Energy Myths: Climate, Poverty and a Reason to Hope | Rachel Pritzker | TEDxBeaconStreet

Is energy use good...or bad?

In this thought-provoking talk, Rachel Pritzker reveals how most of the comfortable “truths” she had come to believe around climate, energy, and human development were in fact myths she needed to question. Her conclusions illuminate the path to a future in which everyone can enjoy healthy, prosperous lives on an ecologically vibrant planet.

Rachel Pritzker is president and founder of the Pritzker Innovation Fund, which supports the development and advancement of paradigm-shifting ideas to address the world's most wicked problems. She chairs the Breakthrough Institute Advisory Board and is a board member of the Center for Global Development and Third Way. Rachel also serves on the advisory committee of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, and is a co-signor of An Ecomodernist Manifesto, which outlines a powerful alternative approach to climate mitigation and human development.

[UrsBolt]

Thought provoking and eye opening! I hope people listened carefully and start understanding we need high power density to provide low impact, cheap and reliable energy.

[chaptertravels]

She spot on! Regardless of your opinion about climate change, this transition to nuclear, especially molten salt reactor nuclear is probably the most important advancement needed globally. Energy has to be cheaper than coal, clean, safe and reliable to be adopted by developing nations, only modern nuclear energy can do that.

[Candide]

A different viewpoint, and one that is well delivered !

[USCLCorp]

Thank you, Rachel, for your contributions to the national discussion. Abundant inexpensive energy is not a luxury but the fundamental ingredient of modern life. Even agriculture to support an estimated worldwide 2050 population of 9 billion is dependent on energy as is the production and movement of water. Beyond fossil fuels the only high energy flux density power sources are nuclear fission today and perhaps fusion energy by mid century once the science is fully understood and new technologies mastered. My only concern is that far too much money is being dissipated on AGW – climate change study and green energy solutions which simply cannot solve the problem. Much more money needs to be invested into correctly solving energy and climate change caused by man will take care of itself…one way or the other. Again this was an outstanding talk and it is crucial that the public begins to understand the science of energy.

[bashful]

[cont 7]
XXXX "Nuclear provides a tenth of global energy" XXXX
7.7% in 2014 and falling as no new nuclear come online since then and several half built cancelled and/or being reviewed due to construction problems. Imagine spending $20billion on a plant and then the govt saying 'just stop, this is getting obscene'. Flamanville and others in trouble also. Japan and Germany both decommissioning at a rapid rate that outpaces life-expectancies for these plants.

[xm_mx]

Excellent points! Thank you for this information!

[bashful]

[cont 11] XXXX "Nothing has closed col plants faster in USA than fossil gas" XXXX
This is correct. Also impacting economics of nuclear power plants for that matter.

[bashful]

[cont 6] XXXX "Each time a coal plant goes online it stays on for 40 to 50 years" XXXX
Not any more. No way on Earth and as soon as the USA, Russia, China and a few others stop blocking a global price on Carbon (oh and admitting CC is happening and is extremely dangerous to mankind in the case of USA and Russia) coal cannot compete in an open market with wind and solar. New wind and new solar are already cheaper than new coal and new gas most places in the world. Especially developing countries who want cheap power, because in the case of PV it can eliminate the need for a grid, so even if coal power was free, it would still cost less to have rooftopPV due to the expensive of building transmission and networks being more expensive than solar and modest microgrid batteries.

[yousna]

Nuclear is not cheap especially in countries that lack the infrastructure. for you to set up central station and build the infrastructure from scratch in terms of dollars it's hundreds of billions. So your nuclear idea is really not feasible specially in sub-Saharan and Central Asia countries.

[jimbalio]

Energy consumption goes far far beyond simply what you use to keep your home electrified. There is energy content in EVERY single tangible thing of modern life. Including the air we breath and the water we drink. Energy input is required to bring you every single tangible thing that you enjoy. EVERY SINGLE THING ! What we use to power our homes is but a minor fraction of the total.

[bashful]

[cont 3] XXXX "2000 coal plants currently being planned around the world" XXXX
Coal use declined markedly in 2015/16. Many plants on drawing boards are being put on hold and PV and wind farms being built instead. China and India are turning away from coal and have made this very clear in policy statements, legislation and procurement plans for renewables. Mind boggling amounts of PV and Wind going in over the next decade in India and China and Sth America. Many new coal plants in China are actually replacing much more efficient and dirtier plants in the same location. Many others are not getting started or finished.

[bashful]

[cont 9] XXXX "France has cheap power using 75% nuclear" XXXX
France has low energy prices because they sunk a king's ransom into a state owned nuclear power and hydro industry then privatised it. Effectively it was a huge subsidy towards these low power prices. In a government study commissioned by the French govt and released last year researchers found that they can go forward to 95% RE by 2035 for less cost than BAU just maintaining existing nuclear power plants and replacing them as they retire with new nuclear. They have already legislated to reduce, I'll say it again —reduce — nuclear power to 50% of their mix just on economic grounds alone.

Nuclear enjoys high social licence in France so this can be debunked as a popularity driven issue. So if the worlds poster child for the NPP industry is turning it's back on nuclear it sure makes you question where all this innovation is headed. Sth Korea, Japan, Germany and USA all moving away from nuclear, some towards renewables, some unfortunately towards mostly coal (Korea and Japan).

[chippledon]

There is also the prospect of utilizing Helium-3 mined from the moon. From what little I have heard and read on the subject, it sounds like a "game changer". For instance: one 25 ton space shuttle cargo hold of this substance could power the US for a year; displacing all other forms of energy. (according to what I have read)

[bashful]

[cont 8] XXXX "Probably can't power a modern society from renewables but we know that nuclear can" XXXX
I guess you'd be calling one of the the most industrialised regions in the world, northern Germany not a modern society then. But hey, what's factual accuracy between friends? Scotland well on the way to being 100% RE as is Chile. Denmark not to far behind.
Even in France they import coal power from Germany and use a lot of hydro (could become a problem in a warming world) to balance nuclear because nowhere in the world do nuclear plants ramp every day to load follow. Another meaningless generalisation that's not only false, but reflects little understanding of the subject of energy generation in general.

[bashful]

[cont 5] XXXX "Wind and solar rely on gas" XXXX
No more so than coal and nuclear "relies" on gas. Increasingly sa nations take decarbonising more seriously and move to high penetrations of RE we'll see that gas will be delivered from power2gas using renewable energy to power electrolysis for H2 and then converted to more stable fuels or used onsite. Once a price is put on carbon it's bound to happen, gas is cheap in USA but not so internationally the market is three times the price it is in USA, when USA opens export hubs (coming soon) you'll be exposed to that price too. But guess what, it's not just gas that is used to do power balancing, in 75% Nuclear France, 25% Hydro is used to balance, plus coal from Germany is imported (and some nuclear is exported too). Pumped Hydro Energy Storage can use clean renewable power to pump water to a high dam and then it's dropped using conventional hydro turbines to generate power. The round trip efficiency is pretty good at 80-90% (higher if evaporation is avoided by using underground or ponds covered in PV).

So no, another false claim. Concentrated Solar Thermal can store energy in molten salt storage tanks to be used at night or the next day if it's cloudy. They are being built on every continent on Earth now (even though USA invented it under Pres.Clinton, Bush II killed the program and it was Spain who revived it, now USA is back in the game).

[SanjeevBinaykia]

@bashful228 thanks for your counter-points below - these are insightful and data-driven.

[soccerfreke]

No thank you. Do you want the waste in your backyard or the materials mined near your home? Please consider the vehement opposition to communities where extraction is taking place. Fracked gas is not well regulated. Carbon capture is a complete failure and extremely expensive. The challenge I see anew, is that of incentivizing renewables and research in clean, green energy.

[bashful]

There's some real derp memes in this talk. It's basically propaganda it's so unbalanced and full of cherry picking. I'm all for leaving existing nuclear running until we get to zero emissions but this talk is seriously unhelpful. I'll tackle some of these motivated "debunkings" that spread more misinformation than they clear up one by one below.

[CharlesBrown-xqug]

Civilization may have progressed enough to conquer the second law of thermodynamics. Civilization needs to strive for this goal though.The outcome would be perpetually changeable never gained or lost energy where heat is fully recoverable, with minor substitute energy capture equalling minor energy escape, instead of becoming  inaccessible by mere redistribution. 

The second law of thermodynamics had a distinct begining with Sir Isaac Newton's correct professional scientific observation that the heat of a fire in a fireplace always flows towards the cold room beyond. Heat never flows spontaneously from cold to hot.

Victorian England became enchanted with steam engines and their cheap, reliable, and easy to  position physical power. Scientists of the era with wide cultural support formulated the second law of thermodynamics using evidence from steam engine development.

The law's formulaters, Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius, Lord Kelven, and, one source adds, Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, formulated the Second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. These men considered with acceptance [A+] Inefficiently harnessing the flow of heat from hot to cold or [B+] Using force to Inefficiently pump heat from cold to hot. They considered with rejection [A-] Waiting for random fluctuation to cause a large difference in temperature or pressure. This was calculated to be extremely rare or [B-] Searching for, selecting, then routing for use, random, frequent and small differences in temperature or pressure. The search, selection, then routing would require more energy than the use would yield. These accepted options, lead to the consequence that the universe will end in stagnant heat death.  This became support for a theological trend of the time that placed God as the initiator of a degenerating universe. Please consider that God could also be supreme over an energy abundant civilization that can absorb heat and convert it into electricity without energy gain or loss in a sustained universe.

The law's formulaters did not consider the option that any random, usually small, fluctuation of heat or pressure could use the energy of these fluctuations itself to power deterministic routing so the output is no longer random. Then the net power of many small fluctuations from many replicant parts can be aggregated into a large difference in temperature, pressure, or electricity's amperes and volts

Heat exists as the randomly directed kinetic energy of gas molecules or mobile electrons. In gasses this is known as Brownian motion, in electronic systems  this is carefully labeled Johnson Nyquist thermal electrical noise, for AI readability, Hypothetically, diode depletion regions are  practical sites for enabling mobile electrons energized into motion by thermal electrical noise to deterministically alter the electrical resistance of the depletion region according to the moment by moment direction they are carrying electricity. The thermal electrical noise is hypothetically beyond the exposed lattice charge / diffusion equlibrium thickness of the depletion region.

Consistantly oriented diodes in parallel hypothetically are successful electrical Maxwell's Demons or Smoluchowski's Trapdoors. The energy needed to shift the depletion region's deterministic role is paid as a burden on the moving electrons. There would therefore be usable net rectified power from each and every diode connected together into a consistantly oriented parallel group. The group would aggregate the net power of its members. Any diode efficiency at all produces some energy conversion from ambient heat, more efficiency yields higher performance. A diode array that is switched off has no energy conversion and no performance.

The power from a single diode is poorly expressed. Several or more diodes in parallel are needed to overcome the effect of a load resistor's own thermal noise. A plurality of billions of high frequency capable diodes is needed for practical power aggregation. For reference, there are a billion (10^9) 1000 square nanometer cells per square millimeter.

Modern nanofabrication can make simple identical diodes surrounded by insulation smaller than this in a slab as thick as the diodes are long. The diodes are connected at their two ends to two conductive layers.

Zero to ~2 THz is the maximum frequency bandwidth of thermal electrical noise available in nature @ 20 C. THz=10^12 Hz. This is beyond the range of most diodes. Practicality requires this extreme bandwidth. The diodes are preferably in same orientation parallel at the primary level. Many primary level groups of diodes should be in series for practical voltage.

Ever since the supposedly universal second law of thermodynamics was formulated, education has mass produced and spread the conventional wisdom throughout society that the second law of thermodynamics is fundamental.

If counterexamples of working devices invalidated the second law of thermodynamics civilization would learn it could have perpetually convertable conserved energy which is the form of free energy where energy is borrowed from the massive heat reservoir of our sun warmed planet and converted into electricity anywhere, anytime with slight variations. Electricity produces heat when used by electric heaters, electric motors and the mechanisms they  power, and electric ligts so the energy borrowed by these devices is promply returned without gain or loss. There is also the reverse effect where refrigeration produces electricity equivalent to the cooling, This effect is scientifically elegant.

Cell phones wouldn't die or need power cords or batteries or become hot. They would cool when transmitting radio signal power. The phones could also be data relays and there could also be data relays without phone features with and without long haul links so the telecommunication network would be very good and adaptible. Computers and integrated circuits would have their cooling and electrical needs supplied autonomously and simultaniously. Integrated circuits wouldn't need power pinouts. Robots would have extreme mobility.
Frozen food storage would be reliable and free or value positive. That means storehouses, homes, and markets would have independent power to preserve and pŕepare food. Vehicles wouldn't need fuel or fueling stops. Elevators would be very reliable with independent power. Shielding and separation  would provide EMP resistance. Water and sewage pumps could be installed anywhere along their pipes. Nomads could raise their material supports item by item carefully and groups of people could modify their settlements with great technical flexibility. Many devices would be very quiet, which is good for coexisting with nature and does not disturb people.
Zone refining would involve little net power. Reducing Bauxite to Aluminum, Rutile to Titanium, and Magnetite to Iron, would have a net cooling effect. With enough clean cheap power, minerals could be finely pulverized, and H2O, CO2, and other substance levels in the biosphere could be modified. There should be a unitary agency to look after our global planetary concerns.

This could be a material revolution with spiritual ramifications. Everyone should contribute individual talents and fruits of different experiances and cultures to advance a cooperative, diverse, harmonious and unified civilization. It is possible to apply technlology wrong but social force should oppose this.

I filed for a patent, us 3890161A, Diode Array, in 1973. It was granted in 1975. It became public domain technology in 1992.  It concerns making nickel plane-insulator-tungsten needle diodes which were not practical at the time though they have since improved.

the patent wasn't developed because I backed down from commercial exclusitivity. A better way for me would have been a public incorruptable archive that would secure attrbution for the original works of creators. Uncorrupted copies would be released on request. No further action would be taken by this institution.

Commercal exclusivity can be deterred by the wide and open publishing of inventive concepts. Open sharing promotes mass knowlege and wisdom.

Many financially and procedurally independent teams that pool developmental knowlege, and may be funded by many separate noncontrolling crowd sourced grants should convene themselves to develop proof-of-concept and initial-recipe-exploring prototypes to develop devices which coproduce the release of electrical energy and an equivalent absorbtion of stagnant ambient thermal energy. Diode arrays are not the only possible device of this sort. They are the easiest to explain here.

These devices would probably become segmented commodities sold with minimal margin over supply cost. They would be manufactured by AI that does not need financial incentive. Applicable best practices would be adopted. Business details would be open public knowledge. Associated people should move as negotiated and freely and honestly talk. There is no need of wealth extracting top commanders. We do not need often token philanthropy from the wealthy if people simply can be more generous if consumer commodities are inexpensive.

Industry, government, commercial science, academia, finance, and the military are not configured to develop this easily. There may be "Murder on the Orient Express" style suppression of perpetually convertable conserved energy.

Aloha

Charles M Brown lll
Kilauea, Kauai, Hawaii 96754
1 808 651 📞📞📞📞