This week on Radio Ecoshock we'll see how hard it is, and how possible it is, to get out of the matrix. Resilience expert Dr. Nate Hagens talks about his college course "Reality 101".
Then we visit with two top American scientists whose recent study was published by the government-funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A detailed study of sun and wind says yes we can replace fossil and nuclear power with renewable energy, and it won't cost any more than what we are doing now.
Thanks for joining us this week as we explore where we really are, and what we could do about it.
Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
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NATE HAGENS: REALITY 101
I don't know about you, but I'm often stuck on Bob Dylan's words: "something is happening here, but you don't know what it is". Wouldn't it be great if we could take a course to understand reality?
The course exists. Dr. Nathan J. Hagens teaches "Reality 101 - A Survey of the Human Predicament" to graduate students at the University of Minnesota. Nate Hagens is a familiar name to anyone who tracks energy and resilience. Nate was a successful Wall Street trader. He left all that in 2003 to probe deeper. Nate is on the Board of Directors of the Post Carbon Institute, a Director of the Bottleneck Foundation, and he teaches. He's working on a book that he doesn't want to talk about yet. Hagens lives on a farm in Wisconsin with a collection of animals.
Dr. Nate Hagens
I first learned about Nate from speeches made at Peak Oil conferences. We talk about that a bit. But the bigger problem here is the big problem - the nexis of threatening developments that seem too large to grasp. We have guests that see everything in terms of energy. Others focus only on the environment. I've talked with a few eco-psychologists. Nate is one of the few who attempt to wrap them all up together.
The course begins with . Then it gets into "Systems theory and complexity" with a combination of You tube videos and Nate's own unreleased writing.
A QUESTION OF EXTINCTION
There is a course section on geologic time, and paleclimatology. Dr. Peter Ward, a several-time guest on Radio Ecoshock, is twice featured in the syllabus. I've got Peter lined up for a return trip to Radio Ecoshock soon. He's one of the few scientist to crystalize a working theory of how mass extinctions in the past really worked. They all developed through climate change, except for the great asteroid strike in the Gulf of Mexico about 65 million years ago. And even there, the dying animals (including dinosaurs) and plants may have already been weakened by a planetary warming that began a few million years before the asteroid hit.
You can watch a video interview I did with Dr. Peter Ward on this page. Here are the two key interviews with Peter Ward on Radio Ecoshock, as audio files: "Under a Green Sky" (2008) and "The Medea Hypothesis" (25 minutes)(2009). This are still very valid and powerful today.
In the course "Reality 101" there is a segment on mass extinction. I ask Nate Hagens where he stands on the idea of human extinction, either this century, as suggested by Dr. Guy McPherson, or in the near-coming centuries? If I can summarize Nate's reply, it would be that humans are very ingenious and adaptable. He doesn't think there is any basis for worrying about a near-term extinction, certainly not in this century. But please listen to the interview to get it in Nate's own words.
COPING WITH A STONE AGE MIND
I watched a "Reality 101" course video about evolutionary psychology. It is a You tube interview with John Tooby and Leda Cosmides on "Stone Age Minds". Contrary to some tenets of psychology, they say the human mind arrives not as a blank slate, but with structures designed to cope with problems of a hunter-gatherer society. Tooby and Cosmides talk about mismatches between our ancient mental capabilities and the newly-minted modern world. That could explain a lot. , courtesy of Reason.tv
Nate also offers his students an unpublished (yet) article "The Psychological Roots of Resource Overconsumption". You won't find that anywhere online, but it may appear in Nate's upcoming book "Bottleneck".
Then we have to consider how many of our problems dealing with the world are based on sexuality and addiction.
A PROSPEROUS WAY DOWN?
On Resilience.org I found another text required in the course. It's called "A Prosperous Way Down" by Howard and Elisabeth Odum. Actually, that article is a short-form introduction to of the same name. Is there a prosperous way down, and why should we accept going "down" at all? Nate explains why we either throttle back consumer society by choice and plan - or we collapse into a very nasty chaos.
The students wrap up the "Reality 101" course with a group discussion "What to do as individuals". That's a big one. As Nate wrote in an email to me: "What does a rational, non-sociopathic human facing the multiple bottlenecks of the 21st century DO?" Talk among yourselves.
There seem to be only two doors: (1) we keep on going and trust the next generation will figure things out, or (2) we are so completely doomed we might as well enjoy the end of days. Some of us hope there is a third door, but is there really?
This interview is kind of a warm up, for a longer interview I hope to do with Nate Hagens, when he and his co-author bring out their new book "Bottleneck" later this year.
Download or listen to this 30 minute interview with Nate Hagens in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
Nate has a Masters Degree in Finance from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. He left Wall Street money to become an alternative social critic. His personal web site is called "The Monkey Trap" (which is seldom updated).
Here is , given for the Worldwatch Institute. I also like "" July 2014 found here.
DR. ALEXANDER "SANDY" MACDONALD AND DR. CHRISTOPHER CLACK
Scientists say wind and solar CAN power America
Wouldn't it be great if most of the electricity generated in America came from wind and solar, instead of climate-wrecking fossil fuels? Of course it can't be done, except it can. Who says so? Hippies from California? Not quite.
It's all in a new paper by a former senior scientist at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a physicist/math whiz from CIRES, The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, at the University of Colorado Boulder. Our guest are Dr. Alexander MacDonald, known as "Sandy", the recently retired director of NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab, and Dr. Christopher Clack from CIRES - all in Boulder Colorado.
Dr.Alexander MacDonald and Dr. Chris Clack
We talk about a new article titled "Future cost-competitive electricity systems and their impact on US CO2 emissions" published online in the journal "Nature" on January 25th, 2016.
Maybe the best way to begin is to give you the links sent to me by the Public Affairs Officer at NOAA Communications. My thanks to Theo Stein for getting me up to speed on this breaking paper.
The NOAA/CIRES press release is here.
"At the bottom of the CIRES release are animations of solar potential, wind potential and a power flow animation showing how a system dominated by renewables and supported by a HVDC grid might dispatch power around the country to meet demand."
The FAQ is here.
CIRES also put together this brief explainer.
THE BIG NEWS ABOUT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY IN AMERICA (and everywhere else)
So what is the big news?
(1) The United States could power at least 80% of it's energy needs, maybe more with just solar energy and wind power. That's amazing and encouraging but there's more.
(2) Electricity from this system would not cost any more than it does today.
(3) Nuclear plants could be shut down. All coal-fired power could be closed. Only a few gas generators to pick up occasional slack would be needed.
(4) massive power storage would NOT be needed. That's a huge break-through.
(5) no new technology is required. We have the tools and we know how.
This system would require the construction of nation-spanning DC High Voltage lines. Current AC transmission lines are incredibly wasteful, losing up to half of all power created. And because AC cannot transmit power efficiently, (a) you have to build nuclear plants dangerously close to cities and (b) AC line cannot bring wind power from the central plains to New England (for example).
High Voltage DC lines already exist. There is one in Alberta Canada, and one running from Oregon to California. It's not unknown or untested tech. We can do it.
The real breakthrough comes from studying weather, in great detail, on a very big scale (across the United States). NOAA and CIRES has all the weather data to do it. They did and this paper is the result. So if you study alternative energy just within one state, it won't work to replace what we have. But if you look at national resources, and have a way to transmit them, it's all possible.
Of course the sun only shines during the day. But it turns out that the wind is strong enough at night to keep things going (when demand is lower anyway). We don't need storage, these two scientists say.
Just check out their press release, the short video, and their great maps and you'll see the future of energy.
Download or listen to this 24 minute interview with Alexander MacDonald and Chris Clack in CD Quality or Lo-Fi. Please pass these links on to your friends and on social media.
GET THE WORD OUT!
Don't forget you can find all our past interviews with scientists, authors, experts and activists on our web site, at ecoshock.org. Those are free for download or listening, anywhere in the world.
This program is also available by podcast. Currently my Itunes podcast is down - because this blog is too long, with too many links, for Itunes to digest. I'm working on a solution. In the meanwhile, you can get this podcast through podbean. Here is the link for that:
http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/nmdeq-3cceb/The-Radio-Ecoshock-Show
If you find this program useful, please tell your friends. I also welcome your financial support, if you are able. Find a link to donate on this blog, or other options here on my web site.
I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring about your world.
12 comments:
Great show.
The weather distributed DC power model is optimistic realistic yet ideal.
Models show you the way in unreal ideal ways.
I wish they talked more about how they get their 1 million solar panel number.
Naturally under realistic conditions that number can change dramatically.
I applaud Alex this episode, at least it was interesting.
The model only positively covers 80% of total usage relying on natural gas. Although the wind and sun are free, building massive solar-wind-smart grid nets are not. They will be big and expensive.
If electric grid production is 18% of energy demand, we would require a massive increase in the remaining 82% of power use to increase the majority of our power emissions to resolve a minority of our generating emissions.
The model is not applicable worldwide and only works in North America under ideal conditions. You can ask the two Russian methane scientists if Gavin Schmidt's climate models are realistic, especially after a couple of vodkas.
It doesn't matter if we are talking physics or angels on the head of a pin, these models are mathematical snapshots based on static assumptions and parameters such mineral availability and price. Nothing is static and bad shit happens. A distributed energy net would be more prone to weather and water damage related outages. The model will not handle electric cars because world energy demand is already set to double in 35 years even without a fantastic world of electric cars.
The world is too interconnected and more vulnerable than ever with the U.S. agri-system more prone to collapse than the small farm systems of poorer countries. The U.S. sold off their grain reserves in the crash of 08. Our distraction addled youth have never known hunger or even patience.
We will run out of soil & water before we fix 18% of our energy usage. In other words we will have to replace these panels in 25 years when we are starving and dying of thirst.
I love the future because we will finally be able to drink, drive and text in all those new solar powered self-driving cars. Yeeeehaww! Wow life great! Noami Klein tells us that switching to green energy will provide 6 times as many jobs as fossil fuels provide. You can't make that shit up, that's George Carlin funny, except she's pretending to be serious. If you like reading the truth and want to learn more about reality, you'll get more than you bargained for here:
https://lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/no-soil-water-before-100-renwable-energy/
Some day, smartphones will be see-through so that we can "see" what we are tripping over. In 50 years you'll be able to take a video by just blinking your eyes with the new iPhone 77-series nano-tech brain implants. Wow! Just imagine getting porn videos pumped directly into your head. It'll be a shame the only wildlife will be a cow.
To no one in particular,
Dear No One,
50% of humanity's soil will be gone in 30 years.
50% of humanity will lack water in 30 years.
50% of humanity will go hungry in 30 years.
We have to grow more food over the next 50 years,
than we have grown in all of the last 10,000 years.
If we got all our electricity by renewable power in 20 years, that would only remove 18% of our total emissions because 82% of our total energy demand is not electrical grid production.
We will run out of soil, water, food, energy and essential minerals long before we achieve 100% renewable energy.
CONCLUSION:
Renewable Energy is Unsustainable without massive energy demand destruction.
We cannot sustain economic growth with renewable energy.
Yes, I do have solutions; and no, you're not going to like them. Cheers.
Great show Alex
I always enjoy Nate Hagens, There is another recent lecture
http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/cafnrm/presentations.php. discussed at my blog.
,http://surfthepeak.blogspot.com
I found the second part very interesting. I wonder if they also a dressed the question of how the build out might occur. Dr Tom Murphy a dresses this in his blog, Do the Math, as the Energy Trap. The construction of wind and solar ( and the DC line) require a lot of energy. Their energy costs are "front loaded" ; they occur mostly in the first year. We can't both reduce our fossil use, build out wind and solar, and run the rest of our economy.
See also this paper. http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/12/2339/htm
Thanks
Walter
Hi Walter
These scientists were not attempting to say how, how much it would cost, or the climate cost. They simply took the weather data they had and at least answered the question "is it possible?"
The Stanford scientists Mark Jacobson has worked out the how in some detail, and I doubt he would do that unless it was his conclusion that more carbon would be saved than spent by the build-out. That interview is here:
https://ecoshock.info/2014/11/the-world-of-radical-facts.html
However, as other listeners have pointed out, and Utah's Tim Garrett published in a peer-reviewed paper, this civilization is a heat engine. ANY new building increases carbon, at a time when we already have too much carbon in the atmosphere. So it's an open question as to whether we could get away with the transition, or it would be too much carbon and too much climate damage, or if it's already too late. I don't know.
Walter - that's a great blog entry. I recommend listeners check it out, and I've added it to my browser list of blogs to watch.
Hi Alex
For your FYI I have a new post which a dresses this issue
http://surfthepeak.blogspot.com/2016/02/nothing-but-net.html
I'd be interested in yourcomments
Thanks
Walter
Good episode - thank you. Forgive me if this question has been asked, but how come Alexander "Sandy" MacDonald of NOAA and Chris Clack of CIRES came to the conclusion that powering the USA is possible from renewables, but a recent Google report by two of their top guys (I don't know any background on them, sorry!) says otherwise? One of the problems for the poor public is conflicting information!!! From my perspective, I don't think it is possible with the current consumption patterns (I'm from the UK by the way) and we have to address that as part of any solution.
Is there any way you could post the Reality 101 syllabus?
I think we have to break down the renewables path into several stages. The first is: is there enough sources of renewable power to keep civilization going? These two experts answer that yes there is, for America at least, but don't address what kind of civilization. You and I think it will have to be consuming much less, not just of electricity, but of everything.
Other questions they asked and answered are: do we need large storage facilities because sun and wind are intermittent? No, not if done on a large scale, and if we allow a small number of backup gas generators. Do we need to invent new technology? No we have enough already. Do we need a new power grid: yes, using High Voltage DC to transport power long distances.
That's quite a bit, and that's where they stop. There is no attempt to measure the carbon cost of making this transition, and the impacts of THAT on the climate. They don't try to measure things like political will, social acceptance, economic collapse, etc. That's beyond the study, which contributes quite a lot as it is.
Plus, we have to accept the fact there is some disagreement, even among experts, about all this.
Patrick - I'll pass your request for the syllabus posting on to Nate Hagens. I'm doubtful, but it's up to him. Keep in mind too, that the complete course outline contains some of his as yet unpublished papers. It's seems likely to me he'll want to wait until his book "Bottleneck" comes out later this year.