(00:00:00) all of the problems come down to the question of the availability of energy now, why do I say that resources are of two general kinds matter Metals For example phosphate so on and energy Now the point I want to make is very simple all matter is renewable. You cannot use it up. There is no way of using up the copper with just on the Earth's surface. No way at all because in order to destroy literally the atoms of copper. Well, I suppose it could be done we could wrap it all up in a big nuclear bomb and Let It Go in other words. The only way that you can really get rid of matter is to convert it into energy that is a difficult problem. Although we seem to have solved it but I think what I'm trying to get across is that in the ordinary course of events, you don't use up copper what (00:01:00) happens to it is that it gets scattered bits and pieces (00:01:05) everywhere iron turns to rust and scatters around now, there's a fundamental law of physics, which says that you can always regather that which is scattered providing the You use energy to do it. You can fling a deck of cards around the room and you can always get it back if you're willing to pick them up and the same thing is true of a metal as evidence that we do it think of gold. I think the figure is that something (00:01:35) like 80 to 90% of all the gold that has ever been (00:01:39) mined on the earth's surface is in lumps available to people who want it in other words. Nobody wastes gold. It's too expensive. No one wastes silver very much. The silver on your photographic film is recovered by chemical processes were never people can get their hands on it. It takes energy, but you can then end up with a little lump of silver. So what I'm doing here, very simply is this I'm going to set aside all of the problems of the non-renew ability of metals and other material things on. Grounds that if we had enough energy, we could re gather the scattered material and have it continuously available. And so what I'm doing is reducing the problem of non renewability down to what seems simpler and that is the question of the renewability and non-renew ability of energy and that's what I'm going to be talking about and let me now say what I think some of the basics that we have to understand our first let me remind you that we have certain very fundamental physical knowledge about energy. They're contained in the two laws of thermodynamics, which are very cleverly called the first and second law. The first law seems rather silly because it says that energy can't be destroyed. Well, if that's so what's all the fuss about we can't lose it. Why worry, well, the second law tells us what the fuss is about. The second law tells us that the only value the only use the only thing you can do with energy, excuse me is to get work out of it (00:03:33) and the ability to get work out of energy is lost. (00:03:38) Every time you use energy to get work in other words. What is destructible is the ability of energy to do work. But that's all it's bad. When I right away. You have to say well what's work if you look it up in the physics book, you'll get a definition which says work is a force exerted through a distance. Now, that's true. But moderately irrelevant to what we have to think about and I want to give you a different definition of work that perhaps you'll recognize as being more related to your own life work is what you have to do if you want something to happen that won't happen by itself. You want to wake up in the morning and go to school? It will not happen by itself. Try it sometime. You lie in bed and you'll stay there unless you do work. I was down on the floor before and I wanted to come up on the platform and I assure you that with all the Good Will in the world. My thoughts my wishes could not Elevate me to this platform work had to be done by my muscles. (00:04:50) Now what this says is that everything that we want to (00:04:54) happen in the world that doesn't happen by itself requires work. Well, that means everything we produce all the goods the services that we produce everything that we cut that constitutes human activity, including our own activity because we need energy from food to do the work that we do all of that requires work there for all of that work every production every productive activity means the expenditure. Of energy in the sense that we're using up its ability to do work. Now. This tells us thing (00:05:33) that energy is absolutely essential (00:05:37) access to energy is absolutely essential for everything. that human societies do now Let's talk about then about how what (00:05:51) determines access to energy (00:05:54) now, obviously if it gets used up you don't have it. But in the world in which access is determined by economics the price of energy determines access to it. It's a sad fact, but true that the every now and then you read in the newspaper of someone who freezes to death. In the winter not because there isn't any fuel available, but because they can't afford to pay for it. In other words. The price of energy is fundamental to the question of access now the (00:06:34) basic (00:06:36) Feature of what we speak of as the energy crisis is not that we are running out of energy. You know, mr. Carter said when he launched his great energy program which began as the moral equivalent of war and has now become the moral equivalent of the deregulation of the price of gas that great campaign (00:07:02) that great campaign include he made the statement. We are running out of (00:07:06) oil. And that reflected the fact that the amount of oil laid down under the ground is fixed. And every time you take a barrel of oil out of the ground is one less Barrel left, but I'd like to make a simple point. The first oil that was produced in the United States. Was in the 1850s (00:07:26) and mr. Lincoln could have made the same speech that mr. Carter (00:07:30) made we are running out of oil he could have said it was true but (00:07:34) irrelevant. The fact is that there (00:07:38) is still oil there. But what is important is that every time you take a barrel of oil out of the ground that forces you to pay more for the next Barrel. (00:07:49) This is a fundamental (00:07:50) point about non-renewable resources. Non-renewable resources are varying the not only non-renewable, but they vary in the amount of (00:08:01) work that you have to do to get (00:08:02) them. So for example, if you have a pool of oil near the surface of the ground, (00:08:08) it takes less drilling less pumping (00:08:10) to get the oil up and what has happened naturally is (00:08:14) that as oil has been exploited the easiest oil to get was used first. So that every time you (00:08:23) exploited a given field of oil you knew perfectly. Well that the next field of oil would be more difficult to get more expensive (00:08:33) so that the basic thing about a (00:08:35) non-renewable resource to put it in scientific terms is that there is an (00:08:42) interaction between the character of the resource. And the degree to which you have exploited it the fundamental fact about a non-renewable resource is that the he's with the accessibility of the resource declines (00:09:01) as you use it and the result if you think about the mathematics of it, there's a multiplicative effect. And the result is there is an (00:09:08) exponential rise in the cost (00:09:13) of producing the resource as you produce more and more of it. I will draw various Curves in the air here and I'll draw one right now if this is the cost of producing oil and this is the amount produced The Curve Rises at a faster and faster rate. It is an exponential curve. (00:09:38) now that means that the wealth of society that is devoted to producing (00:09:49) energy will become larger and larger. The the business of acquiring energy will take (00:09:59) more and more of our (00:10:01) wealth as we use a non-renewable resource now, I'll make a simple point which perhaps will be discussed in more detail and even antagonistically later. (00:10:12) But in my opinion no economic system of any kind can (00:10:17) tolerate a situation in which (00:10:19) a fundamental resource Rises exponentially in its cost. This has (00:10:26) got to give it its got to give this is not such a situation that can go on. Now you may say well we'll have a (00:10:33) substitute and of course substitutes occur (00:10:36) for non-renewable resources. Let me give you an example my favorite example of a non-renewable resource because we've used it up is the passenger pigeon. (00:10:47) The passenger pigeon (00:10:48) strange. How do you use up a renewable resource like a living thing. (00:10:52) You wipe out the species. The species is no longer in the United (00:10:56) States. It's extinct yet in 1800. There were billions of passenger pigeons in the United States. They had to unfortunate characteristics one was that they were tasty and the other was that they were stupid (00:11:11) they were so stupid that you could walk into a flock of passenger pigeons with a stick and simply hit them over the (00:11:17) head. (00:11:20) The result is they were wiped out now as it happens, there are statistics on the cost of passenger pigeons in 1800. They were cost about a penny apiece and Counting inflation At All by the time they wiped out they were up to $1 apiece. In other words as it because they became more (00:11:40) rare they weren't in such big (00:11:43) flocks more work had to be done to find them and hit him over the head and the cost of killing passenger pigeons Rose exponentially that (00:11:53) particular situation got stopped by the pigeons being wiped out. (00:11:57) But the point I want to make is that it was not a disaster except for the pigeons. What why watching the disaster there was substitutes for the economic function of passenger pigeons, which is food and other Foods were (00:12:12) introduced and we didn't have to rely on an exponentially costly passenger pigeon is food. In other words. If there were a substitute for energy then the argument that I make that it's exponential rise when we depend on non-renewable sources, I argue that's intolerable if it could be tolerated if they were a substitute there is no substitute for energy none. There is no way to have something happen. If you that you want to happen that won't happen by itself without having energy available. And so the conclusion I'm coming to is very simple. We cannot continue to rely on non-renewable sources of energy and yet 96 percent of the energy that we use in the United States is non-renewable call oil natural gas uranium. (00:13:12) These are all fixed deposits (00:13:15) and they getting used up and they cost is rising exponentially. This is the basic attribute of our energy situation. The crisis is that where latched onto this non-renewable (00:13:30) essential input into our economic (00:13:33) system. The price is going up and (00:13:35) will not come (00:13:37) down unless we switch over to renewable energy. Now the consequences of an exponential increase in the price of energy are disastrous since everything depends on the use of energy as the price of energy goes up. It drives the price of everything else up and those (00:13:57) those necessities of life that are essential food clothing and housing happened to be particularly dependent on energy (00:14:07) housing is you know, you have to have heat light and so on food (00:14:12) well a great deal of the cost of food now is the cost of (00:14:17) the chemicals fertilizers pesticides which are made out of petroleum and natural. (00:14:21) All gasp as the price of natural gas Rose, (00:14:24) for example, the price of nitrogen fertilizer in the United States tripled. (00:14:31) So that food (00:14:32) is very energy intensive and therefore rises in price as the price of energy goes up clothing. Well, most people now where none renewable clothing. They used clothing. You understand that cotton is a renewable resource because it comes from the sun the cotton plant gets its energy to put the fiber together from the Sun but (00:14:59) polyester has made out of petroleum. All synthetic clothes are made out of petroleum. And as the price of petroleum goes up the (00:15:08) price price of clothing will go Sky High (00:15:11) what I'm saying, then is a very simple thing the necessities of (00:15:14) life. Our most vulnerable to the rising price of energy with respect to their cost and the fact (00:15:22) is that poor people use a (00:15:24) much larger part of their budget to buy the necessities of life than wealthy people (00:15:30) and the consequences that as inflation is (00:15:33) driven by the rising price of energy. It puts a heavier and heavier burden on the poor and there are statistics which bear this out. The other thing that a rising price of (00:15:45) energy does is to make new Investments more difficult (00:15:48) when it curve (00:15:49) goes up very fast the (00:15:51) error bars on it a very (00:15:53) large it's very difficult to predict what the price of energy will be five years from (00:15:58) now except that it will be high but a (00:16:00) business man needs to know what he's going to have to pay for energy when he wants to build a new (00:16:05) plant and previously when the price of energy was (00:16:09) constant that was easy to do now. It's very difficult and (00:16:14) some economic (00:16:16) I believe that the present hesitancy in making new investments in our economy is in part the result of the rapid rise and (00:16:26) uncertainties associated with the price of energy. (00:16:29) Another point. Is that the way in which we now use energy absorbs a great deal of capital a great deal of our wealth is going into the Machinery that's needed to produce energy the think for example of an oil well, if you have to go deeper and deeper to get more oil and use more and more elaborate techniques more pumping than more and more of our economic wealth has to be invested in getting a barrel of oil out of the ground so that because of (00:17:02) non-renewable Leti there. (00:17:05) Let me put it to you very simply the Energy System begins to cannibalize The capital which is available (00:17:12) in our economic system. And of course the capital is essential for new Investments for creating new jobs and so on. So for these reasons, (00:17:22) the present situation I think is intolerable. It has got to be changed. We have got to carry out a transition from our present dependence on (00:17:34) non-renewable resources. That means coal oil natural gas and uranium (00:17:40) to some (00:17:42) sort of renewable resources (00:17:45) that transition must take place and (00:17:48) the great virtue of a symposium. Like (00:17:50) this is that it alerts us to a transition to a new historic passage (00:17:57) from where we are today to a situation in which we will rely largely on renewable sources and in particular energy There is no way out no way out at all now. (00:18:14) I want to talk about that transition. There's no point being abstract and futuristic about it. So well, yes in the future. We will have to (00:18:26) have renewable resources. (00:18:29) We have got to start now. Let me give you one reason. It takes 10 years from the time that you decide to build a (00:18:38) power plant for example to the date on which the power is available. And there's that 10 year lag means that if you Hammond Haw for a few decision times 30 years will go by And in 30 years the price of energy will become disastrous so that we (00:18:57) really have to start now. Also since this any energy system is very demanding of capital. And since we are already (00:19:07) using Capital very assiduously, we have got to realize that if we're going to put in a new (00:19:14) type of energy system, (00:19:16) we may not be able to do it if we use up available Capital too (00:19:20) fast. In other words. I think the (00:19:22) steps have to be taken now now what are the choices? (00:19:28) What are the sources of possible sources of renewable energy that is energy which doesn't get used (00:19:35) up. Well, there are really (00:19:38) only two. Oh, I should say this. It makes no sense to say that we are going to carry out a (00:19:45) transition to a renewable source of energy, which doesn't exist. Now you see why because (00:19:52) you've got to start moving (00:19:54) now. If you (00:19:55) don't know what the target is if (00:19:57) you're building a bridge (00:19:59) and you don't know how far the other side is you may get stuck in the middle. And so I'm simply asserting that we cannot now design a transition to renewable a renewable resource, which we think (00:20:12) may exist. That's very dangerous (00:20:15) that sets aside for (00:20:17) example Fusion Energy, which is a renewable (00:20:20) resource, but it doesn't exist. (00:20:23) Yes. It may well be that in 20 years. It will be possible to do it on a small scale and in 50 years in a larger scale, but it may not be possible and if we guessed wrong will be in deep trouble. (00:20:36) So talking about the existing possible (00:20:39) renewable resources. There are only two One is nuclear power (00:20:45) providing it includes what is called the breeder reactor the present nuclear power plants will run out of (00:20:54) useful fuel that has fuel is cheap enough in about 25 to 30 years. This is an estimate from the atomic energy commission. If the plans that have been made were carried out there won't be enough fuel. It's a non renewable fuel (00:21:09) just like coal or (00:21:10) oil (00:21:11) now. That means that we can't go on with our present nuclear system the way (00:21:16) it is. What can be done though is to devise a new type (00:21:21) of reactor which regenerates fuel from as it operates as the (00:21:28) reactor operates. It creates plutonium for example, which is a nuclear Fuel (00:21:34) and it's been estimated and I (00:21:35) think the figures are pretty good that we could then (00:21:38) have have perhaps 1,500 (00:21:41) to 2,000 years of fuel available. Now, I'm going to be generous and call that renewable in a thousand years from now. We may really have something spectacular which will turn up and I'm willing to say that if we can carry (00:21:58) through (00:21:59) to A system that will last a thousand two thousand years. I'll call that renewable. (00:22:04) So one choice is nuclear power with the (00:22:08) breeder. Now I'm going to reject that on what grounds and this is something that's not a scientific rejection or doing this in terms of my own feelings about it. (00:22:21) It's a terribly (00:22:22) risky thing to do. The radioactivity is very dangerous very difficult to handle so difficult that we haven't learned how to dispose of the waste from the existing power plants. The fuel can be made into nuclear bombs. One of the reasons for the hold back on the development of the breeder in the United States is that the design calls for using plutonium? And as you know physics student at Princeton got a degree by showing how you could make a plutonium bomb in your own basement at a cost of $2,000. If you knew how to read the encyclopedia. It's a very dangerous situation. So dangerous that it's clear that breeders would need to be under military control an analysis done by Professor Barton of the Stanford University law school (00:23:14) says that troops will have to be stationed at each plant troops capable of chasing anyone who stole plutonium and (00:23:23) he says that very likely torture would be used in order to find out where the plutonium was hidden. (00:23:29) That's how desperate the (00:23:30) situation would be another thing about the breeder is it would require Miss amounts of capital (00:23:37) so much so that only the very largest super corporations or the government (00:23:42) could raise that Capital (00:23:44) which means that the Energy System would then be in the hands (00:23:47) of either the largest super corporations or the government or both? Which puts (00:23:54) control of energy (00:23:56) therefore of our entire economy in a very limited hands and what I'm saying is this is a dangerous and I think economically and politically disastrous way to go the alternative is what I want to talk about. The other alternative is solar energy and I'll say very briefly that the solar alternative involves no radiation that you don't need to use troops to protect the solar collector that's on your roof. No one is going to steal it and make it into a bomb. It's available everywhere in the world. I've just come from Finland as from old Finland. This is Newfoundland, (00:24:40) isn't it? And I was surprised to learn that the Finnish (00:24:44) Academy of Science is working (00:24:47) very hard on solar energy in Finland what they did there isn't too much sun there but the sun will grow willow trees and they are thinking about planting large air and they have a lot of (00:24:59) land there thinking of planting large areas of willow trees to produce solar energy (00:25:05) because wood is solar energy its renewable and when you burn wood and have a tree (00:25:11) growing more wood is created and it's created by the sunshine that falls on the tree. (00:25:18) Now let me (00:25:20) say right away. And I'm sure this is true of most of you the minute. I (00:25:23) say solar energy say well, you know that's pie-in-the-sky. (00:25:27) Well we got we just we got to do research. (00:25:30) It's something for the future and it's going to be difficult because after all what we do at night when the Sun goes down, that's tough. You know, it's a very Difficult situation. Well, I have one message. solar energy in all of its forms (00:25:50) and there are many (00:25:52) Is technically available today? And in rather simple ways can be made (00:26:00) economically competitive. (00:26:03) There is an enormous mythology about solar energy (00:26:06) that it's out there somewhere and what I want to show you now is that it's really here today and we can begin a (00:26:14) transition to a energy system based on (00:26:17) solar energy today. (00:26:20) Now first, let's talk about what the sources of solar (00:26:23) energy are (00:26:25) and as a matter of fact, I'll tell you a story about Minnesota. Well, it's a story about me actually (00:26:30) I think about a year ago. I was invited to a meeting organized by the Minnesota Department of energy which incidentally you should (00:26:37) be proud of I think it's clear (00:26:39) that it's among the two or three best state Departments of energy in the country a great deal of work has been done great deal of very good work has been done by the state. (00:26:50) And before I came up to speak I decided it would be good to know a little bit about the availability of solar energy in, Minnesota. (00:26:59) And I looked up the figures how much Sunshine Falls (00:27:04) and in particular particular. I was interested in how much of what we call biomass organic (00:27:10) matter would things that can burn and so on is available in Minnesota relative to the amount of energy that you use (00:27:18) and I looked up a standard work that ass a the (00:27:22) availability of wood and other vegetation in different states (00:27:26) and came up with the figure that perhaps five percent of your energy needs could (00:27:31) be met in this way (00:27:33) and I came up to the meeting and fortunately at dinner before (00:27:36) I spoke. I sat down next to the head of your energy department (00:27:40) and I asked him I said how much of your energy do you think you could get from organic matter and he said oh 20% right away (00:27:47) and 60% eventually. (00:27:49) I looked at him I said, where are you going to get it? And he said oh mostly from cattails. Not pussy cat tails the plant that grows in your numerous box. Now that was an enormous lesson to me because you see you have to be in Minnesota to know that Minnesota is covered with Cattails and somebody working out of Washington doing a county-by-county survey of the whole country doesn't know that the best way to get (00:28:18) organic matter in Minnesota is to grow (00:28:21) Cattails Cattails have more energy in an acre than a corn crop. And it's the most effective way. They think of producing organic (00:28:32) matter in the state of Minnesota. So that's one source of solar energy. Very common source is you know, what are called solar collectors you begin to see these now, oh a metal box with a glass lid (00:28:45) painted black inside and the light hits the black turns into heat the glass holds the heat in and now you've got a hot box (00:28:54) and you get the heat out of it by some elaborate technique such as blowing air through it or putting a tube of cold water through (00:29:01) it and that's called a solar collector and it can be used to keep your house (00:29:05) warm. This is (00:29:09) quite simple. (00:29:11) It's done all the time and in Israel, it used to be done in Florida and California until gas became so cheap. So that's one one other way of doing it (00:29:22) another way is (00:29:24) To use any form of organic matter manure for example can be used to be converted into methane, which is the (00:29:32) gas of natural (00:29:33) gas a very good fuel (00:29:35) then it's possible with rather simple (00:29:38) gadgets to convert energy directly solar energy directly into electricity. (00:29:45) Now all of these techniques exist, they're being done. (00:29:51) There are perhaps (00:29:52) two hundred thousand villages in India and China today. (00:29:56) We're manure is being made into methane and used for heating and cooking. (00:30:02) There are in Vermont. Sixty percent of the homes now have wood stoves and I noticed as I came into Minneapolis that's beginning to happen here wood is solar energy and when you use a wood stove you are using a renewable source, (00:30:23) the price of wood will not escalate the price of the way. The price of (00:30:30) oil will garbage (00:30:32) is solar energy (00:30:34) garbage is a renewable resource try getting rid of it. You will never run out of (00:30:42) garbage or sewage (00:30:44) and the price of garbage will not escalate why because more and more is being made so that all of these things are exist (00:30:54) and are renewable sources of energy now. (00:30:59) I want to make a rather important Point (00:31:03) some of the others are important too. But this one's really important. (00:31:07) And that is that all of the existing Solar Technologies can be made economically competitive today. Simply by administrative thought shall we say there are only administrative decisions standing in the way of making them economic. Let me give you a simple sort of homey example in st. Louis today (00:31:33) if you're using electricity to heat your (00:31:36) home. It would pay you to go solar you would save money. now right away, you look up the figures and it turns out that it'll cost you perhaps 15 to 18 thousand dollars to buy the soul of gadgetry to put on the roof and that sounds like an awful lot of money and it is but if you do the following if you went to the bank and borrow that money from the bank at 8% interest amortized over 20 years. And in other words took a (00:32:11) mortgage out on the solar collector (00:32:14) the cost but and also built a solar collector for only half of your needs using electricity for the other half. If you were clever enough to do it exactly that way in an economist on our staff worked that out you did it just that (00:32:30) way during 20 years. You'd save at least twenty percent on your heating bill. Now why only (00:32:38) half because if you try to get all (00:32:41) of your heating needs from the solar collector, (00:32:44) you'd have to build an enormous one because in st. Louis there are a (00:32:48) few weeks in the winter when it's very (00:32:50) cold and to get through those few weeks. You would have to have a much bigger collector than you would need the rest of the year. So what's the clever thing to do? Well in those weeks we'll use the electricity in other words, if you're flexible and mingle the conventional and the solar properly together and you realize that the price of electricity is going to go up exponentially there comes a point when it is cheaper to go solar and in the case of solar heating for most of the central part of the country today. It is economical in the (00:33:26) way. I've described to you solar for (00:33:29) heating. Let me give you another example. Let me take now go to The Other Extreme and talk about the most valuable form of energy (00:33:40) electricity because you can do many things with electricity that can't be done with any other form of (00:33:46) energy. the production of electricity from the Sun can be made economically feasible in one year. If the government would have the wit to invest 440 million dollars and that investment of 440 million dollars would save the government half a billion dollars. I am now quoting from a detailed report put out by the (00:34:17) Department of Defense in the Federal Energy Administration about a year ago on what are called photovoltaic cells. (00:34:26) What is a photovoltaic cell it's a slice of a crystal of silicon silicon is the element that since and you (00:34:35) purify the Silicon quite extensively cut it into thin slices and put it on a metal plate and put a grid of wires over it and when you turn it (00:34:46) put it in the sun you find that electricity (00:34:48) flows between the two wires. (00:34:51) These are the cells that are used (00:34:53) on satellites to provide electricity. No moving Parts. They work beautifully very nice. (00:35:00) Simple thing. The (00:35:01) only thing is they're terribly expensive. (00:35:04) They now cost between ten and fifteen dollars a watt. That means that if you wanted to use a photovoltaic cell to run a hundred watt bulb, you'd have to invest $1,500 now, that's not a good investment just to (00:35:22) light a hundred watt (00:35:23) bulb. They are clearly too expensive to compete with the cost of electricity. Now in 1975 (00:35:32) Congress mandated that the FAA should work out ways of commercializing photovoltaic cells (00:35:39) and the team that did it was very clever first place. They said, you know, the cost of electricity is variable. Why don't we look and see find the most expensive electricity there is at present and see how we can compete with that and that turns out to be what's called a generator set. (00:35:58) You can buy them in Sears Roebuck is a Sears Roebuck could be a gasoline engine driving an electric generator and I'm sure some of you have these and Cottages up on the lake. It's a convenient way to get electricity if you're away from power lines, (00:36:12) but it's a very expensive way gasoline costs a lot. So once they've found this there is a more (00:36:20) expensive way of getting electricity dry cells a more even more expensive than that, but it doesn't account for much electricity. (00:36:27) They went then to the department in the And that used more generator sets than anybody else (00:36:34) and of course that turned out to be the Department of Defense (00:36:37) and they asked the Department of Defense to look over its (00:36:40) inventory of generator sets (00:36:42) and find out how many of them could be replaced (00:36:45) by photovoltaic units (00:36:47) cells with batteries incidentally what you do because it gets dark at night is that you save energy. (00:36:56) So for example, if you want electricity at night from a photovoltaic cell, you get a battery and you charge up the battery during the day and you use it at night. It's known as storage an old idea. It's the same thing that farmers used to do when they gathered Grain on a good year to worry about (00:37:14) bad you so at any rate, they asked the (00:37:17) Department of Defense about whether they could use these (00:37:21) and the Department of Defense said, they could replace 20% of their present generator sets with photovoltaic units (00:37:29) and the (00:37:29) total wash H that they could use was a hundred and fifty two million Watts. Okay, the present time the production in the u.s. Is some few thousands (00:37:40) of Watts a photovoltaic cells. (00:37:43) So the FAA then went to two (00:37:45) manufacturers of photovoltaic cells. One of them are CA (00:37:49) and said look if we give you an order for a hundred and fifty two million watts of photovoltaic cells to be delivered over a five-year (00:37:57) period what would you charge the government (00:37:59) counting a prophet and all that and they turned around went to the bank and said if we get an order 452 million Watts, which we think we can sell it since it's such and such how much will you lend us to build a factory to build these things and the answer came back from both companies quite similar. Remember the photovoltaic cells now cost between ten and fifteen dollars a watt. Both of them said in the first year, they would sell them at two to three dollars a watt in the second year at a dollar a watt. (00:38:31) And in the fifth year at 50 cents a walk (00:38:34) now if you think that's strange go back and look up the price of transistor radios or handheld computers. It's the same industry. The photovoltaic cells are made by the transistor and integrated circuit industry and this industry has had experience of a very sharp drop in costs by as if you can expand production as long as you get away from hand operations, the thing becomes cheap and for example, in the case of photovoltaic cells, one of the big savings would be that they would change the way in which they sliced up the silicon crystal. It's very hard and they now use a very thick bladed saw so that half of the Silicon which is very expensive ends up as (00:39:20) sawdust and (00:39:22) what they would do to bring the price down is to use a five bladed saw with thin blades gang together for strength and then only (00:39:30) In percent would be lost. (00:39:32) That was a brilliant technological breakthrough. (00:39:35) I describe this to a group of people in Italy about a year ago. And when (00:39:40) I describe this five-bladed saws as the big invention, they all (00:39:44) laughed because they said we've been cutting marble that way for centuries (00:39:48) in other words. No, very elaborate breakthrough is required. It's simply the expansion of the industry now at two to three dollars a watt it would pay the Department of Defense to replace 20% of their generator sets and they would save half a billion dollars. At two to three dollars of what these gadgets are cheaper. For a village in India or Africa that wants to become (00:40:16) electrified because you avoid the cables Etc. (00:40:22) It will be if economically effective for irrigation at a dollar a watt. It is cheaper to use the photovoltaic units for Road lighting than to use a cable. Literally if Minnesota now wants to put in a road with lighting when it's down to a dollar a watt and that includes the cost of the batteries and so on. This would be (00:40:45) more effective at (00:40:46) 50 cents a watt. It becomes effective starting in the southwest of the United States competitively against Residential electricity (00:40:56) and from then on as the price drops and it will it takes over the entire country. (00:41:02) In other words. Here's a way of producing electricity from the Sun. Why aren't we doing it all that it takes is 440 million dollars of taxpayers money turned over to some Industries to allow them to expand their plants and this whole shebang begins. Well, the reason why we aren't doing it is that the Carter administration's energy plan calls for one percent of the energy in the next 15 years coming (00:41:33) from solar energy and the way they're going it'll be a tenth of a percent. (00:41:38) Now. The reason why I went into this is to emphasize as strongly as I can that solar energy is not Pie in the Sky. It is practical it can be done. I think one thing that holds back the introduction of photovoltaic cells is that it may very well be the end of the utility industry. Very interesting thing. You see the utility industry electric utility industry has a fixed rate of return on its capital. That means the less. It sells electricity the higher the price, you know that when electricity sales went down in the Northeast in 1973, the utilities raised their price they were (00:42:20) allowed to because that gave them the fixed rate of return (00:42:24) the moment. They have competition from photovoltaic cells. They'll have to raise their price the moment. They raised their price, they'll encourage more competition that's known as a negative feedback and there's no way that the utilities will (00:42:38) survive in their present form with that kind of competition that may be one reason. We're not doing it. (00:42:45) Now. Another point that I want to make is you notice what the the people who work this out did they integrated the entry of photovoltaic cells into the details of the market? This type of integration is essential in other words. See the trouble is we all think of gadgets give us a gadget that will produce electricity cheaper than anything else. Well, that's not the way photovoltaic that's not the way solar energy works. In fact, one of the Prime examples of integration is right here in Minnesota. I understand that the men who did this got (00:43:20) arrested that shows you how serious it is (00:43:24) one way of producing energy is to make alcohol from grain, right? (00:43:29) It's an old bold think that's done. It's known as moonshining. (00:43:34) Now if you and and now many states in the midwest are developing what they call gasohol which is a mixture of gasoline and alcohol and recently a lot of Investigations been done and you look into the production of alcohol and you discover that more energy is used to make the alcohol then you can get out of it. (00:43:55) It's a silly thing to do then (00:43:57) the reason why a lot of energy is used to make the alcohol is that you have to have heat to run the still. And if you go to Shen Lee's they produce (00:44:06) alcohol from grain, you find that using oil or gas and they (00:44:10) burning up more fossil fuel than you can get energy out of the alcohol that they produce. Well, what's the answer the answer is use a renewable source of energy to do the distillation. And of course, that's exactly what a Moonshiner does uses wood, but here in Minnesota and I don't know the gentleman's name someone invented a solar still using solar energy to distill the alcohol and I understand he got in trouble with the treasury (00:44:39) Department because he didn't have a license you have to have a license to still (00:44:44) but you see what he was doing was integrating the system same way in Selma, Alabama group of farmers have worked out a way of producing alcohol which competes economically with gasoline the selling it I think at 60 odd cents a gallon And the way they've done it is by integrating it with moonshining operations. That is they use would they use the small Stills at the Moonshiners have and also there's selling it locally to Farmers so that they don't have transportation costs. And the point I'm making is very simple solar energy is something that has to be woven into the system of production the cleverest think I know and everyone worries how we going to store the heat at Purdue. They're studying the use of solar heat to dry grain. And you say well, you're only going to get the heat during the day. What are you going to do at night? (00:45:38) Are you going to have a (00:45:39) storage device that will cost money? Well, here's what they're doing at Purdue. They've got an (00:45:44) ordinary grain bin vertical grain bin (00:45:47) and they're blowing hot (00:45:48) air from a portable solar collector in the bottom during the day and the grain drives. Now if you remember your physics as it dries, it evaporates the water and (00:46:00) after the water has been evaporated then the heat will heat up the dried grain and what happens during the day is that the grain at the bottom not only gets dry but gets hot and at night they just blow air in and the heat which has been stored in the bottom grain is carried upward and dries out the grain above what they've done very cleverly to say. Yes, we need a storage device, but we've got one it's called a grain bin. That integrates and you see the reason why I emphasize this is that many people throw up their hands and say how old we store it's going to cost money. You have to learn how to integrate. Now. The last thing I want to say about solar energy is that not only does it have to be integrated into the system of producing things. But we've got to integrate it into the present way in which we use energy. The wrong way to have a solar transition is to say everything we're doing now is wrong here is the right way. Stop what you're doing and Go Solar that's sure sheer disaster, you know, it's an enormous amount of investment in everything that we're doing. What you've got to discover is how to use the present non-renewable system in a way that facilitates going solar And not all ways of using energy today are the same in the degree to which they facilitate going solar. I want to give you a couple of examples of that. For example one thing not to do is to go solar in such a way that the energy using equipment that you've now got your furnace. Let's say is useless because then you have to throw out your furnace and get a new one. That means for example, that a good thing to do would be to use The prayer a present source of energy in a way of using it which will accept with no change a solar fuel. That sounds very complicated and it's being done right now in Chicago this morning when everybody woke up in (00:48:18) Chicago (00:48:19) and boil their water for coffee on a gas (00:48:21) stove. They were using solar energy. (00:48:24) I don't think any of us knew it but they were why because about a year (00:48:29) ago the gas company in Chicago (00:48:32) contracted with a feedlot in Oklahoma, which makes methane out of its move out of the manure and sells it to the Texas Chicago natural gas (00:48:43) pipeline at a dollar ninety seven thousand cubic feet at a profit. (00:48:48) In other words a small amount of the natural gas that's now going into Chicago comes from manure in Oklahoma, which is renewable incidentally (00:49:00) when you say this some people who know about they say oh but you know (00:49:03) that feedlot is making more money out of the fertilizer that's left over from the manure than they were out of the gas and that says it's solar isn't any good that's another example of integration what's left of the manure is still a valuable thing, which is integrated into agriculture. Now, that's what I would call a good Bridge. You see what could happen? Next year the company could contract with the sugar cane growers in Louisiana to use their leftover carbohydrate which can be readily made into methane and pipe that into the pipeline and a year later. They'll go to people in the Ozarks and say why don't you take some (00:49:45) of your would make it into methane and feed it into the pipeline. (00:49:49) So that gradually Chicago could go solar in secret. No one would know it. And there would be no expense. Now. It turns out that natural gas is the essential bridging fuel between the present situation and solar and let me give you an example (00:50:11) of how you could do this (00:50:14) in a way that would already give us what we need Which is less expenditures for energy. We now produce electricity by burning (00:50:25) fuel whether its uranium ore coal or oil doesn't matter and in a power plant a big Power Plant. (00:50:32) The laws of thermodynamics tell us that two thirds of that energy goes out into the environment as heat no more than a third becomes electricity and some of that gets lost along the wires. (00:50:45) That's why you have a cooling tower problem with power plants. (00:50:49) Now, there's a way of getting around that and that is to use the heat, which is generated in producing electricity to warm houses. (00:50:59) In fact, this is done a great deal in Scandinavia. And in most northern countries again, I just come from Helsinki and most of the (00:51:09) heating in the city of Helsinki is waste heat from the power plants. now that's called cogeneration Yuko (00:51:20) generate heat and electricity and that's a very efficient thing to do. (00:51:26) Now the trouble with it is that if you do it in an ordinary big plant, let's say which is burning coal then it's hard to get the heat from that big plant to lots of little (00:51:39) houses. It's too far the heat gets lost. It's very expensive and so on so (00:51:44) clearly what you want to have as little (00:51:45) code generators. (00:51:47) For example, you can have one in your own home. Then you could use the heat to (00:51:51) heat your house and the electricity for electricity now the (00:51:56) trouble with that is that if you have little cold burning code generators and (00:52:00) everybody's house your pollution. (00:52:04) The only existing fossil fuel which is non polluting is natural (00:52:08) gas because its products are carbon dioxide and water which is what you and I put (00:52:13) out. So that if you could run code generators are natural gas, then they could be small (00:52:22) so that they could the heat would be readily available and they would produce electricity. (00:52:27) Now. In fact the Fiat company has just put on the market a one-family house code generated and if you price it out and I've done (00:52:35) that say $2,500 code generator. My home is heated with natural gas and I've computed (00:52:42) that if I bought a $2,500 code (00:52:45) generator the I would be able to heat my home (00:52:48) as efficiently as I do now at the same cost and the electricity produced would be more than I need and I'd have to sell some to the (00:52:59) utility. (00:53:02) Which (00:53:03) incidentally (00:53:06) I think was York is Congressman Royce from Minnesota, (00:53:09) Wisconsin with I'm sorry (00:53:12) Congressman Royce had that problem with a windmill and he went to court and won the (00:53:16) right to sell electricity back to the (00:53:18) utility. Now what I'm saying, then is that if we had natural gas code generators of a size suited to the need private house or let's say you're rebuilding a broken-down (00:53:35) are at neighborhood in a city. (00:53:38) It would make sense to put a power plant in the neighborhood run on natural gas with the Heat going out to let's say 40 or 50 houses and incidentally give (00:53:50) people work to run the power plant be their own power plant (00:53:54) they would and they be selling electricity to the utility. Now on top of that (00:54:00) you're beyond methane now natural gas, (00:54:02) which means as solar methane became available you could replace it. What's more now that you've got your own system, you could put solar collectors on the roof and now put the heat into the heat exchanger that you're using (00:54:18) and you wouldn't need to use (00:54:19) so much of the code generator, but then you wouldn't have enough (00:54:23) electricity. So what you do is put photovoltaic cells on the roof (00:54:27) now, we've actually run this through and I can tell you this that by introducing gas-driven code generators for residential and Commercial heat and electricity. You could immediately cut the present expenditure of energy in that sector by (00:54:44) 87% (00:54:47) 87% what would it do create a whole new (00:54:49) industry give people jobs in the Auto (00:54:52) industry give people a sense of autonomy that they can do this thing by themselves, it would decentralize the production of electricity and it would begin to stabilize the price of energy (00:55:06) because you'd be using solar energy. (00:55:09) Well, what I've (00:55:10) tried to show you is that we have a (00:55:13) disastrous problem if we continue (00:55:16) to rely on non-renewable resources, (00:55:20) but that there is a way out which makes use of (00:55:24) existing Solar Technologies. (00:55:27) Sensibly integrated into the present system and which involves a transition in which we gradually (00:55:35) use natural gas is the (00:55:38) crucial bridging fuel you couldn't do this with Cole you couldn't do it with (00:55:42) oil. You certainly can't do it the with uranium because you are forbidden by law to get within 25 miles of a city with a nuclear reactor (00:55:51) natural gas is the key thing incidentally. This is the tragedy of what's just happened in (00:55:56) Congress. (00:55:58) Where the Senate has approved the (00:56:00) natural gas deregulation Bill (00:56:03) allowing the price of this crucial fuel to escalate even more than it has been because this is the fuel that's got to carry us through to the solar transition. now (00:56:19) what I've tried to do is to give you some factual background. I want to go back to the political question because I think it's important for us to discuss it and then I'll stop I've already (00:56:28) pointed out that if we continue the way we're going it will be the (00:56:33) poor people of the world that suffer the poor in the developed countries and the poor countries of the world the developing countries (00:56:41) because they need energy for life's necessities. (00:56:46) And the energy will be escalating in price making it very difficult for developing countries to get enough food clothing housing to bring up their standard of living the to any decent level. (00:57:01) In other words. They are the ones that will suffer in this (00:57:05) transition. Now there is a (00:57:08) serious political danger in this (00:57:10) transition that I must call to your (00:57:13) attention. It's been proposed that the most effective way to carry out. The transition to solar energy is to raise the price (00:57:24) of non renewable fuel (00:57:26) artificially (00:57:26) raising. The argument is that if the price of oil goes up, then the (00:57:32) cost of solar will become competitive sooner and that's certainly true. No doubt about that. What that will do incidentally who is proposed it. Mr. (00:57:47) Carter has proposed. Under the advice of an energy expert named Amory Lovins. (00:57:55) This is the way to introduce solar (00:57:57) energy. Now, I want to make a simple point. (00:58:00) If you make current fuel more expensive for the sake of facilitating the introduction of solar (00:58:07) energy. What you will be doing is Robin Hood in Reverse. You'll be taking from the poor and giving to the (00:58:15) rich the thank him if you can afford a fifteen thousand dollar (00:58:20) loan. (00:58:23) Then (00:58:24) you can use solar energy. (00:58:26) Now. You have to be moderately (00:58:28) well-off to afford a fifteen thousand dollar loan on top of your house loan (00:58:32) in other words if you want to heat your swimming pool. Solar energy will be made more effective because you're poor neighbor is now paying more for his utilities who can't afford a solar in other words. This is literally taxing the poor to help the rich and just as it would have that effect within the United States. So it would have that effect it internationally if the world price of oil is unnecessarily stimulated by such actions. This will put a burden on every developing (00:59:04) country. And in my view (00:59:07) there is no way out of this (00:59:09) short of regarding the transition as a social responsibility, (00:59:14) which means that we ought to use public social (00:59:17) funds to subsidize keep the price down so that we can facilitate the transition in a way which meets the needs of people whether they're rich or poor and this I believe ought to be the great purpose (00:59:32) of transforming the economy of the world. From its present catastrophic (00:59:37) dependence on non-renewable resources to the balance and stability that is endowed by the endlessly renewable Global resource the sun. Thank you. From its present catastrophic dependence on non-renewable resources to the balance and stability that is endowed by the endlessly renewable Global resource the sun. Thank you.