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The Switch: How solar, storage and new tech means cheap power for all, by Chris Goodall

05-03-2019 by Julian Creme

The year 2016 has seen growing numbers of cities, countries and corporations pledging to use increasing amounts of renewable energy in the coming time.

This rapid transformation in demand for renewables has energized researchers, engineers and climate activists around the world. This surge has also led author and economist Chris Goodall to research the various options at hand and conclude that “solar power can provide the bulk of the world’s power, not just electricity, within a surprisingly short time.”This statement from the home page of Goodall’s website, carboncommentary.com, provides the theme of his book, The Switch, and the focus of the analysis contained therein.

Goodall writes that the essential ingredients for the switch to dependence on solar power are now in place around the world:

  1. The cheap power source, the sun, and the increasingly affordable technology for capturing solar radiance.
  2. The rapidly developing, and falling costs of, battery storage capacity.
  3. The technology and techniques to convert light into energy-rich gases and liquids that can be used in existing oil and gas distribution and storage facilities.
  4. The software needed to manage distribution grids.

The first principle and essential value of solar power is the fact, Goodall writes, that sunshine is free, non-polluting and readily available, albeit at varying levels of intensity, throughout the world. In 90 minutes, our sun provides enough energy to power all of our energy needs, worldwide, for one year. Because PV (photovoltaic) modules (solar panels) are maintenance free with an expected lifespan of about 35 years, solar power will undercut the cost of any alternative renewable such as wind and water.

A second essential value is the fact that the cost of a PV module is dropping dramatically due to of advances in engineering and production. Solar photovoltaics are already the cheapest way of providing energy in many parts of the world, and in the coming years will become the least expensive way of generating power nearly everywhere, Goodall believes.

Applying “Swanson’s Law”*, Goodall writes that every time the world’s accumulated solar panel production doubles, the cost of each PV module falls by 20 percent. He refers to this dynamic as the “experience curve”, shown in other technologies to be reliably predictive of the cost reduction effect of innovation and human experience in the lab and factory.

Goodall focuses heavily on the needs of those countries that are not naturally sunny all year. Sufficient battery capacity is essential if solar power is to become the dominant energy source, and battery research and development activity is intense. Because of this intense interest and the “experience curve”, battery costs, like the costs of solar energy, are falling dramatically.

But even with increasingly huge battery storage capacity, in places like the UK, northern Europe and Canada, supplementary power sources are needed during times of less sunlight. Goodall cites wind as an obvious source, but even with improvements in efficiency in wind technology, another source of energy is needed to meet demand especially in the major cities.

It is the search for this other source that Goodall writes has been an “intractable” problem so far. He writes an extensive analysis of research projects and ideas focusing on this problem. The solution he seems to like best is the use of electrolysis to make hydrogen, and the collection of CO2 either from decaying plant matter or by capturing it from the atmosphere. Both would then be fed to specific microbes that exude energy-rich molecules that become fuels such as methane that can be stored in existing energy infrastructure and sent as needed for use in low radiance areas. Research and development of solutions to this particular issue continue.

Goodall writes that as more and more people use PV, demand for, and therefore the price of, all energy sources continue to fall, making solar and wind energy cheaper than fossil fuels, with their high costs of exploration, development, refining and delivery. Goodall says that it is increasingly clear that solar and wind provide the most cost effective business plan for utilities and energy corporations, and when they realize this, the switch to solar energy will be complete.

In discussing the management of supply and demand, Goodall presents an innovative idea about how to match the demand for energy to the supply available. The traditional model is built to provide for maximum demand at all times. Instead of this costly model that encourages waste, he suggests a “demand response” technology that cuts the supply of electricity when power is in short supply or is not needed. As an example, Goodall cites the efforts of a Belgian company, REstore. They have created and run software that, under agreement, cuts electric power to their industry and commercial clients for short periods, perhaps minutes, when the supply is short. In return, these clients are paid cash for their trouble. This software enables REstore to manage the grid to the benefit of all players.

The Switch is a fascinating, highly technical, and inspiring look at what is happening to change the energy culture throughout the world. Goodall takes a realistically hard look at the challenges, yet provides the possible options in terms that offer the reader real hope that through cooperation and ingenuity, low cost and totally clean solar power can become the default energy source on Earth.

[*Swanson’s Law is an observation that the price of solar photovoltaic modules tends to drop 20 percent for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume. At present rates, costs halve about every 10 years.]

The Switch: How solar, storage and new tech means cheap power for all: Chris Goodall. Published in 2016 by Profile Books, 3 Holford Yard, Bevin Way, London WC1X9HD. 274 pages.

The environment: What the scientists may be overlooking

21-12-2018 by Julian Creme

Monte Leach: Many people believe that it’s too late to restore the environment, that there’s little hope for a sustainable, healthy future. Do you subscribe to that view, or do you think there’s still time to turn it around?
Benjamin Creme: I think there is still time. It is not just my opinion because that would be no better than anyone else’s. But it is certainly the view of Maitreya that there is time to turn this dangerous situation around.

Following a crash programme of aid for the starving millions of the world and the implementation of the principle of sharing, will be the saving, protection, and healing of the environment. This involves everybody; we all use the environment.

Maitreya says there are two environments, an inner and an outer. The outer reflects the inner. If the inner is disturbed, the outer also is disturbed. We are witnessing this today. Because we are so disturbed in our inner environment, not recognizing ourselves as spiritual beings related to each other, we rape, pillage and despoil. We inflict our greed and aggression on each other in wars and all sorts of aggressive actions and reap the results: a gradual erosion of the very environment which keeps us in being as a species. If we do not address this problem, the human and sub-human kingdoms of this planet will die out.

Many ecologists recognize this fact. The “Green” agencies have been talking about this for years, trying to impress on governments the need for change. But at the Earth Summit in Brazil in June 1992, some major nations, most notably the United States, refused to sign the very resolutions which would address these urgent problems. The atmosphere is heating up, the air, the rivers and seas of the world are becoming so polluted that we are poisoning ourselves all the time. It is simply the extraordinary resilience of the human body, mind, and spirit that has prevented our destruction before this time.

ML: How do we turn the situation around? I fear that if we wait until we make the internal changes that you were talking about, it could be too late.
BC: Left to ourselves that might well be so. Luckily, we are not left to ourselves. Maitreya, the World Teacher, is in the world, living in London since 1977. There is a large group of Masters, his disciples, also in the world. They are ready to come forward to show us the steps we must take to stabilize the world. The resources of the world must be shared, used to the utmost of their good for humanity as a whole, instead of, as now, being misused by the few. When we in the developed world accept and implement the principle of sharing, we will find that we are happier and richer living a simpler lifestyle. We have to learn to live more simply so that all people can live.

ML: Is that the key, in your view, to cleaning up the environment?
BC: Yes, it is a problem of the developed world usurping and wasting the resources and destroying the environment.

ML: Some people would also argue that a major problem is in the developing world where there’s so much poverty that people use and abuse resources just to survive.
BC: It is a Catch-22 situation for them.

ML: It is. How do we change that?
BC: We create the conditions which force the people of the developing world to cut down their rain forests to earn the currency to buy food and other resources from us. The entire system needs to be reorganized.

As I understand it, the principle of sharing will work out something like this: a new United Nations agency will be established; all the nations will be asked to make an inventory of what they have and what they need, what they produce and what they have to import. From this, the world’s ‘cake’ will be known. Each nation will be asked to make over, in trust for the world as a whole, that which it has in excess of its needs. Out of that common pool of excess, the needs of all will be met.

❝ A sophisticated form of barter will replace the present economic system ❞

A very sophisticated form of barter will replace the present economic system. That will relieve the people of the Third World from destroying the very resources which the entire world needs just to live. We do not need forests just to make chopsticks. We need forests for the interchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen, so that we can continue to exist along with the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

We have to realize our interdependence. That is the key. We are one group, one humanity, and have to work together for the benefit of all. Until now, that has been impossible for us even to recognize, let alone accept. But with Maitreya guiding us, and showing us the alternative self-destruction we will be galvanized to take the needed steps. The governments of the world will sign the necessary resolutions. The plans which today are only blueprints will be implemented because we have no alternative. If we would continue as a species, we must address these problems. Since we must, we will.

Technology of Light

ML: Although we in the developed world may choose to live a simpler lifestyle, we still need energy sources. We need clean water, clean air. The environment is so polluted now; we have the greenhouse effect and other major problems. How can we come to terms with this situation?
BC: The Masters of our Spiritual Hierarchy, who are coming into the world with Maitreya, have the technology to neutralize the greenhouse effect, the pollution of the atmosphere, even the effects of nuclear radiation. We have to wind down the fission process of creating energy. What I am not advocating, or even suggesting, is returning to the old days humanity living in pastoral conditions, and so on. We will still have a prosperous, well-balanced, modern lifestyle, with all the technology which we are capable of inventing. We shall be given the blueprints of technology which at the moment we cannot even begin to imagine. It would boggle the mind of the most advanced scientist.

ML: But we’re not going to be waiting for Maitreya and the Masters to give us the technology to make these changes. We can’t just sit back and say: “They’re going to give us the technology to clean up the planet, so we don’t have to do anything.”
BC: When we accept the principle of sharing, and when that process is actually working out in the world, we will be given the gift of new technologies. I do not mean that we will be given an instrument and shown how to use it. We will be given the secrets of how to create this technology. Then our advanced scientists will develop it.

There is a new technology — the cold fusion process — that is in the offing. I would say that in a very few years from now cold fusion will produce a rather large proportion of the earth’s energy needs. But after that there is another technology which Maitreya calls the Technology of Light which will provide unlimited energy for all our needs.

Factories will be run by robots. We think of robots which make cars in factories today as being very sophisticated, but compared with those of the future, these are the primitive beginnings of that technology. By thought alone we will create the machines which will make the artifacts of our daily living. This will allow man the time for the investigation of his own nature, for recreational and creative pursuits and so on. An entirely new and highly sophisticated technological world will be created, but only when we see ourselves as one humanity. If that technology were given now, we would destroy the world with it. We almost destroyed the world with nuclear weapons. Nuclear fission is the most dangerous way to tap the energy in the atom. That same energy streams to us from the sun. The Technology of Light will use energy direct from the sun. It will even be applied medically, and with our growing genetic experimentation will allow us to create new organs in the body as needed.

ML: Are there any indications in the world now that this technology of light might be in the offing?
BC: There is a town in what was the Soviet Union which has all its light and heat sources relayed direct from the sun through one of the satellites. The technology is still in its infancy but eventually it will make all war impossible. An army, even one man with a rifle, can be pinpointed on earth through this technology. A submarine thousands of feet under the sea can be rendered totally harmless. Even a terrorist in an aircraft with a bomb in his hand can be rendered completely harmless. It is a super-Star-Wars scenario, but taken to the ultimate degree, and directed for the good of all not under the control of any one government.

ML: I wouldn’t want to put that kind of technology in the hands of the US Pentagon or the Russian military establishment.
BC: I could not agree more. No one nation will be able to usurp the control of that technology. It will be in the hands of our Spiritual Hierarchy and various committees of the United Nations. It can only be administered through the United Nations. It is a global technology.

ML: I’m used to thinking in terms of solar energy, geothermal, wind power and other renewable sources.
BC: In the short term they will have their place. We could right now do away with all nuclear fission and have energy from wave power, solar energy and wind. As you say, all of these could supplement the present energy resources tremendously. We could, and should, shut down every nuclear establishment in the world today. They are deadly.

ML: Appropriate technology, then, will be a bridge toward the cold nuclear fusion process?
BC: Which will be a step towards the Technology of Light. That will transform all life on this planet. Having unlimited resources means that no one nation or group of nations, as for instance those who produce oil today, can dominate the international financial scene. If oil were superseded today, whole groups of nations as power mongers would fail.

ML: What you’re talking about is predicated on …
BC: … the acceptance of the principle of sharing. When we actually implement the principle of sharing, and create the conditions for justice, and therefore of peace, this technology can be freely given.

ML: Because they’ll see that humanity …
BC: … is one, sees itself as one.

ML: And mature enough to deal with it.
BC: Of course.

Underground nuclear testing

ML: Perhaps we can go on to another pressing issue — underground nuclear testing. You have said in Share International and elsewhere that nuclear testing has a devastating effect on the environment, and not only the local environment.
BC: It is impossible to have an underground nuclear test without creating an earthquake — not necessarily in the immediate vicinity but anywhere in the world. Of every 30 major earthquakes, some 21 or 22 follow a nuclear explosion. There are other reasons for earthquakes, but the vast majority are the result of underground nuclear testing. We need not test nuclear bombs. The scientists involved in nuclear testing are trying to maintain their jobs by producing refinements of the existing mechanisms of the various bombs. Just as in the commercial fields companies are producing more and more prettier-packaged goods to keep their products going, so the scientists are producing refinements of their technology simply to keep the technology going, and with it their jobs. Self-interest is causing these earthquakes.

ML: And that’s having a devastating effect.
BC: Yes. As I have said, you cannot produce an underground nuclear explosion without creating an earthquake. Also, you cannot produce an underground nuclear explosion without throwing into the atmosphere thousands of tons of dust saturated with nuclear radiation which eventually falls into the oceans, rivers, and reservoirs of the world. We are all taking in nuclear radiation every time we breathe and drink.

ML: It would be safe to say that most scientists wouldn’t or don’t see the connection between underground testing and earthquakes.
BC: They do not see the connection because they do not want to see it. But any intelligent person knows that there is a connection.

❝ ...what we call God, what we call nature, our environment, and what we call humanity are one. There is no separation between these. ❞

ML: Another connection that most people wouldn’t be aware of is the one between humanity’s actions, and even humanity’s thinking processes, and the world’s weather patterns. That might seem like science fiction to people.
BC: This is harder to explain, but perfectly true. We do have a direct effect on our environment. Very soon, under the tuition of Maitreya and the Masters around him, humanity will come to understand that what we call God, what we call nature, our environment, and what we call humanity are one. There is no separation between these. Everything, according to Maitreya, is interconnected. Every atom, every particle within every atom, is related to every other particle throughout cosmos. Therefore, what happens in one aspect of creation inevitably has an effect on another.

Humanity is part of its everyday environment; we call it nature. The destructive thoughtforms of humanity create the conditions of imbalance and tension in the world. The imbalance between the developed world and the Third World, the poverty and suffering which ensues from that imbalance and therefore the thoughtforms of pain, agony and of destruction, pour into the mindbelt of the world. They affect what are called the devic elementals whose work it is to control the weather patterns of the world.

ML: What are the devic elementals?
BC: They are elemental forces which control and organize the patterns of nature. They are energy forces and respond to human thought. When our thoughts are in equilibrium, they are in equilibrium. When our thoughts are destructive and chaotic, as today, the devas go out of equilibrium. This has resulted in the complete distortion of the world’s weather. For instance, we see floods, major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, torrential rain where they have never been known, lack of rain where it was normal; hurricanes. All of these phenomena have been with us since we can remember but in controlled patterns. All of that has gone. There is no set pattern in the world’s weather today.

When we come into equilibrium by creating the conditions of equilibrium living together in peace, sharing the resources of the world, creating, thereby, harmony in the world the devas will return to their preordained forms and patterns and create equilibrium once again. They respond directly to human thought.

ML: To sum up, our environmental problems are very serious, but they can be solved.
BC: They can, and will, be solved. Probably within the next 30 years, this planet will be saved.

ML: By our own actions.
BC: By our own actions, under the inspiration and guidance of the Masters. But we must accept the principle of sharing and the simpler lifestyle which that demands. We must set about restoring the health of the planet.

ML: But you’re not talking about giving up all our possessions and returning to the Stone Age hewers of wood and gatherers of water.
BC: On the contrary, the new civilization will be more fulfilling, richer, more splendid, creative and abundant than any before.

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