Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

The first commercial CSP installation from SES will be installed on 4,500 acres (four square miles) in the Mojave Desert near Victorville, California, feeding electricity to Los Angeles. Construction will begin in 2007 and is scheduled for completion by 2012. If successful, 20,000 dishes will be producing an average of 150 megawatts of energy for Los Angeles.

You may have read claims in the press that this installation will be producing 500 megawatts by 2012, but that is only during peak output. The Stirling solar dish operates at 30% efficiency ² (averaging 150 MW). This first installation should be enough to supply an average of 75,000 homes with electricity if successfully completed. ³

Is a mere 150 MW by 2012 going to displace much, or any, of the natural gas currently consumed to produce electricity for Los Angeles? Hardly. The state of California consumes nearly 60,000 MW of energy during peak demand and that number grows exponentially every year. ⁴ California has an aggressive plan in place attempting to produce 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2010 and 33% by 2020.⁵

Whether this goal is achievable in terms of real energy or only on paper remains to be seen. The state of California may be talking in terms of peak output, not average output; the same misrepresentation SES is committing in their press releases.

But what is certain is that renewable projects in the Southwest - and throughout the country - are designed to keep up with increased demand as opposed to replacing or phasing out consumption of hydrocarbons. Stirling's website states this explicitly under Why do we need renewable energy? ⁶

To have even a minor impact on Peak Oil and Gas without a Powerdown strategy of massive conservation, there would need to be dozens upon dozens of gigantic CSP installations in America. But that can't happen because CSP technology can only produce massive megawatts in desert conditions where there is plenty of sun and open land to sustain the process.

SES boasts that it would take one CSP installation of 100 square miles to produce all of the electricity consumed in the United States, but that is nothing more than wishful thinking used as a public relations tool. This hypothetical installation - which could never possibly exist - would need to be operating constantly at peak output to produce such massive amounts of energy. Since CSP operates at 30% efficiency, this imaginary project could only be counted on for 30% of America's electricity production.

What would such a mammoth installation do to the ecosystem of whatever desert it was installed upon? How would you transport energy from the desert throughout the entire U.S.? The longer the transmission lines transporting the energy, the more energy lost in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. So there goes CSP's 30% efficiency down the tubes.

Whether or not CSP technology will make a significant dent in the energy market is questionable, but the limitations of this technology make it impossible to mitigate the coming energy crisis of Peak Oil even when considered in conjunction with the largest renewable energy source available today, wind turbines.⁷ **CSP may offer a "benefit" to the Southwest since there is plenty of arid desert land, but if we consider the growing problems this area already has with available fresh water supplies CSP may be a Trojan horse!

Should we continue to supplement over-consumption and exponential growth in a region that is destined for water wars with neighbors? Increasing available energy in the Southwest will bring economic growth, which inevitably intensifies stress on fresh water supplies that are already being utilized at unsustainable rates. Population continues to rise in this region due to over-zealous real estate investors interested solely in the bottom line.

Rising Commodity Costs

It took between 4,920 and 6,000 lbs of aluminum to produce the six dishes currently operating at Sandia National Labs in addition to many other essential commodities. To install 20,000 dishes in the Mojave Desert by 2012, 8,500 to 10,000 tons of aluminum will be needed.⁸ Aluminum, along with many other commodities, has continued to rise in price despite a few short-term losses caused from big money moves by hedge funds.⁹

Gold isn't the only metal skyrocketing in value.

Deutsche Bank's chief metals economist, Peter Richardson, recently stated that zinc and aluminum prices are poised to post the largest gains of all the base metals in 2006.¹⁰ China's demand for aluminum continues to soar which has forced them to announce restrictions on their exports of the metal. They have also cut down their aluminum production to save energy that is needed elsewhere in their economy.¹¹

Demand for oil and gas differs from demand for aluminum in that the latter may be replaceable by a different commodity if necessary. This is rarely the case for hydrocarbons. According to Bob Liden, Vice President and General Manager of SES, the company is looking into using a synthetic polymer in place of aluminum when their solar dishes are commercially deployed. But they are uncertain if this is a realistic solution to high aluminum prices. Synthetic materials are made from oil. This is not a sound solution in a world of rising oil prices.¹²

Those paying attention to Peak Oil have always maintained that it is when demand for hydrocarbons begins to outstrip supply that we will see real problems unfold regardless of when the exact date of Global Peak Oil occurs. There are many real-world factors that can cause oil supply shortages in addition to the geological reality of Peak Oil. An invasion of Iran, Venezuelan disruptions, or another intense hurricane season could do to America what the Soviet Union's collapse did to Cuba.¹³

There is plenty of aluminum in the earth's crust but it is conjoined with many other sediments and minerals making the smelting process extremely energy intensive. Currently there are worries that aluminum smelters will go out of business as they see their profits eroded by high energy costs.14 If this happens demand for aluminum will outstrip the available supply not because the world is running out of aluminum but because we are running out of cheap energy to refine it.

Venezuela has just announced it will not export even one pound of aluminum by 2012.¹⁵ Chavez seems to fully understand what Peak Oil will mean for his country. Building infrastructure to smelt aluminum at home is a form of re-localization for Venezuela and recognition that globalization will die with the coming peak in global hydrocarbon production. Chavez can't be the only world leader to realize this. If other heads of state follow through with similar declarations, global commodity markets will see even higher prices.