Because climate change is seriously uncool.
100% Supply with Renewable Energy - Dr Harry Lehmann
I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Dr Harry Lehmann who is visiting Adelaide for the Clever Green Conference currently underway at the Adelaide Convention Centre.
Dr Lehmann is the General Director at the Federal Environmental Agency of Germany and Head of the Environmental Planning and Sustainable Strategies Division. He is a member of the World Council for Renewable Energies, as well as the co-founder and scientific board chairman of the "Energy Watch Group." Dr Lehmann has more than 25 years of experience in developing sustainable energy policy and programs in Germany. He has headed "Towards 100% Renewables" projects in Germany, Spain and Japan. Under Dr Lehmann's influence Germany is now a world leader in the field of sustainable energy.
His lecture entitled "100% Supply with Renewable Energy" was tailored towards the South Australian audience, although much of the material came from his project in the Catalonia region of Spain, which has similar environmental conditions.
The main message from Dr Lehmann was this -"Renewable Energy Supply is possible, up to 100%. Let's do it".
He began with the question "Why do it?" and a discussion of the boundary conditions that define our current existence. These included Climate Change, where 80% reduction in GHG is required by 2050 to avoid breaking through the 2degC rise in average global temperatures; Resource use, in which Australia leads Germany slightly on a per capita basis with over 80 tonnes per annum; and Peak Oil, which he described as an approaching phenomenon that even conservative agencies like the IEA could no longer play down. The discovery of two Saudi Arabia's worth of oil will be required to fill the gap between demand and supply. (The last time humans discovered that much oil was in 1948!)
Dr Lehmann described an energy system that uses solar, geothermal, hydro, tide, biomass and wind, along with concentrators, collectors and smart solar architecture to provide the energy. He acknowledged that if you only go this far, then you have the problems of unreliability and "holes in the night" that critics of renewables quote. To answer that, he went on to describe "demand management" which uses a combination of energy storage including hydrogen production, hydro pumps, battery and other storage mediums, combined with efficiency improvements and smart appliances to ensure that supply is always able to meet demand - "matching needs with fluctuating periodic availability". In graphs of the extensive modeling and real-world measurements made for the Spanish project, Dr Lehmann demonstrated how 100% renewable energy was able to meet the needs of Barcelona and surrounds.
In demonstrating demand management, he asked the question "why are our machines so dumb?", noting that the microprocessor in the modern refrigerator has more computing power than the Apollo lunar lander, but that it uses it simply to decide if the door has been open or not and whether to switch on the motor. Using the same amount of computing power, it should be possible for the fridge to assess the power usage on the grid vs the fridge temperature and make a judgement about the optimum time to switch on. When a group of houses is considered as a system whose components all have similar needs, then the peaks and troughs in system demand can be flattened out and managed to meet supply using the processing power already built in via appliance chips.
Dr Lehmann described ways in which excess industrial, commercial and domestic energy could be used to make hydrogen (co-generation) and energy storage via water pump storage (PSP) for later release, allowing demand to be met when supply conditions are not good.
His assessment of South Australia conditions was that they are very favourable for a project similar to the Spanish one, with more geothermal power available than for Catalonia; all other conditions being very similar. That would be sufficient for South Australia to be a net energy exporter to the other states, should those states not follow similar programs. He advised getting systems to market as quickly as possible, and was a little critical of his own country's strict regime of experimentation and testing, as this increases the time engineers spend on the learning curve and keeps prices higher for longer. To paraphrase him - You learn more in the marketplace, and prices drop quickest as engineers incorporate cost-saving design into marketable products.
During question time, Dr Lehmann was asked why his 100% scenarios were plotted over 40 year timespans, when the problems were so obviously urgent. In replying, he noted that much of the transition to 100% renewable energy COULD be achieved more quickly if done at wartime capacity, but that this would have dire humanitarian consequences, as developing economies would be left behind. He estimated that if the developed world took on renewable projects at wartime scales, 30% of the population of Africa would starve, as would 20% of Asia and significant proportions of the Latin American population. As a policy advisor, he advises his government to adopt linear development. He also said that development is constrained by the availability of personnel, particularly engineers, and resources such as copper and lithium. Germany's linear development of sustainable energy has made a great start and is way ahead of ours, with legislation in place for significant GHG cuts and all signs that progress is on track to meet them.
It was an excellent event, in which Dr Lehmann gave us many insights into the methods by which Germany will almost certainly achieve their legislated emissions target of 40% by 2020. He believes they have solid enough plans and a sufficiently committed population to achieve better than 80% cuts by 2050.
While there was little new presented in terms of technology, the fact that 100% renewable energy systems had been measured and modeled on large scales and shown to work was a refreshing change from the usual arguments about the need for fossil or nuclear baseload power.
Dr Lehmann likened the necessary revolution to introduce 100% renewable energy to the transition humans made to agriculture from hunter-gatherers. In his own words
"We have behaved with our resources like we are collectors and hunters. We now need to move to resource agriculture"
Lecture slides with simlar content to those presented in Adelaide are here:
www.solarworldcongress2009.com/downloads/PlenaryPres/Lehmann.pdf
See also http://www.solarmissionpossible.info/
Dr Lehmann is the General Director at the Federal Environmental Agency of Germany and Head of the Environmental Planning and Sustainable Strategies Division. He is a member of the World Council for Renewable Energies, as well as the co-founder and scientific board chairman of the "Energy Watch Group." Dr Lehmann has more than 25 years of experience in developing sustainable energy policy and programs in Germany. He has headed "Towards 100% Renewables" projects in Germany, Spain and Japan. Under Dr Lehmann's influence Germany is now a world leader in the field of sustainable energy.
His lecture entitled "100% Supply with Renewable Energy" was tailored towards the South Australian audience, although much of the material came from his project in the Catalonia region of Spain, which has similar environmental conditions.
The main message from Dr Lehmann was this -"Renewable Energy Supply is possible, up to 100%. Let's do it".
He began with the question "Why do it?" and a discussion of the boundary conditions that define our current existence. These included Climate Change, where 80% reduction in GHG is required by 2050 to avoid breaking through the 2degC rise in average global temperatures; Resource use, in which Australia leads Germany slightly on a per capita basis with over 80 tonnes per annum; and Peak Oil, which he described as an approaching phenomenon that even conservative agencies like the IEA could no longer play down. The discovery of two Saudi Arabia's worth of oil will be required to fill the gap between demand and supply. (The last time humans discovered that much oil was in 1948!)
Dr Lehmann described an energy system that uses solar, geothermal, hydro, tide, biomass and wind, along with concentrators, collectors and smart solar architecture to provide the energy. He acknowledged that if you only go this far, then you have the problems of unreliability and "holes in the night" that critics of renewables quote. To answer that, he went on to describe "demand management" which uses a combination of energy storage including hydrogen production, hydro pumps, battery and other storage mediums, combined with efficiency improvements and smart appliances to ensure that supply is always able to meet demand - "matching needs with fluctuating periodic availability". In graphs of the extensive modeling and real-world measurements made for the Spanish project, Dr Lehmann demonstrated how 100% renewable energy was able to meet the needs of Barcelona and surrounds.
In demonstrating demand management, he asked the question "why are our machines so dumb?", noting that the microprocessor in the modern refrigerator has more computing power than the Apollo lunar lander, but that it uses it simply to decide if the door has been open or not and whether to switch on the motor. Using the same amount of computing power, it should be possible for the fridge to assess the power usage on the grid vs the fridge temperature and make a judgement about the optimum time to switch on. When a group of houses is considered as a system whose components all have similar needs, then the peaks and troughs in system demand can be flattened out and managed to meet supply using the processing power already built in via appliance chips.
Dr Lehmann described ways in which excess industrial, commercial and domestic energy could be used to make hydrogen (co-generation) and energy storage via water pump storage (PSP) for later release, allowing demand to be met when supply conditions are not good.
His assessment of South Australia conditions was that they are very favourable for a project similar to the Spanish one, with more geothermal power available than for Catalonia; all other conditions being very similar. That would be sufficient for South Australia to be a net energy exporter to the other states, should those states not follow similar programs. He advised getting systems to market as quickly as possible, and was a little critical of his own country's strict regime of experimentation and testing, as this increases the time engineers spend on the learning curve and keeps prices higher for longer. To paraphrase him - You learn more in the marketplace, and prices drop quickest as engineers incorporate cost-saving design into marketable products.
During question time, Dr Lehmann was asked why his 100% scenarios were plotted over 40 year timespans, when the problems were so obviously urgent. In replying, he noted that much of the transition to 100% renewable energy COULD be achieved more quickly if done at wartime capacity, but that this would have dire humanitarian consequences, as developing economies would be left behind. He estimated that if the developed world took on renewable projects at wartime scales, 30% of the population of Africa would starve, as would 20% of Asia and significant proportions of the Latin American population. As a policy advisor, he advises his government to adopt linear development. He also said that development is constrained by the availability of personnel, particularly engineers, and resources such as copper and lithium. Germany's linear development of sustainable energy has made a great start and is way ahead of ours, with legislation in place for significant GHG cuts and all signs that progress is on track to meet them.
It was an excellent event, in which Dr Lehmann gave us many insights into the methods by which Germany will almost certainly achieve their legislated emissions target of 40% by 2020. He believes they have solid enough plans and a sufficiently committed population to achieve better than 80% cuts by 2050.
While there was little new presented in terms of technology, the fact that 100% renewable energy systems had been measured and modeled on large scales and shown to work was a refreshing change from the usual arguments about the need for fossil or nuclear baseload power.
Dr Lehmann likened the necessary revolution to introduce 100% renewable energy to the transition humans made to agriculture from hunter-gatherers. In his own words
"We have behaved with our resources like we are collectors and hunters. We now need to move to resource agriculture"
Lecture slides with simlar content to those presented in Adelaide are here:
www.solarworldcongress2009.com/downloads/PlenaryPres/Lehmann.pdf
See also http://www.solarmissionpossible.info/
Views: 63
Tags: 100%, Clever, Green, Renewables
Add a Comment
-
Comment by Andrew Mudie on February 20, 2010 at 22:01 -
Yep, I've just been catching up on some of the blogs by Keith Farnish ( http://www.theearthblog.org). He sums up the "coping" or "denying" mentality of consumers caught up in the industrial machine quite nicely.
"If your dream future contains happy children, material goods, vacations, a good career and a fulfilling, healthy retirement in a world of infinite capacity and endless resources, why the hell would you want to know what is really going to happen?!".
That's the attitude we have to break down if we're going to get enough people to take action to make a real difference. (Farnish is an excellent writer who pulls no punches - thanks for the recommendation!)
As for 80% reduction in energy - that's coming courtesy of living in a finite biosphere. As you suggest, the nature of our fate is in the way we humans manage the reduction.
Cheers,
Andrew
-
Comment by Ronnie Wright on February 20, 2010 at 11:09 -
I actually do think that we can achieve 100% carbon free renewable energy; after we reduce our energy needs by about 80%. We can only achieve that if we reverse the Industrial Revolution, which is what accelerated the release of carbon due to human activity in the first place, just as we now know that we are going to have to reverse the Green Revolution which has brought us factory farming, monoculture, GM and the wide spread use of dangerous chemicals on our food supply.
I’m quite confident that this is doable only because I also realise that it is inevitable thanks to the massive destruction we have caused and the rapid rate at which we are using up the earths limited resources (peak everything).
Even reducing the earth’s population to a level that is more sustainable is not a problem; we need not do anything. The laws of nature will do it for us. It to is inevitable and there is nothing we can do to prevent it.
My concern is not in preventing the collapse of our Industrial Civilization or in trying to figure out a way for the earth to sustain 10 or 12 billion people. My concern is in how to go about the collapse and population decline in the most humane way as possible. A slow decent, in my opinion, is a much better option than a total collapse.
If the collapse comes quickly I think our society will be a very bad place to be and many will suffer or die. If it comes slowly it is my opinion that the society we live in will be much improved by it. Either way the earth’s community will benefit a great deal by our demise. The question is will we benefit from it as well?
Collapse of our Industrial Civilization might be inevitable but I think that the rate of collapse is a choice we can still make.
We need to wake people up and shake them from their denial. It amazes me how many intelligent people will sit there with a straight face and try to tell me that “were not going to run out of oil” and not even realise how utterly stupid such a comment is. I don’t really blame them because I realise that that is just a coping mechanism. They don’t want to accept that such a thing could happen with oil; or with coal, with minerals, with water, with fish or even with farmed food. They want to believe that our consumer society will just go on forever. Most people think that our consuming way of life is the way life is supposed to be.
That way of thinking is the result of being constantly told by governments and their corporate puppet masters that it’s the way it should be. We need to convince people that government and corporations can’t be trusted; they only seek their own power. Their power is based on increasing wealth which requires a growing economy. The faster and larger the economy gets the closer to total collapse we get. Don’t believe me? Look at all the new coal mines being approved for Australia. Right at a time when we need to transition away from coal the governments and corporations are pushing through as many coal mines as they can. And, they will do everything in their power to keep us from stopping them.
If the governments and corporations are going to fight to prevent the change needed to avoid catastrophic climate change then it is up to us as individuals to stop it. We need to make the changes in our own lives. The government doesn’t need to tell us to stop driving cars and walk or ride a bike. They don’t need to tell us to become vegetarians and buy locally produce unprocessed food. We don’t need to be told to stop consuming things we don’t need. We already know all that. Most people that know all of this just aren’t doing it because they still have hope that some corporate or scientific miracle will fix everything. Or that the government will come along and fix everything for them. Well it certainly isn’t going to happen that way and all the hope in the world isn’t going to make a difference. If we want change then it is up to us to bring it about.
For many that will place them outside of the laws that are created by these corrupted governments and corporations and as the struggle progresses even more laws will be created to protect the status quo. Not everyone will be up to dealing with that but there is a niche for everyone in this struggle. We all need to find our niche and get on with it.
I’ve rambled on quite a bit so I’ll just close with a few quotes from a letter written by Martin Luther King, Jr. on 16 April 1963 while sitting in a Birmingham jail after being arrested for committing an act of civil disobedience.
[…]
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.
[…]
The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation.
[…]
One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"
[…]
For additional key points made my King in his letter visit this Wikipedia page.
Cheers,
Ronnie Wright
World Change Café
-
Comment by Andrew Mudie on February 19, 2010 at 22:24
-
No, Dr Lehmann didn't mention the problems of rare earth mineral supply directly, although he alluded to shortages of resources in general as a constraint on the speed with which the transition to renewables could be achieved.
What fabulous news - time to go back into head-scratching mode?
-
Comment by Ronnie Wright on February 19, 2010 at 21:02
-
Here is another recent article from The New York Times that also describes how bad for the environment mining these minerals are.
Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively
Ronnie Wright
World Change Cafe
-
Comment by Ronnie Wright on February 19, 2010 at 20:51
-
Andrew thanks for the informative review of Dr Lehmanns plan for 100% renewable energy.
I was wondering if he addressed the availably of rare earth metals needed for all this new technology?
It’s my understanding that right now China provides about 95% of all the rare earth metals mined in the world today. It also seems that China now realizes that it will need all the rare earth minerals they have for their own production and might be planning a ban on the export of some and limiting the export or others in 2012.
Because these minerals are hard to find and hard to extract a ban or limitation on exports from China will drive the cost of these minerals sky high as a result of shortages.
This is an issue that I’m starting to see more of lately. Here are a few articles I’ve come across latly:
World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports
The Neodymium Wars
The Rare-Earth-Metal Bottleneck
Nothing is ever easy is it?
Ronnie Wright
World Change Cafe
Photos
Events
Badge
© 2012 Created by Grant Hill.
Powered by 
.
You need to be a member of A Climate For Change to add comments!
Join A Climate For Change