5 Ibid.
6 The Florida Light and Power website provided the information about SEGS. See www.fplenergy.com/portfolio/contents/segs_viii.shtml.
7 DOE EIA Electric Power Annual, with data for 2006, 22 October 2007. www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/figes1.html.
8 www.solarbuzz.com/StatsMarketshare.htm.
9 Assumptions: Efficiency of solar collectors = 10%; 1 acre = 43,560 sq. ft.; 1 sq. mile = 640 acres; 1 sq. km = 0.3861 sq mile.
10 Lewis, N. S., Global Energy Perspective, California Institute of Technology Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering PowerPoint presentation http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html.
11 Solar Cooker International, Sacramento, CA. See http://solarcookers.org/basics/how.html.
12 Chazan, Guy, “Smaller, Smarter for Remote Areas of Poor Countries, Getting Electricity Doesn’t Have to Mean Extending the Grid: There May Be a Simpler Way,” Wall Street Journal, 11 February 2008, R10.
13 www.epsea.org/pv.html.
14 www.solar2006.org/presentations/tech_sessions/t25-m199.pdf.
15 Hankins, Mark, “A Case Study on Private Provision of Photovoltaic Systems in Kenya,” The World Bank. www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/esmap/energy_report2000/ch11.pdf.
16 World Mapper Website, “Households By Nation.” www.worldmapper.org/. Accessed 3 January 2010.
17 Chazan, “Smaller, Smarter for Remote Areas of Poor Countries,” 2008.
18 www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/hsc_pressreleases/photogallery/spect ro010827/01pr_01494_hirez.jpg.
19 www.solarbuzz.com/SolarPrices.htm.
20 Price to consumers comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State,” with data for December 2007, 13 March 2008. www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html.
21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojave_Desert.
22 Anonymous, “Editorial Wasting and Wanting at the Pentagon,” New York Times, 2 April 2008.
23 Bilmes, Linda J. and Joseph E. Stiglitz, “The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More,” Washington Post, 2 April 2008, B01.
24 Lenardic, Denis, “Photovoltaic Economics,” 2008. www.pvresources.com/en/economics.php.
25 Anonymous, 2006–2007 Annual Report on the Development of Global Solar Energy Industry, 03 June 2007. www.chinaccm.com. Accessed 1 March 2007.
Also see www.chinaccm.com/4S/4S04/4S0401/news/20070301/161316.asp.
26 www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-034-DFRC.html.
Chapter 8
1 Geoghegan, John, “Long Ocean Voyage Set for Vessel That Runs on Wave Power,” New York Times, 11 March 2008.
2 www.tsuneishi.co.jp/english/horie/about.html.
3 Electric Power Research Institute, “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.” www.nrel.gov/otec/what.html. Accessed 10 February 2008.
4 World Energy Council, “Survey of Energy Resources 2007: Harnessing the Energy in the Tides.” www.oceanpowertechnologies.com/res.htm.
5 Clark, Pete, Rebecca Klossner, and Lauren Kologe. CAUSE 2003 final project. www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/canutepresentation.pdf. Accessed 9 February 2008. (Quality of information is unknown.)
6 www.tidalelectric.com/History.htm. Accessed 9 February 2008.
7 Jackson, T., and R. Lofstedt, Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Study on Energy and the Environment. www.rcep.org.uk/studies/energy/98-6061/jackson.html. Accessed 29 November 2000.
8 Institute of Engineering and Technology, “Tidal Power.” http://search.theiet.org/iet/search?action=IETSearch&q=tidal+power
9 Information about La France tidal power plant comes from Chapter 19 of Botkin, D. B., and E. A. Keller, Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009); and from the websites www.reuk.co.uk/La-Rance-Tidal-Power-Plant.htm and www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/canutepresentation.pdf.
10 Botkin and Keller, Environmental Science, 2009.
11 www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/canutepresentation.pdf.
12 Clery, D., “U.K. Ponders World’s Biggest Tidal Power Scheme,” Science 320 (2008): 1754. This report gives the amount as 17 terawatt-hours of energy per year. See www.sciencemag.org.
13 Ibid.
14 Institute of Engineering and Technology, “Tidal Power.”
15 Timmons, H., “Energy from the Restless Sea,” New York Times, 3 August 2006.
16 “The bioSTREAM is a renewable energy technology designed to convert tidal and marine current energy into useful electricity. The power conversion process and associated device motions are modeled on biological species, such as shark and tuna, that use Thunniform-mode swimming propulsion. By mimicking these creatures, the bioSTREAM benefits from 3.8 billion years of evolutionary hydrodynamic optimization. The inherited biological traits result in a cost effective and reliable renewable energy system.”
17 Timmons, “Energy,” 2006.
18 EPRI, “What Is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion?” www.nrel.gov/otec/what.html; and “Achievements in OTEC Technology,” www.nrel.gov/otec/achievements.html. Accessed 10 February 2008.
19 Ibid.
Chapter 9
1 Photos by Debbie Roos, Agricultural Extension Agent, 1 August 2005. www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/farmphotoaugust0105.html. Co-op member John Bonitz demonstrates how to catch the seeds that shatter during harvest. He is harvesting mustard, one of the many oilseed crops that can be used to create biodiesel fuel.
2 The North Carolina Biodiesel Trade Group was started in 2007 and has its own website. See http://news.biofuels.coop/2008/01/15/north-carolina-biodiesel-trade-group-launched/.
3 ORNL (2008) conversion factors used by the Bioenergy Feedstock Development Programs at ORNL.
4 Jacoby, J., “Sky-High Gas Prices? Not Really,” Boston Globe, 20 May 2004.
5 World Firewood Supply World Energy Council, www.worldenergy.org. Accessed 24 April 2006.
6 Ndayambaje, J. D., “Agroforestry for Wood Energy Production in Rwanda,” Workshop on Alternative Sources of Energy in Rwanda, organized by IRST Centre Iwacu, Kabusunzu, Institut Des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda, Recherche forestière et Agroforestière, May 2005.
7 Biran, Adam, Joanne Abbot, and Ruth Mace, “Families and Firewood: A Comparative Analysis of the Costs and Benefits of Children in Firewood Collection and Use in Two Rural Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Human Ecology 32, no. 1 (2004): 1–25.
8 Zezima, K., “With Oil Prices Rising, Wood Makes a Comeback,” New York Times, 19 February 2008. The number of houses using wood for heating comes from census data provided by the DOE EIA.
9 Tuttle, R., “Wood Fuel Pollution Firewood Cost Prices: A View of Things to Come: Environmental Cost of Burning Wood,” Bloomberg.com, 2007. www.bloomberg.com/news/.
10 U.S. EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Woodstove Changeout Workshop: Nature and Magnitude of the Problem, 8 March 2006.
11 Stix, Gary, “A Climate Repair Manual,” Scientific American 295 (2006): 46–49.
12 “The Warming Challenge,” New York Times editorial, 5 May 2007. The editorial stated, “The new report deals with remedies. It warns that over the course of this century, major investments in new and essentially carbon-free energy sources will be required. But it stresses that we can and must begin to address the problem now, using off-the-shelf technologies to make our cars, buildings, and appliances far more efficient, while investing in alternative fuels, like cellulosic ethanol, that show near-term promise.”
13 Scientific American online, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=jumbo-jet-no-longer-biofuel-virgin-after-palm-oil-flight. Accessed 25 February 2009.
14 www.futurepundit.com/archives/003271.html. Future technological trends and their likely effects on human society, politics, and evolution. (May not be a reliable source of information.)
15 “USDA Biomass Fuels,” www.ers.
usda.gov/Briefing/Bioenergy/. Accessed 18 July 2007.
16 Barta, P., “Biofuel Costs Hurt Effort to Curb Oil Price,” Wall Street Journal, 5 November 2007, A2.
17 Mang, H. P., “Biofuel in China,” Chinese Academy of Agricultural Engineering (CAAE) Center of Energy and Environmental Protection (CEEP) Ministry of Agriculture PowerPoint presentation, 26 March 2007.
18 Gibbon, G. A., “U.S. Energy Sources and Consumption,” www.sc-2.psc.edu/news/USEnergy.ppt. Accessed 10 January 2007.
19 Biomass Gas and Electric Company’s website, www.biggreenenergy.com/Default.aspx?tabid=4314. No information about the status of the Port St. Joe project was available as of 25 August 2009.
20 Saslow, L., “From Restaurant Fryers, a Petroleum Alternative,” New York Times, 4 November 2007.
21 Saulny, Susan, “Greasy Thievery,” New York Times, 30 May 2008.
22 http://masadaonline.com/.
23 The list of species in use, in test, or proposed comes from the following sources:
(1) Ecological Society of America, “Biofuels: More Than Just Ethanol,” ScienceDaily, 6 April 2007. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070405122400.htm. Accessed 29 January 2008.
(2) South Dakota State University, “Prairie Cordgrass for Cellulosic Ethanol Production,” ScienceDaily, 28 June 2007. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627122622.htm. Accessed 29 January 2008.
(3) Rosenthal, E., “With Measure of Caution, Europe Joins Biofuel Gold Rush,” New York Times, 28 May 2007.
24 University of Minnesota, “Fuels Made from Prairie Biomass Reduce Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” Science Daily, 11 December 2006. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061207161136.htm. Accessed 29 January 2008.
25 Etter, L., “With Corn Prices Rising, Pigs Switch to Fatty Snacks on the Menus: Trail Mix, Cheese Curls, Tater Tots; Farmer Jones’s Ethanol Fix,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2007.
26 An important discussion of biofuels and food is found in Pimentel, David (ed.), Biofuels, Solar and Wind Energy as Renewable Energy Systems (Heidelberg / New York: Springer, 2008).
27 Pimentel, David, Alison Marklein, et al., “Food Versus Biofuels: Environmental and Economic Costs,” Human Ecology 37 (2009): 1–12.
28 Tilman, D., J. Hill, and C. Lehman, “Carbon-Negative Biofuels from Low-Input High-Diversity Grassland Biomass,” Science 314 (2006): 1598–1600.
29 Pimentel, D., and T. W. Patzek, “Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower,” Natural Resources Research 14, no. 1 (2005): 65–76.
30 Hill, J., et al., “Environmental, Economic, and Energetic Costs and Benefits of Biodiesel and Ethanol Biofuels,” PNAS 103, no. 30 (2006): 11206–11210.
31 Pimentel and Patzek, “Ethanol Production,” 2005.
32 Energy Information Administration, Renewable Energy Consumption and Preliminary Statistics 2008.
33 Dale, Bruce E., “Thinking Clearly About Biofuels: Ending the Irrelevant ‘Net Energy’ Debate and Developing Better Performance Metrics for Alternative Fuels USA,” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefinin Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 14-17. Published Online 9 August 2007, www.interscience.wiley.com.
34 U.S. Congress, Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (originally named the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007). The Act is titled “An Act to move the United States toward greater energy independence and security; to increase the production of clean renewable fuels; to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles; to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options; and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government, and for other purposes.” Its sponsor is Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (WV-3). The act requires 144 billion liters of ethanol from biofuels produced each year by 2022.
35 Sinclair, Thomas R., “Taking Measure of Biofuels,” American Scientist 97, no. 5 (2009): 400–407.
36 USDA press release, “U.S. Crop Acreage Down Slightly in 2009, but Corn and Soybean Acres Up,” June 2009. www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2009/06_30_2009.asp. In 2009, American farmers planted 321 million acres.
37 The material on phosphate mining comes from Botkin D. B., and E. A. Keller, Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
38 Vaccari, D. A., “Phosphorus: A Looming Crisis,” Scientific American 300, no. 6 (2009): 54–59.
39 Smil, V., “Phosphorus in the Environment: Natural Flows and Human Interference,” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 25 (2000): 53–88.
40 U.S. Geological Survey 2009, http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/mcs-2009-phosp.pdf.
41 Ibid.
42 Pimentel, D., personal communication with the author, 19 August 2009.
43 www.sunecoenergy.com/index.cfm?page=pages&pages_ID=9.
44 Johnson, K., “A New Test for Business and Biofuel,” New York Times, 17 August 2009, A3.
45 Warnick, T. A., and B. A. Methe, et al., “Clostridium Phytofermentans Sp. Nov., a Cellulolytic Mesophile from Forest Soil,” International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 52 (2002): 1155–1160.
46 Dias de Oliveira, M. E., Burton E. Vaughan, and Edward J. Rykiel, Jr., “Ethanol as Fuel: Energy, Carbon Dioxide Balances, and Ecological Footprint,” Bio-Science 55, no. 7 (2005): 593.
47 Boddey, R. M., L. H. de B. Soares, et al., “Bio-Ethanol Production in Brazil: Biofuels, Solar and Wind Energy as Renewable Energy Systems,” in D. Pimentel (ed.) Biofuels, Solar and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems: Benefits and Risks, Heidelburg/New York: Springer: 321–356. These authors state that the net energy return in Brazil from ethanol is 8.8 (8.8 times as much energy is obtained from the resulting fuel than was used to produce it). They note that Pimentel gets a very different value of 1.66. The difference, they state, is due to a great difference in the estimate of the energy to transport fertilizers and chemicals to the cropland and sugar cane to the mills.
48 Dias de Oliveira, Burton, and Rykiel, Jr., “Ethanol as Fuel: Energy,” 2005.
49 IPCC, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, report to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Valencia, Spain, 2007.
50 Kanter, J., “Europe May Ban Imports of Some Biofuel Crops,” New York Times, 15 January 2008.
51 Ibid. (44 million acres is 18 million hectares.)
52 Barta, P., “Biofuel Costs Hurt Effort to Curb Oil Price,” Wall Street Journal, 5 November 2007, A2.
53 Sumner, Daniel A. and Henrich Brunke, The Economic Contributions of the California Rice, 6 May 2006. California Rice Commission at www.calrice.org/c3a_economic_impact.htm.
54 Rosenthal, E., “With Measure of Caution, Europe Joins Biofuel Gold Rush,” New York Times, 28 May 2007.
55 Barber, J., Policy Gap Analysis: Findings & Policy Recommendations for the Biomass Sector, USDA, 2007. The report states, “Biodiesel gets a direct subsidy of $0.50 per gallon, and $1.00 a gallon for “agribiodiesel and renewable diesel.” I interpret this to mean 50¢ per gallon for nonagricultural biodiesel and $1 per gallon for biodiesel produced on farms.
56 Reported as $1.24 per liter, while the cost to produce a liter of gasoline from fossil fuels was 33¢ per liter. McCain, 2003, quoted in Pimentel and Patzek (2005), reports that including the direct subsidies for ethanol plus the subsidies for corn grain, a liter costs 79¢ ($3 per gallon). If the production costs of producing a liter of ethanol were added to the tax subsidies, the total cost for a liter of ethanol would be $1.24. Because of the relatively low energy content of ethanol, 1.6 liters of ethanol have the energy equivalent of 1 liter of gasoline. Thus, the cost of producing ethanol to equal a liter of gasoline is $1.88 ($7.12 per gallon of gasoline), while the current cost of producing a liter of gasoline is 33¢ (USBC, 2003).
Powering the Future: A Scientist's Guide to Energy Independence Page 34