Sent to a friend involved in US policy making:
The key message was that the news from COP27 made me fear for our lives, but AT THE SAME TIME an IEEE international conference based in Nanjing (ICCSI) made me much more hopeful than COP27 did. Thanks to the book project which Kumar asked me to start up (still in process, with LOTS of backup material beyond what is at build-a-world.org), we have an organized collection of exciting new options for energy and climate policy, which would be of huge value to the world economy and to national security within ten years, which neither EU nor Biden nor Biden's advisors know about.
The exciting message from Nanjing was that new pathways are opening up to connect us, and IEEE in general, to the highest levels of decision-making. The high leader behind that ICCSI conference now has a new position, right in Tian an Men square, and may be willing to create a pathway to implement John Kerry's proposal for a climate survival division (specializing in the extinction threat, which is far more real and close than most people even imagine) in the Security Council. That is what I have given priority to this week.
But -- at a minimum, IEEE could endorse what John Kerry and Guterres (UN SEc Gen) proposed very publicly just a few years ago. That proposal mainly died because bureaucrats in New York redirected Guterres and Kerry, but the redirections did not work as well as they hoped. Interest from Xi could radically reverse the situation.
IEEE could even ask for a better pathway of climate information, real science and real IEEE-connected technologies, to support the new climate division.
Does IEEEUSA have a special role in bridging the all-important gap between what the most advanced and relevant IEEE societies know, and the policy level (AND investors)?
Truly efficient and intelligent power grids are PART of the "making electricity" priority in the draft book, one of the two parts for which we have the most information and new but proven options (ranging from important tools ready to go now, to areas where RD&D could be much more transformative than anything I see now, including the best proposals to NSF which I have had some occasion to review this past year ). But the transportation part is also strong. China is doing much more for world climate already than all of the COP actions taken together, because of its actions to support electric cars, but China and the US could do much better yet if we learn the right ways to cooperate (with mutual protections of course).
In truth, my ability to wordsmith in THIS political environment ... should I even try?
BEFORE any of us try... is a 50% climate section on the table as a possibility?
CONCRETELY...
This would mean, ROUGHLY...
1. More rapid support, development, RD&D, deployment of what Kumar has championed, DSOPF, dynamic stochastic optimal power flow, AND market redesign to better support its use and its benefits, as in the draft chapter by Momoh and proposals by O'Neill and Ilic.
2. Liberating DOE from the entrails of the oil company hydrogen barriers, and returning more support advanced Brayton for use both in space and in power tower solar farms (not requiring chips from China). That should include a major new US export push to support Heliogen and GE in that specific area, and ALSO accelerated RD&D for the more advanced (efficient, lower $/kwh) next generation of Brayton.
3. Strengthened partnership with Chile to push and enhance thermal storage, to be integrated into advanced power tower solar farms and DSOPF to control them all.
4. OK, New focused (and well-informed, well-grounded) R&D on quantum RLADP (the key to quantum DSOPF), which allows efficiency and protection from unexpected disturbances in a more comprehensive DSOPF ranging all the way from markets to semiconductors in the power electronics. his is a new technology which I presented in my plenary award talk at WCCI2022 (abstract attached).
5. Similar opportunities for cars, consistent with the old IEEEUSA position (which I posted at werbos.com/oil.htm), accelerating BOTH rechargeable lithium-air batteries USING THE ORIGINAL DEVELOPER, and alternate net-zero liquids, and markets designed to better advance both where they benefit consumers. DSOPF can play a crucial role in the recharge aspect. In truth, Sadoway may also know of other big breakthrough options, but the present system is shutting out all of them.
...
Best regards,
Paul
==============================
-- As I think it over, I should have said more about why these new technologies (US and IEEE) are so important and urgent, even if they are not visible in any US or EU climate policy yet.
I have tracked EU climate policy very closely for a few years now, watching mainly France24 and Deutsche Welle some, almost never CNN. Greens (most powerful party in Germany) convinced Von Der Leyen EU must go all renewable ASAP, not only for climate but in face of serious energy security issues there. But then industry -- both electric and fossil -- convinced her that the REAL cost of renewables is many times higher than the generating costs the advocates have old her about, because of backups, intermittency, time of day issues. They plan a huge expansion in expensive LNG now because the renewables people are working hard to sell her DO have more than double cost growth, past generation, because of the time of day and intermittency (and raw transmission investment rules) issues.
The new technologies and market designs I mentioned get rid of at least half the cost to the user! Time of day is no problem when the specific new type of storage, thermal storage hooked up to Brayton and intelligent control, is BETTER than baseload 24/7 for load following!
More technical detail (in draft but more advanced that any other sources now abvailable) may be found at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1acZRpjyjCLoQuqzJef74e0cmHeyoKJdr?usp=sharing
No comments:
Post a Comment