Heating with less fossil fuels....

Today's post: Wednesday, 1-19-2011

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 3 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post:

Heating with less fossil fuels....

In providing electricity, there are several renewable sources we can dramatically increase. To some degree, many countries are finally beginning to do so. And, if it can be done at all and done safely, electricity from nuclear power at least does not release CO2. We can also make our use of electricity much more efficient in virtually all uses. We can gradually go to almost exclusively LED lights for lighting, for example.

We can use Bloom Energy fuel cells to generate electricity from natural gas and we may develop ways to make biogas from coal and do the same. We can then send the CO2 released to algae to make biofuels. And, we may be able to turn some CO2 from existing coal fired plants to minerals that are usable (Skyonic does that.); and we may feed the remainder to algae to make biofuels.

We can move to transport with all electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. We can make biofuels from algae and cellulosic alcohol from weeds and agricultural wastes in ways that preserve croplands for food and use less energy to make than they deliver.

We can make the plug-in hybrids with super-efficient diesel engines that run on biodiesel, turbines that run on biofuels, and maybe fuel cells from Bloom Energy that run on natural gas to make the electricity in plug-in hybrids.

So, if we do a good job with each of those, we can use less coal; stop using more coal; & we can use coal with less net CO2 and pollution released when we do use it.

We can use the same or less natural gas to make electricity and use what we do use more efficiently with less net CO2 and pollution released.

Doing all that successfully will slash the amount of oil we are using dramatically.

And, we can slash air conditioning use by doing more to prevent heat from entering buildings in the summer and getting access to local solar power for the remaining use.

But heating homes and businesses now often depend on burning natural gas, oil, or coal or firewood.

We can become dramatically more energy efficient to use less of these fuels by insulating homes and businesses better. We can retrofit their windows with Soladigm windows in double pane styles to both keep heat inside in winter AND to help keep heat out in the summer.

In some applications, we can retrofit heat pumps that run on electricity from renewable or clean or cleaner sources.

And, in new construction, we can design in “passive solar” designs to use more solar heating in winter and insulate dramatically better than we have done.

But for the rest, to stop burning natural gas, oil, or coal or firewood, we need more efficient ways to heat rooms with electricity than we now have.

Ways to do that will be developed or existing but little known ways will become more used. But we need to speed up both processes at lot and find ways to keep the cost down to get the job done.