(Conversation recorded on August 1st, 2023)
Show Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by Graham Palmer, a scholar and engineer in the field of energy. While this show frequently covers the importance of energy itself, this discussion focuses on how the ability to store and access energy has critically shaped societies. From agriculture, to wood, to coal, to oil, each transition has marked a new way for humans to interact with the world around them. What would it mean for economic growth if we no longer have access to these storable energies? What does the necessity of storability mean for electricity – an inherently flow-based energy form? Would human societies moving back to a flow-based energy system also mean once again becoming in-sync with the Earth and her ecosystems?
About Graham Palmer
Graham Palmer is a researcher at Monash University, with an industry background as an engineer and researcher in manufacturing, HVAC and electronics. He has published in the area of biophysical economics, renewable energy, life-cycle analysis, and energy-economic modeling. Graham obtained his PhD in the area of energy-return-on-investment (EROI) of electricity supply. His current research interests include the future role of emerging energy storage systems.
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Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:40 – Graham Palmer works, info
Recommended Reading from Graham Palmer:
Will Fossil Fuels Be Able to Maintain Economic Growth? A Q&A with Charles Hall – Scientific American
02:16 – EROI
02:28 – Energy Storage and Civilization: A Systems Approach
04:38 – Wes Jackson – 5 Pools of Carbon
06:51 – Disease increased with the agricultural revolution
07:54 – James Scott Against The Grain
09:09 – Joseph Tainter + TGS Episode
10:35 – !Kung Bushman in the Kalahari Desert
11:24 – Bill Gammage How Aborigines Made Australia
17:16 – Energy quality of oil
17:55 – Shale oil
21:40 – Electricity is a flow, which is what makes it difficult to store
22:36 – TV Pickup
24:43 – Nate’s paper EROI of nuclear and wind handicapped on their storage ability
25:24 – Sharpe Ratio
28:55 – Material intensity of scaling batteries to meet demand
29:39 – Snowy Hydro in Australia cost double or more what expected
31:27 – Challenges of hydrogen
32:33 – Sodium batteries, other battery alternatives
33:41 – Technology lock-in
34:17 – Lifetimes of batteries and other renewable tech
35:05 – Recycling renewable and battery materials
37:02 – Increase in the use of all rare earth metals
41:54 – Australia’s energy transition, energy composition + AEMO Integrate Systems Plan
43:41 – Household Solar Photovoltaics: Supplier of Marginal Abatement, or Primary Source of Low-Emission Power? | Graham Palmer
45:30 – Simon Michaux + TGS Episodes Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 + work on energy storage and material requirements
50;04 – Buckminster Fuller
51:02 – Sun Cable Project
56:50 – Australian housing crisis
59:59 – Care economy
1:02:03 – Sam Alexander and Josh Floyd
1:02:34 – Technocrat movement
1:03:45 – Vaclav Smil
Comments
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This was a good discussion about the importance of energy storage, especially in the context of intermittent renewables. I was disappointed that no mention was made of thermal energy storage, which uses common materials and provides seasonal storage. Combined with solar thermal equipment, which also can be pretty low-tech, thermal storage could have made solar a base-load supplier of electricity without any technology that wasn’t available a century ago. Too late now.
Sadly, there’s no know energy storage that comes anywhere near the needs of Western Civilization – the physics just prevents it. Thermal storage is governed by parabolic (diffusive) partial differential equations (PDEs), which is why we’ve never had long-distance heat-pipes (local boilers notwithstanding). Electric transmission lines are governed by hyperbolic PDEs which makes efficient long-distance transmission practical, but there’s no known large-scale storage physics for hyperbolic phenomena. Remaining ore resources seem to limit use at-scale to sodium-sulfur batteries, which are decidedly low-tech and difficult tech. Building such batteries to back-up just one day of US power would cost about $40 trillion.
For a clear discussion of known energy-storage methods and practical limitations, see: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-70335-6
Reducing our own energy consumption is the first thing we all need to do. My partner and I have been trying to do that for years.
This morning I logged in to my new energy retailer (I switched to try and get better deal) and was horrified at what our bill is so far in this quarter. We have about 12 days left in this 3 month billing cycle and it is already over A$700. Even with our 6.5kWh solar system. I cannot fathom where this useage is. There are only 2 of us. We have efficient clothes washer on once a day when sun is out (no dryer), use an oven sparingly. Turn things off at power point. Heat with slow combustion wood fire. We haven’t even started watering season yet! I guess this is the 30% rise (all retailers) in price started this quarter. I was going to replace our old oven in the next few months but will now go without or get a little bench top one.
It is hard to know where else we can save 🙁
You can monitor your electric meter while you turn loads on and off to see what is using the most power. You may have to do this during a period of steady solar production or after dark just to make the power usage is obvious.
A 6.5kW solar system is pretty big. Even if you do not have net metering, you should be able to offset most of your load if you use large-consumption appliances when the sun is shining.
Normally the residential big ticket items are electric water heating, electric range, refrigeration (low load but often on) and water pumping (if on a well). An electric car would use more than all of these combined, so I assume you are not charging an electric vehicle at home.
The other thing to make sure of is that your solar system is working optimally. If a system is grid connected, you might not even notice if it stops working (an off-grid system will reveal poor output right away). Here in Hawaii there are lots of rooftop solar PV systems as electric prices are very high. I see a lot of these systems with algae and dirt covered modules. Just one obstructed cell can wipe out the production of a whole series string. Make sure your modules are clean and unshaded and then check that their output is what it should be during a steady period of sunshine.
You might want to consider getting a production/consumption audit from a solar installation company. Since you already have PV, they would most likely want to charge a fee for doing it.
Good luck!
One of my colleagues at the USAF/SMC was among those trained (PhD) to be the generation of physicists that implemented fusion energy for society. That, of course, didn’t work.
Like many other such PhD’s, he had to switch fields – he actually spent his career doing earth/space radio transmission engineering for the USAF.
Despite our best efforts, much new, high-level science is predicted badly incorrectly. (we physicists don’t like to talk about those errors very much…)**
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As far as the storyline above – it’s been clearly shown that curtailing energy use of the elites by ~50% in the next 7 years is the only way to avoid 2C – 4C temperature rise (and ~1C is already burning major, key areas of the planet). It has been well-estimated that we have only about a 1 in 20 chance of limiting to 2C (which could save Western Civilization) – and technooptimism among the educated-class is just one of the impediments to limiting temperature rise, although a major one. (think: Biden and electric cars…)
Sadly, there won’t be many jobs for advanced degrees, or funding for good ideas, without civilization as current generations know it.
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** For instance, how badly the increasing Climate Breakdown will affect global weather patterns (such as Pacific hurricanes threatening the US West Coast), and the poor performance of Coupled Climate Models in this sort of prediction task.
Thx for all those suggestions! Our retailer has usage data available on our online account but not in real time – usually a few days behind. We have a ‘Smart’ metre but I think it is still possible to manually read it – will ask my partner who will know more. We clean the solar panels and they generate good amounts a lot of days but our useage nearly always outpaces it by some way.
We might need to look at upgrading our fridge to a more efficient model. You are correct we don’t have an EV. Time to try and do a serious audit and track down where we are consuming all this power!!
Joe has given great advice I think. Your consumption/cost sounds way out of line given the description of your arrangements. The only thing I’d question is the need to run the washing machine daily. Seeing you run it in daylight hours, it should hardly be noticed though.
We are in a similar situation to you, with wood heating and 2 people only. We normally pay between A$100 and A$200 for our two month billing cycle. Yet as early adopters we have a mere 1kW solar system. The difference in our electricity expenditures suggests you are missing something really big. Being big, it should be relatively easy to find. (No hobby-scale aluminium refinery in the basement?) Employing one of those electricity auditors would seem worthwhile. Good luck!
I don’t want to pay $30 for the chapter on storage, but thanks for the link.
An insulated pile of hot crushed rock 1km deep by 10km wide by 100km long and which has been raised to 500C over ambient could store the entire annual energy consumption of the world. Volume vs area scaling means that it would be also be efficient enough to store that energy for a year with little percentage loss. Getting the heat in and out is also easy and efficient since hot air naturally stratifies.
Admittedly, that’s a big pile of rock, but if the world had worked at assembling fractions of that kind of volume in different locations every year for a few decades, we might have built a solar thermal energy system that could power a civilization. Whether that would be a good idea is another question, but nothing in physics prevents it.
You may want to check out the “sand battery” technology. It is thermal storage but with the heating coming from electric resistence heaters, which I think is stupid. Nevertheless, the physics of the sand battery as thermal storage is simple and sound.
Thanks.
Yes we think we have discovered that it is the hot water service. It used to be on a controlled load tariff and timed to come on at night via the meter we had. When we changed to a SmartMeter with the solar installation that was totally changed. I think the hot water has been coming on at night during peak tariff time after we have a shower (and any time we use the hot tap) and that is driving up the cost. The last 3 days we have manually turned it off and just put it on for 2 hours in the middle of the day. Looking at my Origin Energy hourly useage it seems to be proving our theory.