The Alternative Energy Matrix

[GliderGuider]

The Oil Drum is hosting a piece by Tom Murphy, an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. The article ranks all the major players that Tom thinks may may provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels this century, according to 10 characteristics. The output is the ranked matrix shown below. His discussion provides the background for the rankings as well as his perspective on how they rank compared to current fossil fuels.

There's lots of room for angry disagreement and fun debate...

[div class="excerpt" style="border:solid 1px #000000"]The Alternative Energy Matrix

[FBaggins]

1. A good at-a-glance summary

Cost should be in there too, of course.

The biggest error is in the scoring. Those categories should not have equal weighting.

[GliderGuider]

2. Tom addresses both your observations in the body of the TOD post.

Economics changes over time, and including it would probably obscure some of the points he's trying to make. It's more properly a follow-on analysis. Adding in weightings would make the rankings even more subjective. IMO this analysis provides a jumping-off point for those debates.

[FBaggins]

4. Addressed? Well yes, I suppose so...

...if you score an admission that it was boneheaded and should not be taken seriously as "addressed".

[GliderGuider]

6. Oh, he's already getting raked over the coals in TOD for various things like that. n/t

[bananas]

3. This century? He left out space based solar power.

The only thing holding it back is launch costs,
Elon Musk thinks he can reduce those by a factor of 100,
which would make it one of the cheapest energy sources.

[GliderGuider]

5. I suppose he doesn't think it's viable. Personally, I'd have left out fusion as well.

And yes, I agree that the timeline of a century makes any prognostication suspect. If he'd shortened it down to 30 years and left out fusion it would be a little easier to buy.

ETA: Somebody's ox always gets gored in exercises like this.

[hunter]

7. I'd connect my backyard fission generator to the electric grid...

... but it'd just make the authorities suspicious and they'd come out and shut it down, and probably send me off to some institution for the criminally insane. So mostly I use it to heat my pool.

Actually I'm trying to make a point here:

The world has plenty of energy; that's not the problem. The problem is we use so much energy for silly reasons. We drive cars to our unnecessary jobs, we build leaky inefficient houses that need heating or cooling, we ship toys and trinkets all over the world, toys and trinkets that don't last and soon become toxic waste, we buy water in plastic bottles and food and drinks in containers we throw away. We reproduce as if the resources of the earth have no limit...

It's all crazy.

[GliderGuider]

8. Agreed. The first issue that will be addressed by everybody as things tighten up is conservation.

Lovins had one thing right - negawatts are the cheapest immediate alternative.

I expect that the boundary between conservation and lifestyle devolution will become more elastic as time goes on too.