of Tasmania might also be a good location.
Other possibilities would be far South America and South Africa.
Even 40% is pretty poor but at least it is a lot better than elsewhere.
Posted by Bazz, Friday, 27 May 2011 5:23:58 PM
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One of the laws of thermodynamics states that you can't get something for nothing when it comes to energy.

All forms of energy generation are simply conversion of pre-existing energy from one form to another form. So photosynthesis takes the nergy from the sun and converts it to the energy contained in the molecular bonds within a glucose molecule/cellulose polymer. Herbivores then take that glucose, break it down thus releasing the energy in the chemical bonds and covert that, in their muscles, to kinetic energy. No energy conversion process is 100% efficient and there is some loss of energy at every conversion step, e.g. as friction or heat.

Therefore there is simply no way that real time energy generation in solar voltaics can generate the same amount of energy contained within a given volume of oil, given that the energy contained in that oil is equivalent to hundreds of thousands of years of photosynthesis plus tectonic energy. At least not without an eqivalent amount of energy input through the smelting of metals, silicon and glass to produce the panels and construction of the power stations etc.

The only way that you might get closer to matching hundreds of thousands of years worth of photosynthesis in oil through solar voltaics, without massive energy inputs to produce the massive amounts of infrastructure required, would be to move the Earth closer to the sun where the solar energy is itself denser (inverse square law of energy intensity from a source)
Posted by Mr Windy, Friday, 27 May 2011 5:41:38 PM
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Mr Windy, I get what you are saying, particularly regarding the amount of energy required to establish solar and other infrastructure, transmission lines etc, and that oil, gas and coal are extremely concentrated energy - but of course we are going to run out of oil sometime, gas later, and coal last of all. However, photosynthesis alone has some limitations - climate variation (and uncertainty), limited cropping periods, limited arable land, limited water, limited fertiliser or soil fertility. Soil fertility is not unlimited, and must not be over-exploited or you go into a rapid downward spiral of reduced yields, reduced soil carbon - compost, humus - soil micro-organism loss, and soil erosion, etc. Livestock themselves are inefficient energy converters, but used as beasts of burden they are relatively highly efficient - a trade-off, but beneficial, yes. Also, there are trials with African antelope whose conversion efficiency is far higher than western livestock, due to their different gut flora. The trial is to see if our livestock can be adapted to using similar flora - but there may well be problems due to related digestive enzymes, etc, we'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, there is also selective breeding, and, as a last resort, genetic engineering, and of course chooks, ducks, goats, camels and sheep are more efficient converters than cattle.

However, as soil fertility (and artificial fertiliser) is a key limitation, this may also be at risk of eventual depletion, and then we would be in real strife. This is my greatest worry.
TBC>
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 28 May 2011 2:36:41 AM
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