On October 8, 1975, at a scientific session dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics three years later, made a concept paper in which, based on basic physical principles, he essentially buried all types of "Alternative energy", with the exception of controlled thermonuclear fusion.
To summarize the considerations of Academician Kapitsa, they boil down to the following:
The main argument used by Kapitsa in his report on the possibilities of alternative energy was by no means an economic approach, but physical considerations. His main objection to the unbridled fascination with the fashionable even then, forty years ago, the concepts of "free and environmentally friendly alternative energy" was an obvious limitation that is not allowed to this day: none of the alternative energy sources, be it solar panels, wind farms or the same hydrogen fuel cells have not reached the energy and power densities that are provided by such fossil fuels as coal, oil and gas or nuclear power.
Unfortunately, this kind of restriction is not political, but precisely physical in nature - regardless of the state system or the ideology chosen in the country, any economy has to be based to one degree or another on the physical laws of the world around us. The efforts of scientists or engineers can bring us close enough to the theoretical physical limit of this or that technology, but, alas, it is absolutely useless in trying to jump over this kind of limiter.
So, for example, the limiting constant for solar energy is the so-called "solar constant", which is 1367 W per square meter in the orbit of our Earth. Unfortunately, this "orbital kilowatt" is completely inaccessible to us living on the earth's surface. The amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface is affected by a lot of factors: the weather, the general transparency of the atmosphere, clouds and fog, the height of the Sun above the horizon.
But the most important thing is the rotation of our planet around its axis, which immediately reduces the available energy of the solar constant by almost half: at night the Sun is below the horizon. As a result, we, the inhabitants of the Earth, have to be content with a maximum of a tenth of the orbital solar constant.
Whichever energy source is considered, it can be characterized by two parameters: energy density - that is, its amount per unit volume - and the speed of its transmission (propagation). The product of these quantities is the maximum power that can be obtained from a unit surface using this type of energy.
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Let's say solar energy. Its density is negligible. But it spreads with great speed - the speed of light. As a result, the flow of solar energy coming to the Earth and giving life to everything is not small at all - more than a kilowatt per square meter. Alas, this flow is sufficient for life on the planet, but as the main source of energy for humanity is extremely ineffective. As P. Kapitsa noted, at sea level, taking into account losses in the atmosphere, a person can actually use a flux of 100-200 watts per square meter. Even today, the efficiency of devices that convert solar energy into electricity is 15%. To cover only the household needs of one modern household, a converter with an area of at least 40-50 square meters is needed. And in order to replace fossil fuel sources with solar energy,it is necessary to build a continuous strip of solar batteries 50-60 kilometers wide along the entire land part of the equator. It is quite obvious that such a project in the foreseeable future cannot be implemented either for technical, financial or political reasons.
The opposite example is fuel cells, where there is a direct conversion of the chemical energy of hydrogen oxidation into electricity.
Petr Kapitsa wrote: “In practice, the energy flux density is very low, and only 200 watts can be removed from a square meter of electrode. For 100 megawatts of power, the working area of the electrodes reaches a square kilometer, and there is no hope that the capital cost of building such a power plant will be justified by the energy it generates. This means that fuel cells can be used only where high power is not needed. But they are useless for macroenergy."
Here, the energy density is high, and the efficiency of such a conversion is also high, reaching 70 percent or more. But the rate of its transfer is extremely low, limited by the very low rate of diffusion of ions in electrolytes. As a result, the energy flux density is approximately the same as for solar energy. Petr Kapitsa wrote: “In practice, the energy flux density is very low, and only 200 watts can be removed from a square meter of electrode. For 100 megawatts of power, the working area of the electrodes reaches a square kilometer, and there is no hope that the capital costs of building such a power plant will be justified by the energy it generates. This means that fuel cells can be used only where high power is not needed. But they are useless for macroenergy.
So, consistently assessing wind energy, geothermal energy, wave energy, hydropower, Kapitsa argued that all these, in the opinion of an amateur, are quite promising, sources will never be able to seriously compete with fossil fuels: the density of wind energy and the energy of sea waves is low; low thermal conductivity of rocks limits geothermal stations to a modest scale; everyone is good with hydropower, but in order for it to be efficient, either mountain rivers are needed - when the water level can be raised to a great height and thereby provide a high density of gravitational energy of water - but there are few of them, or it is necessary to provide huge areas of reservoirs and destroy fertile land.
Peaceful atom is in no hurry
In his report, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa especially touched upon nuclear power and noted three main problems on the way of its formation as the main source of energy for mankind: the problem of radioactive waste disposal, the critical danger of disasters at nuclear power plants and the problem of uncontrolled proliferation of plutonium and nuclear technologies. Ten years later, in Chernobyl, the world was able to make sure that insurance companies and academician Kapitsa were more than right in assessing the danger of nuclear power. So, so far there is no talk of transferring world energy to nuclear fuel, although one can expect an increase in its share in industrial electricity production.
Pyotr Kapitsa pinned his greatest hopes on thermonuclear energy. However, over the past thirty-odd years, despite the tremendous efforts of scientists from different countries, the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion has not only not been solved, but over time, the understanding of the complexity of the problem, rather, has only grown.
In November 2006, Russia, the European Union, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States agreed to begin construction of an experimental thermonuclear reactor ITER, based on the principle of magnetic confinement of high-temperature plasma, which should provide 500 megawatts of thermal power for 400 seconds. To assess the pace of development, I can say that in 1977-1978. the author took part in the analysis of the possibility of “feeding” the ITER by firing a solid hydrogen tablet into the plasma. The idea of laser fusion, based on the rapid compression of a hydrogen target using laser radiation, is also not in the best state.
Very expensive science fiction …
But what about hydrogen energy and the notorious biofuel, which are most actively promoted today? Why did Kapitsa not pay attention to them at all? After all, mankind has been using biofuel in the form of firewood for centuries, and today hydrogen energy seems so promising that almost every day there are reports that the largest car companies are demonstrating concept cars on hydrogen fuel! Was the academician really that shortsighted? Alas … No hydrogen or even bioenergy in the literal sense of the word can exist.
As for hydrogen energy, since there are no natural hydrogen deposits on Earth, its adherents are trying to invent a perpetual motion machine on a planetary scale, no more and no less. There are two ways to obtain hydrogen on an industrial scale: either by electrolysis to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen, but this requires energy, obviously superior to that which is then released when hydrogen is burned and converted back into water, or … from natural gas using catalysts and again, energy consumption - which needs to be obtained … again, by burning natural fossil fuels! True, in the latter case, it is still not a "perpetual motion machine": some additional energy is still generated during the combustion of hydrogen obtained in this way. But it will be much less than what would be obtained by direct combustion of natural gas,bypassing its conversion to hydrogen. This means that "electrolytic hydrogen" is not a fuel at all, it is just an "accumulator" of energy obtained from another source … which just does not exist. The use of hydrogen obtained from natural gas, possibly, will reduce somewhat the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, since these emissions will be associated only with the generation of energy necessary to obtain hydrogen. But on the other hand, as a result of the process, the total consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels will only grow!since these emissions will only be associated with the generation of energy required to produce hydrogen. But on the other hand, as a result of the process, the total consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels will only grow!since these emissions will only be associated with the generation of energy required to produce hydrogen. But on the other hand, as a result of the process, the total consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels will only grow!
The situation with "bioenergy" is no better. In this case, we are talking either about reanimating the old idea of using vegetable and animal fats to power internal combustion engines (the first Diesel "diesel" ran on peanut oil), or about using ethyl alcohol obtained by fermenting natural ones - grain, corn, rice, cane etc. - or subjected to hydrolysis (that is, the decomposition of fiber into sugars) - agricultural products.
As for the production of oils, this is an extremely low-efficiency production, according to the "Kapitsa criteria". For example, the yield of peanuts is at best 50 c / ha. Even with three harvests per year, the yield of nuts will hardly exceed 2 kg per year per square meter. From this number of nuts, at best, 1 kg of oil will turn out: the energy output is slightly more than 1 watt per square meter - that is, two orders of magnitude less than solar energy available from the same square meter. At the same time, we did not take into account the fact that obtaining such crops requires the intensive use of energy-intensive fertilizers, energy consumption for soil cultivation and irrigation. That is, in order to cover today's needs of mankind, it would be necessary to completely sow a couple of worlds with peanuts. Carrying out a similar calculation for "alcohol" energy, it is easy to make surethat its efficiency is even lower than that of the "diesel" agro-cycle.
… But very beneficial for the economy of the "soap bubble".
We are ours, we will build a new world
The result of the limiters of solar energy was knowledge that was well available back in 1975: in fact, from one meter of the earth's surface, no more than 100-200 watts of average daily solar energy can be collected. In other words, in order to satisfy even the current needs of mankind, the area of solar power plants located on the surface of the Earth would be simply enormous.
In addition, a strip of the earth's surface along the earth's equator - or in desert tropical regions, while most of the solar energy consumers are located in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere - would be most suitable for placing solar panels. As a result, the abstract "squares" of solar panels in the Sahara, which are so fond of drawing apologists of unlimited solar energy, turn out to be nothing more than a virtual assumption.
But this by no means stopped those who had not fully mastered the school physics course. Projects for the solar development of the Sahara have arisen and are emerging with enviable regularity.
For example, the European company Desertec, founded in 2003, tried to implement a megaproject for the construction of solar power plants in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt to supply solar electricity to Western Europe, despite the participation in the project of such large corporations and banks as Siemens, Bosch, ABB and Deutche Bank, ten years later, in 2013, quietly went bankrupt. It turned out that the cost of building and maintaining power plants in the Sahara and the cost of transporting electricity for thousands of kilometers, even with a "free" solar constant in the Sahara, not darkened by clouds or fogs, was simply prohibitive.
The situation is no more rosy with the solar power industry in Western Europe itself, in which for the second decade in a row, various countries and funds have allocated trillions of dollars for the development of solar and wind energy. Despite the “golden rain” that plentifully poured on the renewable energy sector (RES) and on all-round political support for renewable energy (even due to the forced closure of nuclear power plants and coal-fired TPPs), the “intermediate finish” for RES as of 2016 was by no means so impressive.
So, by 2015, Germany and Denmark, which installed the maximum number of wind turbines and solar panels, also had the highest electricity prices - 29.5 eurocents and 30.4 eurocents per kWh. At the same time, Bulgaria and Hungary, "backward" in terms of the installation of renewable energy sources, in which powerful nuclear power plants were built during the Soviet era, could boast of completely different electricity prices - 9.6 and 11.5 eurocents per kWh, respectively.
Today we are talking about the fact that the ambitious program "2020" on renewable energy, which was adopted by the European Union and according to which by 2020 20% of electricity in the EU should be produced from renewable sources, was laid on the shoulders of European taxpayers, who were signed to pay a specially inflated tariff for electricity. Suffice it to say that, in terms of Russian realities, Germans and Danes pay 20–21 rubles for each consumed kilowatt-hour).
Therefore, it turns out that the current successes of renewable energy sources are not associated with the economic realities of their profitability and not even with impressive progress in improving efficiency or reducing their production and maintenance costs, but, first of all, with the protectionist policy of the EU countries in relation to renewable energy sources and the elimination of any competition. on the part of the thermal or nuclear power industry, which is subject to additional tax pressures (fees for carbon dioxide emissions), or even an outright ban (like nuclear power in Germany).
Well, American scientists do not know these numbers and prospects? Of course they do. Richard Heinberg, in his acclaimed book PowerDown: Options And Actions For A Post-Carbon World (the most accurate translation of the meaning is “The End of the World: Opportunities and Actions in the Post-Carbon World”) repeats Kapitza's analysis in the most detailed way and shows that no bioenergy the world will not save.
So what's going on? And here's what: only a very naive person believes that the economy today, like 150 years ago, works according to the Marxist principle: "money - commodity - money." The new money-money formula is shorter and more efficient. The troublesome link in the form of the production of real goods, which have real usefulness for people in the usual sense of the word, is rapidly being ousted from the "big economy." The relationship between price and utility in the material sense - the utility of a thing as food, clothing, housing, means of transportation or service as a means of satisfying some real need - is fading into oblivion, just as the relationship between the denomination of a coin and its mass has disappeared. the precious metal enclosed in it. In the same way, the "things" of the new age are purged of all utility. The only consuming capacity of these "things"their only “usefulness” that retains meaning in the economy of modern times is their ability to be sold, and inflation of “bubbles” becomes the main “production” that makes a profit. The universal belief in the ability to sell air in the form of stocks, options, futures and numerous other "financial instruments" becomes the main driving force of the economy and the main source of capital for the priests of this faith.
After successively bursting bubbles of "dot-com" and real estate, and "nanotechnology", drawing fabulous prospects, for the most part continues to draw them without noticeable materialization, American financiers, it seems, seriously turned their attention to alternative sources of energy. Investing money in "green projects" and paying for science-based advertising, they may well count on the fact that numerous Pinocchio will perfectly fertilize the financial field of miracles with their gold.
