OT: 10x more green jobs than fossil fuel jobs

[Joseph Gwinn]

On Oct 26, 2019, Phil Allison wrote
(in article<241b3807-0bd5-448a-a69a-fd2a6500a3c4@googlegroups.com&gt:

Bill Sloman wrote:

------------------

Solar power is generating some 1.6% of the US energy budget.

It's going up at 37% per year, which means that it could take 13 years
to get it to 100% of the budget.

** The math works out.

However, I remember a prediction made in the 1980s that the cost of producing
and building new fighter designs for the USAF was accelerating in an
exponential way.

Extrapolating from the then rate, the author calculated that by the early
2000s, the entire US GDP would be consumed in order to build one plane.

The installation work force would rise in the same proportion, which would
mean that 600 million people would be busy finishing the job in the last
year - and most of them would have to be imported.

** No kidding .....

600 million - wow.

A more realistic picture would probably spread out the process,
but it could keep a lot more of the work force busy than it does
now for quite while.

** In the famous words of John McEnroe ( whom I have always admired )

" YOU CANNOT be SERIOUS !! "

Yes:

..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine%27s_laws>

He was making a valid point for sure.

,<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II>

Joe Gwinn

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:34:05 AM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 05:31:55 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:48:07 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sat, 26 Oct 2019 22:41:53 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

------------------


** Most of that is Hydro - right ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States

says that 24% of that renewable energy is currently hydroelectric, 20.8% is wind, and 5.8% solar. The rest is biofuel and biomass.


** Biofuel is not Green energy at all - merely "renewable".

Biofuels are fully dispatchable. You can run it in gas turbines and
diesels when unreliable sources (such as wind and solar) fail
simultaneous.

No need for expensive battery backup.

Biofuels capture about 0.1% of the energy in the incoming sunlight.

Biomass is a fine way for long time energy storage, no problem storing
for a few months (summer to winter) or even store for decades. It has
made it possible for people to live at high latitudes for thousands of
years.

Traditional and low technology works. This is a virtue. It also uses a lot more land area per kilowatt hour collected. This isn't.

Solar cells capture about 25%.

That makes biofuels a lot more expensive than even the most extravagant battery back-up.

Countries with a lot of forest industry also have a high renewable
percentage. When trees are delivered to the paper or pulp factory,
only part of the biomass is used for the end product, the rest is
burned in the recovery boiler, which is used to power the factory as
the excess is sold to the free market.

While I was growing up, my father was research manager at the local paper mill. They did burn waste wood on site - mainly bark because the timber got turned into chips before it went into the continuous digester to have it's lignin removed (which also eventually got burnt in the soda-recovery process) and emerged as paper pulp.

The mill as a whole wasn't self-sufficient in energy.

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Using solar cells to electrolyse water to hydrogen throws away about three-quarters of the energy captured before it can be turned into dispatchable power which is still massively extravagant compared with batteries, but it beats the hell out of growing crops

Storing huge amounts of hydrogen for several months doesn't sound too
appealing .

Liquid hydrogen tankers will do exactly that. The local hydrogen economy enthusiasts are enthralled by the prospect, or at least by the prospect of getting a lot of money from South Korea and Japan as each tanker arrives

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Phil Allison]

Joseph Gwinn wrote:

--------------------

However, I remember a prediction made in the 1980s that the cost of
producing and building new fighter designs for the USAF was
accelerating in an exponential way.

Extrapolating from the then rate, the author calculated that by the early
2000s, the entire US GDP would be consumed in order to build one plane.

(snip)

** In the famous words of John McEnroe ( whom I have always admired )

" YOU CANNOT be SERIOUS !! "

Yes:

.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine%27s_laws

He was making a valid point for sure.

** Classic stuff.

I did not know where the story came from before, as it was told to me by a friend in the early 1980s - a pal I went to high school and university along side. This man:

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331398

,<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

** Yep.

The trick is in the nature of exponents, they rise extraordinarily fast.

Imagine a jet fighter costs $20M a piece in 1980 and the annual rate of cost increase is 50%. After 30 years, what is the new price ?

Now 1.5 exp 30 = 191751

So the new cost is: 3.82 trillion dollars each.

Nuts.


...... Phil

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:48:16 AM UTC+11, Winfield Hill wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote...

Using solar cells to electrolyse water to hydrogen throws
away about three-quarters of the energy captured before
it can be turned into dispatchable power which is still
massively extravagant compared with batteries, but it
beats the hell out of growing crops

It can be done much more efficiently than that. Here's
an example of improving electrocatalytic water splitting
efficiency by 45%, and another of 13% overall efficiency,
for "direct" solar to CO. Steady progress is being made.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l90wb9s92y77tpr/2019_Peng_H2-Generation.pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/matnnxj3f542hq4/2017_Jiang_transition-metals.pdf?dl=1

Although I'm a co-author of both papers, for supplying
electronics, I did not check the efficiency calculations.

It doesn't make much difference to the thermodynamics.

The free oxygen generated represents as much Gibbs free energy as the hydrogen, but when the atmosphere already 20.95% of free oxygen, the oxygen produced is of no economic value.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Winfield Hill]

Bill Sloman wrote...

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:48:16 AM UTC+11, Winfield Hill wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote...

Using solar cells to electrolyse water to hydrogen throws
away about three-quarters of the energy captured before
it can be turned into dispatchable power which is still
massively extravagant compared with batteries, but it
beats the hell out of growing crops

It can be done much more efficiently than that. Here's
an example of improving electrocatalytic water splitting
efficiency by 45%, and another of 13% overall efficiency,
for "direct" solar to CO. Steady progress is being made.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l90wb9s92y77tpr/2019_Peng_H2-Generation.pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/matnnxj3f542hq4/2017_Jiang_transition-metals.pdf?dl=1

Although I'm a co-author of both papers, for supplying
electronics, I did not check the efficiency calculations.

It doesn't make much difference to the thermodynamics.

The free oxygen generated represents as much Gibbs free energy
as the hydrogen, but when the atmosphere already 20.95% of free
oxygen, the oxygen produced is of no economic value.

I doubt they counted the oxygen, that'd be pretty useless.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:21:54 PM UTC+11, Winfield Hill wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote...

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:48:16 AM UTC+11, Winfield Hill wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote...

Using solar cells to electrolyse water to hydrogen throws
away about three-quarters of the energy captured before
it can be turned into dispatchable power which is still
massively extravagant compared with batteries, but it
beats the hell out of growing crops

It can be done much more efficiently than that. Here's
an example of improving electrocatalytic water splitting
efficiency by 45%, and another of 13% overall efficiency,
for "direct" solar to CO. Steady progress is being made.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l90wb9s92y77tpr/2019_Peng_H2-Generation.pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/matnnxj3f542hq4/2017_Jiang_transition-metals.pdf?dl=1

Although I'm a co-author of both papers, for supplying
electronics, I did not check the efficiency calculations.

It doesn't make much difference to the thermodynamics.

The free oxygen generated represents as much Gibbs free energy
as the hydrogen, but when the atmosphere already 20.95% of free
oxygen, the oxygen produced is of no economic value.

I doubt they counted the oxygen, that'd be pretty useless.

But that's where some of the energy goes when you split water.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Sat, 26 Oct 2019 18:49:26 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
<pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

------------------

Solar power is generating some 1.6% of the US energy budget.

It's going up at 37% per year, which means that it could take 13 years
to get it to 100% of the budget.


** The math works out.

However, I remember a prediction made in the 1980s that the cost of producing and building new fighter designs for the USAF was accelerating in an exponential way.

Extrapolating from the then rate, the author calculated that by the early 2000s, the entire US GDP would be consumed in order to build one plane.

I read a similar statement in Wireless World in the editorial (I
think) but referring the UK in the 1980¨s,

The UK economy was in bad shape at that time and this was the last
years of more or less independent UK aerospace industry. Thus the
story was quite believable.

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 6:33:39 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

While I was growing up, my father was research manager at the local paper mill. They did burn waste wood on site - mainly bark because the timber got turned into chips before it went into the continuous digester to have it's lignin removed (which also eventually got burnt in the soda-recovery process) and emerged as paper pulp.

The mill as a whole wasn't self-sufficient in energy.

Was there a preferred type of tree used? Either because it worked better in the process or because it was more available?

Just curious.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On 27 Oct 2019 19:21:39 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote...

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:48:16 AM UTC+11, Winfield Hill wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote...

Using solar cells to electrolyse water to hydrogen throws
away about three-quarters of the energy captured before
it can be turned into dispatchable power which is still
massively extravagant compared with batteries, but it
beats the hell out of growing crops

It can be done much more efficiently than that. Here's
an example of improving electrocatalytic water splitting
efficiency by 45%, and another of 13% overall efficiency,
for "direct" solar to CO. Steady progress is being made.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l90wb9s92y77tpr/2019_Peng_H2-Generation.pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/matnnxj3f542hq4/2017_Jiang_transition-metals.pdf?dl=1

Although I'm a co-author of both papers, for supplying
electronics, I did not check the efficiency calculations.

It doesn't make much difference to the thermodynamics.

The free oxygen generated represents as much Gibbs free energy
as the hydrogen, but when the atmosphere already 20.95% of free
oxygen, the oxygen produced is of no economic value.

I doubt they counted the oxygen, that'd be pretty useless.

When trying to burn stuff at high temperatures using air, will also
produce various NOx (nitrogen oxides). If free oxygen is available,
burning with pure oxygen avoids forming NOx.

 

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 15:33:34 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:34:05 AM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 05:31:55 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:48:07 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sat, 26 Oct 2019 22:41:53 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

------------------


** Most of that is Hydro - right ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States

says that 24% of that renewable energy is currently hydroelectric, 20.8% is wind, and 5.8% solar. The rest is biofuel and biomass.


** Biofuel is not Green energy at all - merely "renewable".

Biofuels are fully dispatchable. You can run it in gas turbines and
diesels when unreliable sources (such as wind and solar) fail
simultaneous.

No need for expensive battery backup.

Biofuels capture about 0.1% of the energy in the incoming sunlight.

Biomass is a fine way for long time energy storage, no problem storing
for a few months (summer to winter) or even store for decades. It has
made it possible for people to live at high latitudes for thousands of
years.

Traditional and low technology works. This is a virtue. It also uses a lot more land area per kilowatt hour collected. This isn't.

There is a lot of trees in the taiga region (Scandinavia, Russia,
Siberia, Alaska and Canada). with huge annual growth. Better burn it
in a power plant than letting it burn in uncontrolled forest fires.

Solar cells capture about 25%.

That makes biofuels a lot more expensive than even the most extravagant battery back-up.

Countries with a lot of forest industry also have a high renewable
percentage. When trees are delivered to the paper or pulp factory,
only part of the biomass is used for the end product, the rest is
burned in the recovery boiler, which is used to power the factory as
the excess is sold to the free market.

While I was growing up, my father was research manager at the local paper mill. They did burn waste wood on site - mainly bark because the timber got turned into chips before it went into the continuous digester to have it's lignin removed (which also eventually got burnt in the soda-recovery process) and emerged as paper pulp.

The mill as a whole wasn't self-sufficient in energy.

I went to a pulp factory in the early 1980's and the site manager was
keen to stress that they have just achieved self-sufficiency. These
days it is routine in all pulp sites,

Making paper for daily newspapers require external energy input, but
how long do you expect such paper is going to be needed ? Many mills
convert the newspaper machines for making other kind of products,

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass ?

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 3:45:16 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 15:33:34 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:34:05 AM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 05:31:55 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:48:07 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder..com wrote:
On Sat, 26 Oct 2019 22:41:53 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote:

------------------


** Most of that is Hydro - right ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States

says that 24% of that renewable energy is currently hydroelectric, 20.8% is wind, and 5.8% solar. The rest is biofuel and biomass.


** Biofuel is not Green energy at all - merely "renewable".

Biofuels are fully dispatchable. You can run it in gas turbines and
diesels when unreliable sources (such as wind and solar) fail
simultaneous.

No need for expensive battery backup.

Biofuels capture about 0.1% of the energy in the incoming sunlight.

Biomass is a fine way for long time energy storage, no problem storing
for a few months (summer to winter) or even store for decades. It has
made it possible for people to live at high latitudes for thousands of
years.

Traditional and low technology works. This is a virtue. It also uses a lot more land area per kilowatt hour collected. This isn't.

There is a lot of trees in the taiga region (Scandinavia, Russia,
Siberia, Alaska and Canada). with huge annual growth. Better burn it
in a power plant than letting it burn in uncontrolled forest fires.


Solar cells capture about 25%.

That makes biofuels a lot more expensive than even the most extravagant battery back-up.

Countries with a lot of forest industry also have a high renewable
percentage. When trees are delivered to the paper or pulp factory,
only part of the biomass is used for the end product, the rest is
burned in the recovery boiler, which is used to power the factory as
the excess is sold to the free market.

While I was growing up, my father was research manager at the local paper mill. They did burn waste wood on site - mainly bark because the timber got turned into chips before it went into the continuous digester to have it's lignin removed (which also eventually got burnt in the soda-recovery process) and emerged as paper pulp.

The mill as a whole wasn't self-sufficient in energy.

I went to a pulp factory in the early 1980's and the site manager was
keen to stress that they have just achieved self-sufficiency. These
days it is routine in all pulp sites,

Making paper for daily newspapers require external energy input, but
how long do you expect such paper is going to be needed ? Many mills
convert the newspaper machines for making other kind of products.

The mill I was talking about was a fine-paper mill, not a newsprint mill - the existence of a soda-recovery plant would have made this obvious to even the moderately expert.

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass?

The Russian's nicked all the decent agricultural land, so the Finn's have to make the best of what they've got left. My father saw the plaque in one of the paper mills in an invaded but not nicked area, commemorating the manager and the technical manager who the Russians had shot for the crime of being managers during the invasion.

Nokkia started off as paper-making company ...

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:13:33 AM UTC-4, tabb...@gmail.com wrote:

On Sunday, 27 October 2019 06:02:43 UTC, Rick C wrote:

Yes, we are doomed... DOOMED!!! How can we be corrupted by all these charlatans?

I guess we have no choice but to legislate a death penalty for working on renewable energy. That will put an end to the problem and free up energy they would have been using as well! Win-win!!!

We'll have to go back to hanging. We can't be burning them up in an electric chair.

What have you been smoking?

All this fighting over how to generate electricity, surely everyone can agree that conservation is the best of all worlds. I was just trying to think in terms of conservation.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 4:38:21 PM UTC+11, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 6:33:39 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

While I was growing up, my father was research manager at the local paper mill. They did burn waste wood on site - mainly bark because the timber got turned into chips before it went into the continuous digester to have it's lignin removed (which also eventually got burnt in the soda-recovery process) and emerged as paper pulp.

The mill as a whole wasn't self-sufficient in energy.

Was there a preferred type of tree used? Either because it worked better in the process or because it was more available?

Just curious.

It was unique (when it was set up in the 1930s) in using eucalyptus trees (of which there were and are a lot handy). Since this is short fibre wood, the paper had 5% pine pulp added (which came from all over - Australia does have pine plantations, and some of those trees are turned into fine-paper-pulp on the mainland, but the mill bought ship-loads from wherever it was cheap at the time).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 22:28:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass?

The Russian's nicked all the decent agricultural land, so the Finn's have to make the best of what they've got left. My father saw the plaque in one of the paper mills in an invaded but not nicked area, commemorating the manager and the technical manager who the Russians had shot for the crime of being managers during the invasion.

I guess you are talking about East-Carelia, which has never been part
of Finland, although there are still some Finnish and Carelian
speaking population. Those stories appears to refer to Stalin's purges
in the 1930's.

Those stories do not apply to Finland.

>Nokkia started off as paper-making company ...

Yes, Nokia stared as paper mill in Finland.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 4:56:57 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 22:28:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass?

The Russian's nicked all the decent agricultural land, so the Finn's have to make the best of what they've got left. My father saw the plaque in one of the paper mills in an invaded but not nicked area, commemorating the manager and the technical manager who the Russians had shot for the crime of being managers during the invasion.

I guess you are talking about East-Carelia, which has never been part
of Finland, although there are still some Finnish and Carelian
speaking population. Those stories appears to refer to Stalin's purges
in the 1930's.

I have no idea where the paper mill was, but it was in Finland.

> Those stories do not apply to Finland.

When the Russians invaded Finland in 1939, they occupied wherever the mill was - briefly - and shot the managers as they moved in to occupy the place.

My father was aware of the history - one of his colleagues at the paper mill was Finnish and had left in 1939 to go back and fight the Russians. The guy survived the whole of WW2 only to die of TB in 1946.

Nokia started off as paper-making company ...

Yes, Nokia stared as paper mill in Finland.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 23:49:36 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 4:56:57 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 22:28:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass?

The Russian's nicked all the decent agricultural land, so the Finn's have to make the best of what they've got left. My father saw the plaque in one of the paper mills in an invaded but not nicked area, commemorating the manager and the technical manager who the Russians had shot for the crime of being managers during the invasion.

I guess you are talking about East-Carelia, which has never been part
of Finland, although there are still some Finnish and Carelian
speaking population. Those stories appears to refer to Stalin's purges
in the 1930's.

I have no idea where the paper mill was, but it was in Finland.

Something doesn't match.

Those stories do not apply to Finland.

When the Russians invaded Finland in 1939, they occupied wherever the mill was - briefly - and shot the managers as they moved in to occupy the place.

While there are paper mills on the occupied Carelian Isthmus, the
whole population had been evacuated prior to the Soviet invasion and
as much as the machinery as possible. I have never heard that some
manager would have been so naive and stayed behind.

>My father was aware of the history - one of his colleagues at the paper mill was Finnish and had left in 1939 to go back and fight the Russians. The guy survived the whole of WW2 only to die of TB in 1946.

There was a lot emigration from Finland to the America (both USA and
Canada) during early 20th century. Some of those were socialists and
returned, but not to Finland but to the communist East-Carelia to
build a socialist wonder state.

Some may have start working in the occupied mills on the Carelian
Isthmus in 1940-41. Some of those people switched side and started
fighting against the Soviets in 1941 during the continuation war.

Nokia started off as paper-making company ...

Yes, Nokia stared as paper mill in Finland.

Nokia was the name of a village just west of Tampere were the paper
mill was situated. Tourists often take selfies with the "Nokia" road
sign, which indicates the start of the town of Nokia .

 

[Joseph Gwinn]

On Oct 27, 2019, Phil Allison wrote
(in article<b04eef8b-821b-4855-b047-55dce2eb24a2@googlegroups.com&gt:

Joseph Gwinn wrote:

--------------------


However, I remember a prediction made in the 1980s that the cost of
producing and building new fighter designs for the USAF was
accelerating in an exponential way.

Extrapolating from the then rate, the author calculated that by the early
2000s, the entire US GDP would be consumed in order to build one plane.

(snip)

** In the famous words of John McEnroe ( whom I have always admired )

" YOU CANNOT be SERIOUS !! "

Yes:

.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine%27s_laws

He was making a valid point for sure.

** Classic stuff.

I did not know where the story came from before, as it was told to me by a
friend in the early 1980s - a pal I went to high school and university along
side. This man:

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331398

,<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

** Yep.

The trick is in the nature of exponents, they rise extraordinarily fast.

Imagine a jet fighter costs $20M a piece in 1980 and the annual rate of cost
increase is 50%. After 30 years, what is the new price ?

Now 1.5 exp 30 = 191751

So the new cost is: 3.82 trillion dollars each.

Nuts.

It won´t happen, of course, because while technology improves, the budget
does not increase at that rate, so what one gets is the best that can be fit
into that budget..

It´s a classic effect. A good example is battleships circa WW1. Between
wars, battleships became larger and fewer. During wars, it turned out that a
larger number of smaller ships stood up to battle better. The airplane
finished the job, because one airplane could sink the largest capital ship.

Now the growth industry is aircraft carriers. Which spawns growth in
carrier-killer weapons. It has always been thus.

Joe Gwinn

 

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 23:49:36 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 4:56:57 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 22:28:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else.

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp.

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass?

The Russian's nicked all the decent agricultural land, so the Finn's have to make the best of what they've got left. My father saw the plaque in one of the paper mills in an invaded but not nicked area, commemorating the manager and the technical manager who the Russians had shot for the crime of being managers during the invasion.

I guess you are talking about East-Carelia, which has never been part
of Finland, although there are still some Finnish and Carelian
speaking population. Those stories appears to refer to Stalin's purges
in the 1930's.

I have no idea where the paper mill was, but it was in Finland.

Those stories do not apply to Finland.

The border between Finland and Soviet russia was in the armillary
range of Leningrad/Petrograd/St, Petersburg in 1917-1939 and was an
excuse for the Soviets to start the Winter war in 1839. My father was
born close to this border and his family was evacuated just prior to
the Russian invasion.

Please note, the Red Army never overrun the main part of Finland.

There has never been a communist government in Finland, so why would
any site managers be shot.

Some areas in Carelia and Carelia Isthmus (containing some paper
mills) was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and again in 1944. I am
pretty certain that none of the site managers stayed behind. What
happened to those accessing the occupied area from the Soviet side, I
have no idea.


In Eastern Carelia, there was a Finish/Carelian population. In
addition as a result of the Civil War in Finland in 1918, in which a
large number of Reds moved to East Carelia to build a socialist state,
also some people first emigrated to America and then returned to East
Carelia. Those people suffered badly during Stalin's purges in the
1930's

I do not know of which group the your father's friend belonged.

..

When the Russians invaded Finland in 1939, they occupied wherever the mill was - briefly - and shot the managers as they moved in to occupy the place.

That would have been possible during 1930's purges.

My father was aware of the history - one of his colleagues at the paper mill was Finnish and had left in 1939 to go back and fight the Russians. The guy survived the whole of WW2 only to die of TB in 1946.

Nokia started off as paper-making company ...

Yes, Nokia stared as paper mill in Finland.

 

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 22:28:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 3:45:16 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 15:33:34 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:34:05 AM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 05:31:55 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:48:07 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sat, 26 Oct 2019 22:41:53 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote:

------------------


** Most of that is Hydro - right ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States

says that 24% of that renewable energy is currently hydroelectric, 20.8% is wind, and 5.8% solar. The rest is biofuel and biomass.


** Biofuel is not Green energy at all - merely "renewable".

Biofuels are fully dispatchable. You can run it in gas turbines and
diesels when unreliable sources (such as wind and solar) fail
simultaneous.

No need for expensive battery backup.

Biofuels capture about 0.1% of the energy in the incoming sunlight.

Biomass is a fine way for long time energy storage, no problem storing
for a few months (summer to winter) or even store for decades. It has
made it possible for people to live at high latitudes for thousands of
years.

Traditional and low technology works. This is a virtue. It also uses a lot more land area per kilowatt hour collected. This isn't.

There is a lot of trees in the taiga region (Scandinavia, Russia,
Siberia, Alaska and Canada). with huge annual growth. Better burn it
in a power plant than letting it burn in uncontrolled forest fires.


Solar cells capture about 25%.

That makes biofuels a lot more expensive than even the most extravagant battery back-up.

Countries with a lot of forest industry also have a high renewable
percentage. When trees are delivered to the paper or pulp factory,
only part of the biomass is used for the end product, the rest is
burned in the recovery boiler, which is used to power the factory as
the excess is sold to the free market.

While I was growing up, my father was research manager at the local paper mill. They did burn waste wood on site - mainly bark because the timber got turned into chips before it went into the continuous digester to have it's lignin removed (which also eventually got burnt in the soda-recovery process) and emerged as paper pulp.

The mill as a whole wasn't self-sufficient in energy.

I went to a pulp factory in the early 1980's and the site manager was
keen to stress that they have just achieved self-sufficiency. These
days it is routine in all pulp sites,

Making paper for daily newspapers require external energy input, but
how long do you expect such paper is going to be needed ? Many mills
convert the newspaper machines for making other kind of products.

The mill I was talking about was a fine-paper mill, not a newsprint mill - the existence of a soda-recovery plant would have made this obvious to even the moderately expert.

You claimed that the forest industry is not energy self sustained.

I used the mechanical pulp (newspaper paper) as an example of
non-enenergy sustainable process. The rest is more or less energy
efficient.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christense]

mandag den 28. oktober 2019 kl. 19.19.42 UTC+1 skrev upsid...@downunder.com:

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 23:49:36 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 4:56:57 PM UTC+11, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 22:28:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

You can also make methanol or ethanol and burn it somewhere else..

Thus, the bio energy is just a byproduct of making paper or pulp..

Not in my experience.

Why do you think that Finland has so high amount of receivables,
especially biomass?

The Russian's nicked all the decent agricultural land, so the Finn's have to make the best of what they've got left. My father saw the plaque in one of the paper mills in an invaded but not nicked area, commemorating the manager and the technical manager who the Russians had shot for the crime of being managers during the invasion.

I guess you are talking about East-Carelia, which has never been part
of Finland, although there are still some Finnish and Carelian
speaking population. Those stories appears to refer to Stalin's purges
in the 1930's.

I have no idea where the paper mill was, but it was in Finland.

Those stories do not apply to Finland.

The border between Finland and Soviet russia was in the armillary
range of Leningrad/Petrograd/St, Petersburg in 1917-1939 and was an
excuse for the Soviets to start the Winter war in 1839. My father was
born close to this border and his family was evacuated just prior to
the Russian invasion.

Please note, the Red Army never overrun the main part of Finland.

There are so many Russians, and our country so small, where will we find room to bury them all?” -Anonymous Finnish soldier