Ancient Sunlight, Burnivore, and Oil Companies

People are addicted to burning things, including Ancient Sunlight, to meet their unreasonable energy demand that we've changed from Omnivores in to Burnivores. It's about time we step forward to supply our energy needs in a better way for a better future. But what about all those oil companies that has invested sooooo much in explorations and drilling wells to get oil?

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Sun worshipers (not the ones who makes strange rituals) said that fosil fuels are "ancient sunlight" captured by plants in photosynthesis process, then buried in a certain way and sloooooooooowly changed form in to fosil fuels. Coals, Oil and Gas are like batteries that stored energy from ancient sun.

With a little research, it's easy to see that the process above is highly inefficient. From all of the sun's radiation that get's to the earth's surface, only some are caught by leaves, and the average photosynthesis only manage to process 2% of the energy received by these leafs. And from all of the plants only a small part are buried in the right way, and then only few of these burials gets the right condition (pressure and temperature) to be able to turn them in to Coals or Oil or Gas. And even the process of digging them up has plenty of inefficiency. Then also the combustion engine's has inefficiencies.. and so on, you get the point..
Some gives a rough estimation of 0.0000000000001% (or worse) total efficiency in the whole process of turning ancient sunlight in to usable energy today such as electricity or movement of cars.

Solar power-minded people says let's skip that complicated, long (millions of years), highly inefficient process, and transfer sunlight directly in to electricity!

The average performance of basic Photo-voltaic Solar Panels that are mass produced today has efficiency higher than 10%, that's like way better than burning "ancient sunlight".

Source:

http://www.bodhitree.com/lectures/hartmann.html - The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight

http://www.scienceminusdetails.com/2011/02/why-fire-is-cool-entry-4-ancient-energy.html 

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Another great and informative organisation is Kajul "Energy Guru" (http://www.kajul.org/). They classify two types of energy form, based on their origin:

 - Solar Radiation derived (solar, wind, hydro, bio, all fosil fuels) 

 - non solar radiation derived (nuclear & geothermal) 

In the same website you'll also find an updated classification of living organism: burnivore.

After vegetation, herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore, comes a new type: burnivore.

<quote>

Burnivore: Same as Omnivores; with the difference that the burnivore uses 10 up to 1 million times more energy than its own body is able to use. The Burnivore accesses an energy flow through a process of burning all kinds of Chemical Energy (Wood, Coal, Oil, Gas) to release Heat Energy and sometimes a tiny bit of Light. Heat is used to cook food to make it easier to digest; and to expand air or gas to create kinetic energy to propel a bike, car, truck, boat, airplane or rocket forward to transport either itself or goods which it thinks are needed to improve its quality of life. <unquote>

Since their knowledge of burning things is very advanced and they're kind of addicted to burning things, (also due to the fact that they've invested so much in burning technology), they tend to chose alternatives to fossil fuels that are not much of a solution but even making more problems such as bio-fuels. It doesn't reduce any emissions, they make it worse by opening forests for plantations, not even to mention the food supply problem because farmers want to make biofuels.

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So does it means that the Oil Companies should close their offices and stop drilling wells now? 

The answer is "NO"!

There's still a lot of need for oil and gas.

First of all, the energy change (if it ever happens) will take quite some transitional time. Imagine all of that combustion engine cars will slowly be changed in to electric cars. 

Then, even if all the power plants and cars are not using fossil fuels anymore, we will still need oil and gas: in limited amount as fuel for some specific tools, and limitless in the petrochemical industry as the base material needed to make many kinds of compounds such as polycarbons, plastics, paraffin, asphalt, wax, etc, that makes important parts of most of modern product we need today like tools, vehicles, cosmetics etc.

(look it up in google: "Oil is too Valuable to Burn" )

Cheers,
WHY

Hotels Construction Map - Updated - SCARRY!!

Updated version of the previously posted map...
It doesnt get any slower, or not even stagnant, it keeps on accelerating!!

SCARRY!!!

In the end of 2011, 66 (Double Six) Club and Bungy Jumping was closed, and the whole thing was demolished, to be a site for (yet another) new hotel by the beach -lets just hope it wont be too much of an eye-sorer-, and the IMB (Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan or Permit to Build) number is 1188/2011.
Which means the Mayor of Badung Distric has issued (at least) 1188 permits last year!!
WOW!!! SCARRY!!!

Any comments are very welcome..

Legian & Kuta's Hotel Frenzy!

Just made a map of BIG hotels being built and recently built in Legian - Kuta Area.
I was aware that there is a lot of construction work going on.. but after seeing it on a map, it still gives me the shivers...

What do you think?

Scary numbers about Coal-fired power plants

There's a plan on building a 200MW coal-fired power plant in Bali to meet the required energy demand of the fast development of Bali. But do they really understand what consequences the plan will bring?


Below are some scary numbers about coal-fired power plants, based on a typical 200MW coal-fired power plant.

Air Pollution
Burning coal is a leading cause of smog, acid rain, global warming, and air toxics. In an average year, a typical coal plant generates:

·         1,480,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming--as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 64 million trees.

·         4,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain that damages forests, lakes, and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs.

·         200 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death, as well as haze obstructing visibility.

·         4,080 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), as much as would be emitted by 200,000 late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue making people more susceptible to respiratory illness.

·         288 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.

·         88 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone.

·         68 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.

·         90 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion.

·         45 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium.

Solid waste

Waste created by a typical 200-megawatt coal plant includes more than 50,000 tons of ash and 77,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber each year. Typically more than 75% of this waste is disposed of in unlined, unmonitored onsite landfills and surface impoundments.

Toxic substances in the waste -- including arsenic, mercury, chromium, and cadmium -- can contaminate drinking water supplies and damage vital human organs and the nervous system. One study found that one out of every 100 children who drink groundwater contaminated with arsenic from coal power plant wastes were at risk of developing cancer. Ecosystems too have been damaged -- sometimes severely or permanently -- by the disposal of coal plant waste.

Cooling water discharge

Once the 880 million gallons of water have cycled through the coal- fired power plant, they are released back into the lake, river, or ocean. This water is hotter (by up to 20-25° F) than the water that receives it. This "thermal pollution" can decrease fertility and increase heart rates in fish. Typically, power plants also add chlorine or other toxic chemicals to their cooling water to decrease algae growth. These chemicals are also discharged back into the environment.

Waste heat

Much of the heat produced from burning coal is wasted. A typical coal power plant uses only 33-35% of the coal's heat to produce electricity. The majority of the heat is released into the atmosphere or absorbed by the cooling water.

Coal mining

Coal is mostly stripped from the earth in surface mines; the rest comes from underground mines. Surface coal mining may dramatically alter the landscape. Coal companies often remove entire mountain tops to expose the coal below. The wastes are generally dumped in valleys and streams.

Underground mining is one of the most hazardous of occupations, killing and injuring many in accidents, and causing chronic health problems.

Coal transportation

Transportation of this quantity of fuel, requires ships that generate their own carbon emissions.

Coal storage

Coal burned by power plants is typically stored onsite in uncovered piles. Dust blown from coal piles irritates the lungs and often settles on nearby houses and yards. Rainfall creates runoff from coal piles. This runoff contains pollutants that can contaminate land and water.

  

Water Issues

A 200-megawatt coal-fired power plant draws about 0.88 billion gallons of water each year from nearby water bodies, such as lakes, rivers, or oceans, to create steam for turning its turbines. This is enough water to support a city of approximately 100,000 people.

When this water is drawn into the power plant, 8.4 million fish eggs, fish larvae, and juvenile fish may also come along with it -- and that's the average for a single species in just one year. In addition, EPA estimates that up to 0.6 million adult fish a year may become trapped against the intake structures. Many of these fish are injured or die in the process.

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Source: Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org)

-> Based on a 200 MW Coal Fired Plant (adapted from numbers for a 500 MW US plant, divided by 2,5)

The Balance of man, God, and nature, a.k.a Tri Hita Karana

If we want to talk about Tri Hita Karana or the balance between man, God, and nature, we must see that today Bali is well un-balanced. The development has been way faster than anytime in the history. It has created a gap between energy demand and supply which gets bigger each day. Development is good for the economy, but it's a risk for the environment. 

Energy crisis in Bali is not a myth. If Bali wants to be energy-independent, than there should be a power plant built in Bali. The latest options are either the geothermal plant or a coal plant. To get a balance between what we need and what nature has to offer, we need to choose with care and wisely.

To choose between the two is not a hard job, geothermal is by far less expensive in term of "environmental cost". All that it needs is opening some forest once (which can be replanted) then it harvest the "free" and sustainable energy in a very clean way. Compared to the coal plant that don't need to open up any forest, but will produce tons of ash, scum and CO2 all year long during it's life-time. And the effected is not only it's surrounding area, the whole Bali will have a degraded air quality, as well as globally with all the CO2 that's dumped in to the atmosphere.
Coal plant is not only a bad match for Bali's culture, but also against the UN agreement, and Bali's plan to be the first green province in Indonesia.

If i have a voice in it, as an independent person, i would for sure go for geothermal.


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This article has been slightly modified from a comment that i just posted on a news post that is rather old in:

http://baliholidayinfo.com/es/content/geothermal-projects-dont-match-balinese-culture