Daily Archives: July 8, 2011

It’s a Computer, so it Must be Right. Right?

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The best intro book for any topic

Of course I checked out physics and in addition to Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon Guide to Physics, it gave a bunch of books on various topics within physics. I have read none of these books, so I have no basis for endorsing or disputing the choices; I don’t know if “Best Intro” means they were going for pop-sci books for a general audience or intro textbooks for the student or serious amateur. The Cartoon Guide might indicate one way — I’m not sure — but the other titles are or seem more like textbooks. The closest I can come to a recommendation is noting that the QM book is by David J Griffiths, I’ve heard good things about it, and his Electrodynamics textbook is very good.

The Good, the Bad and the Misleading

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EIA Report: Renewables Surpass Nuclear Output

Let’s start out with the bad and misleading.

Looking at all energy sectors (e.g., electricity, transportation, thermal), production of renewable energy, including hydropower, has increased by 15.07 percent compared to the first quarter of 2010, and by 25.07 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2009. Among the renewable energy sources, biomass/biofuels accounted for 48.06 percent, hydropower for 35.41 percent, wind for 12.87 percent, geothermal for 2.45 percent, and solar for 1.16 percent.

Biofuels, unfortunately, includes ethanol. In fact, it’s probably mostly ethanol and if ethanol production represents a net gain in energy over the energy used to make it, it’s by a very slim margin. Not only do we mandate its production and inclusion in gasoline in the US, it’s also subsidized (the good news is that the subsidy is scheduled to end, and there’s a chance it won’t be renewed) and diverting land use to corn for ethanol has driven food prices up. Touting a huge increase in the production of ethanol is not good, and it really shouldn’t count as energy production.

I’m not sure where all the additional hydro power is coming from, though. If it’s a rebound in areas that were previously seeing droughts and production is just a return to the norm (or a spike from e.g. above-average snowmelt) then it’s a little misleading as well.

But there is good news:

In terms of actual production, renewable electrical output increased by 25.82 percent in the first three months of 2011 compared to the first quarter of 2010. Solar-generated electricity increased by 104.8 percent, wind-generated electricity rose by 40.3 percent, hydropower output expanded by 28.7 percent, and geothermal electrical generation rose by 5.8 percent. Only electricity from biomass sources dropped — by 4.8 percent. By comparison, natural gas electrical output rose by 1.8 percent and nuclear-generated electricity increased by only 0.4 percent while coal-generated electricity dropped by 5.7 percent.

We are installing solar and wind, and coal use went down. Yay!