alt.energy.renewable

On Jul 25, 11:47 pm, " . Allen" wrote:
> ...@ wrote:
> > Renewable does not mean green (says Inderscience's International
> > Journal of Nuclear Governance). That is the claim of Jesse Ausubel of
> > the Rockefeller University in New York.
>
> > /news/
>
> > Writing in Inderscience's International Journal of Nuclear Governance,
> > Economy and Ecology, Ausubel explains that building enough wind farms,
> > damming enough rivers, and growing enough biomass to meet global
> > energy demands will wreck the environment.
>
> I notice he says nothing about coal, probably because it would destroy
> his argument -- when you factor in mining, coal uses as much or more
> land per MWe than wind or solar. If 50% of our electricity can come from
> coal without "wreck[ing] the environment" (his use of "will" implies he
> believes it isn't already wrecked by coal), then why can't it come from
> wind or PV instead? He also neglects that the land used for wind farms
> is not destroyed, and there's no reason that the land cannot be used for
> a wind farm and something else (agriculture is common) simultaneously.
> With that taken into account, the amount of land actually dedicated to
> wind per MWe can be less than for nuclear.
>
> In the end, it's just a FUD piece that attempts to promote nuclear power
> by attacking alternatives instead of actually promoting nukes. For that
> matter, it is not even a particularly strong attack....

And of course, like many spruikers, he doesn't offer up his
assumptiuons for review. For example he says:

|||
Biomass energy is also horribly inefficient and destructive of nature.
To power a large proportion of the USA, vast areas would need to be
shaved or harvested annually. To obtain the same electricity from
biomass as from a single nuclear power plant would require 2500 square
kilometers of prime Iowa land. "Increased use of biomass fuel in any
form is criminal," remarks Ausubel. "Humans must spare land for
nature. Every automobile would require a pasture of 1-2 hectares."
|||

This is utterly silly. To begin with, the best sources of biomass
require no arable land at all. Sullage, food waste, and orther organic
waste from every place humans live in number, currently going into
landfill are very important potential feedstocks. Then there is the
possibility of using large areas of industrial wasteland or semi-arad
desert, or watercourses fed by ag residues to grow algae (which has a
heating value similar to low grade coal). Moreover, waste biomass from
forest floors currently being backburned to reduce fire hazard could
be harvested.

And even dedicated crops would be perfectly reasonable to use provided
organic methods were followed.

This biographical note may be telling:

"Since 1994 Mr. Ausubel has served concurrently as a Program Director
for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation." Apparently, unlike his fellow
Sloanster, climate change gadfly Richard Lindzen, he's actually on the
record as supporting AGW, but obviously, for him, the common thread is
the fossil energy lobby.

Fran