Energy Currency

 People recently started investing in crypto currency around the world. The idea surrounds very complex tokens that are generated by complex algorithms. These tokens can be transmitted electronically and traced very easily. But what is the true value of something that essentially is a padlock. Not much unless we all agree on it's value.

But philosophy aside, what people started doing was buying high end PCs and higher end gaming graphics cards that could compute the algorithms much more quickly. The problem is the quicker people generated crypto currency, the more electricity these powerful computers consumed. Naturally then it became an optimization curve then to match energy consumption (in the area the computer was running) with crypto currency generated. Obviously it's a worthless endeavor if the costs of production are higher than the market value.

Then people started realizing they could use solar energy and battery banks to generate crypto currency. This brings us to our topic of this post. What if we skipped all the fancy crypto currency talk and removed it from the equation? What we have left is energy consumed and some sort of currency produced. Or what if the energy was the currency and it was just a matter of capturing it?

Now we're getting closer to a currency that really doesn't have a lot of transmission and transportation constraints because everybody has access to the sun and wind and it's just a matter of going to a person that has a surplus and is willing to sell some. And if you are somebody living in the middle of nowhere... chances are you don't consume more energy than you'd be able to produce from the wind and sun and storage.

OK so what is the value of one of these energy currency units you ask? Well maybe you didn't because I haven't set up the argument very well.

Consider that Lithium ion batteries are probably our most efficient way to store energy and the amount of energy that can be stored per weight of material is close to the theoretical limit. With current means of mass production we are just about at 1 kWh of battery capacity for $100. This battery will last let's say 2 years at daily 100% charge cycling. If charging this battery is free each time because of renewable resources, it means the cost of storage is the only expense which for a complete cycle computes to about 14 cents.

So what we could say is that the universal unit of energy currency is the kWh and 1 kWh is worth... let's round down to 10 cents (assuming batteries become a bit cheaper and last a little longer). To put that in perspective that is enough energy to turn 10 gallons of water 40 degrees hotter. Basically a dime would get you a hot shower if you had the water in a bucket.

The only flaw in this model is that unlike 10 cents, you really can't carry a kWh of energy in your pocket (you could carry it in backpack battery perhaps). But even if you could it wouldn't be worth toting it around. But maybe the middle ground is that you could reasonably carry around 100 Watts of solar panels, and if you were stationary and in the sun, it would passively generate a kWh of energy.

So the flaw in the energy currency model assumes a sedentary lifestyle and not nomadic.

Solar Panel Electricity Price Threshold

OK so in the news this week Portugal announced they could build a solar farm for some municipality at a cost of 1.3 cents (USD) per kWh to operate (Reuters). This is a huge nail in the coffin for nuclear and coal and natural gas.

Most of us in the US pay around 5 to 10 cents per kWh depending on the time of day. lot's of moving parts and regulations weigh down most energy companies. But solar is solid state technology (for the most part).

Now there is still the drawback of the land use, but what this suggests here is that as long as the manufacturing process and source materials are abundant and stay at their current cost. solar is beginning to be the lowest costing choice between all of the ways to generate electricity.

This doesn't take into account storage. These panels proposed in Portugal would undoubtedly be part of a larger grid including standard backup generators. However even if the cost of storage was factored it at utility scale it would still come to about 3 or 4 cents per kWh.

Presently I can get a solar array that can produce 4 kWs of electricity for about $5,200. A lithium ion battery pack that is 30 kWhs in capacity will cost about $15000. If I stretch that out across 20 years (life of the battery pack), then it comes to just under 10 cents per kWh. So the benefits of having something grid scale is that everybody shares the cost and the scale is large enough to get the price down to more like 3 cents.

The point is... what are we waiting for? Solar is the easiest way to produce consumer electricity. Now it's also the cheapest. The only think I could think of is the safety of battery storage. but other than that... anybody could run with this business model today.

Overpopulation: If All The World Lived In The Contiguous US

 If all the world lived in the lower 48 states of the United States, everyone on earth would have 11,569 square feet of property (assuming there are 7.5 billion of us). That is a piece of property that is 107.5 feet long and 107.5 wide.

Let's say you build a house on this property for yourself that is 30' by 30'. Let's say you also have a solar array that is 30' by 30'. Additionally the roof of the house could be covered in solar panels. 10 meters by 10 meters of solar panels is enough to produce 100 kW of electricity in direct sun. times two if the roof is covered, that is 200 kW during the day and assuming 5 hours of peak performance... that is 100 kWh of electricity (way more than one person could use heating, showering, cooking, and washing clothes). That would take up 1,800 square feet. That leaves 9,769 square feet left to grow food.

What are we spelling out here? This is a formula for overpopulation if all the farm-able land in the world was the size of the contiguous US. In this calculation we will assume that everybody can live off eating algae (yes as if we were all fish).

A 275 gallon water container is 4' by 4' by 4'. In other words it takes up 16 square feet of surface area. Each of these tanks can produce 50 grams of dry algae every 2 weeks in perfect weather.

If a normal person eats a pound of dry food a meal, then it would take 15 of these tanks to feed a person for one day (3 meals). 15 of these tanks would take up 240 square feet of the remaining 9,769 square feet on this piece of property. We would need 14 days of these tanks to allow this to be a non-stop cycle of food growing so a person could eat continuously. 240 square feet, times 14, equals 3,360. 

What this means is that there would be enough property left over from feeding one person to grow enough algae, for just under two more people to eat continuously. What this means is that there's enough room on this 107' x 107' piece of property to feed a person perpetually and then enough for that person to export food and turn a profit.

This is not an exercise in isolationist self-sustainable thinking. Rather this is to highlight, it's not that earth is running out of space for all the people in it. It's that we're not using the resources correctly. We don't need to be building walls to protect our resources and way of life. We need to use the resources better (and we need God to show us how to do that).

Now you might argue there's no room for roads and infrastructure. But 11,569 square feet is enough to put in a well and small septic system for one person. If travel is necessary... an electric quadcopter drone should be capable of carrying a person and goods/materials.