Energy density two ways: our grid and our food. Because it's Friday, we finish with some Donne.

Let's revisit spatial energy density.

I posted a quick run through about the large amounts of land needed for renewables because of their low energy density. To put a finer point on the topic I thought I'd revisit that here and talk about nuclear power in comparison.

It should also be noted both for clarity and so you can follow up and research more on your own that a more precise label is "spatial energy density", the amount of electrical power delivered per unit of land required to house that generation, a ratio.

I attached a screenshot where I took that definition, did some quick algebra on it, and then made a distinction between concentrated sources of energy like fossil fuels/nuclear and more dispersed sources like renewables.  This is pictorially what I meant yesterday.  

The point is pretty apparent. Generation sources that have a high spatial energy density, that is, sources that fit lots of energy generation in a small space require less land that the more diffuse kind (all other things being equal).  

Looked at from another angle, in order to replace all the concentrated sources of energy on our grid like coal or natural gas, we're going to need more land than we currently devote to energy.

As a consequence of this choice, we will have less land to do other things with.  Less land to graze on.  Less land to farm.  Less land to build houses on.  Oh, and one other thing:  nothing so far even touches the rather thorny issue of who gets to have the turbines outside their home?

This would be bad enough if we just replaced our current power needs with renewables, but our planned move to electrify everything including our commute, we can only expect the land use to intensify (both here and worldwide frankly--developing nations want more power as they develop, not less).

If the fossil fuel emissions are the true concern here, wouldn't it make more sense to replace our current power generation with a source that was at least as energy dense (and perhaps had less lifecycle total emissions)?

That is, why did we choose to do this in a way that radically changes the current parameters we have?  If we picked generation sources that rivaled the spatial energy density of coal or natural gas (yes, I mean nuclear) we could have replaced our current capacity without emissions and without the sacrifices associated with renewables.  

If energy is an interest for you, I looked up and linked to an interesting paper that covers not only spatial energy density but a variety of other comparisons for nuclear and renewables.  Obviously the paper's authors are proponents, but you will find bias anywhere and thus a varied diet is an okay thing.  Learn a little about nuclear from its fans.  

I will leave it to you to read, but there are some important general points I think are relevant here.  

I am not going to say that nuclear energy is problem free.  I think there has been significant threat inflation with it however. 

Apples to apples comparisons for both health and safety and greenhouse emissions over the entire lifecycle of fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear put them in competition with each other.  At least.  

And lastly, and perhaps most important, there is no choice without consequence; there is no way to get something for free.  

Note: the image at the top of this post doesn't come from the below. It's from a paper on worldwide spatial energy density here.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261999000690#:~:text=The%20quantity%20of%20fuel%20used,of%20environmental%20releases%20and%20waste

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Spatial density applies to food as well as energy

Let me begin here with a quote from Rachel Gabel's wonderful op ed linked first below.

"Scale isn’t bad in agriculture. Efficiency isn’t the enemy. Modern animal agriculture allows American producers to feed the millions of people who depend upon farmers at least three times per day."

Perhaps because animal rights groups take videos out of context or take them from operations that don't treat their animals well, perhaps because people still hold in their minds the picture that modern agriculture is the same as the bucolic scenes of old, whatever the reason, I think it's easy to see higher density agriculture as dystopian or wrong.  

It's easy to fall back (as we often do--see for example the modern ultra-organic movements as an example) on the schema that this type of production is the result of soulless technocrats.  

Doing so leads for a call of "returning" to nature, it leads to policy efforts like that of Colorado's for eggs (see link #2 below) or California's for pork (as Mrs. Gabel covers).  

Unfortunately for us all, policy efforts like these ignore the fact that we live in a finite world and that we are where we are not as a result of those soulless technocrats, but rather our ability to feed ourselves at a price we can all afford.

It is, to tie this to the previous post, an example of density, spatial density (albeit this time for food).  Growing food takes space.  It takes inputs like water, food.  And losses cost producers, thus consumers too.

When animals are given less space to move in, when they interact less with the natural world, you can more tightly control the inputs like food and losses like predation and disease.  Control of these things means that we can feed more people with less inputs, and at a cost they can afford.

If we moved to increase those things thoughtlessly, if we entrust these decisions to (taking Colorado as an example) politicians along the Front Range who don't bother to include producers or even ask themselves the simple question of "why are things now the way they are?", we end up paying more for less food and we risk the security of our food supply. 

To give you a sense of what these things mean in more detail I linked (#3 and #4) to a couple references that cover free range and organic chicken production. 

See the attached screenshot from the abstract in the paper linked fourth below.  You will see points I highlighted which echo the same sentiments as Mrs. Gabel about pork.  They echo the points because this idea generalizes well.

Lower density and "natural" are choices we make.  They do not necessarily produce a better product and/or may not be more humane to the animal.  They lead to shortages and problems like we experienced last year when eggs became hugely expensive (if you could find them).** 

They do mean that we need to sacrifice something else we might hold just as valuable as notions of "free range".  We have finite land.  We have finite resources.  

And again, there is no choice without consequence.  

**I am aware of the fact that it was due to needing to cull lots of chickens to tamp down an epidemic of avian flu, but the Colorado law prevented us from importing eggs from other states that didn't meet our state's "space requirements" and thus we artificially limited our supply further, meaning prices hiked up even more than they would have had to.  

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/legislating-the-pork-right-off-your-plate-gabel/article_bb5dc0a0-ef6e-11ee-8574-ab9e6fd441ad.html

https://ag.colorado.gov/ics/eggs/cage-free-eggs

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7070886/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592875/

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Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God

That time of the week again.  Last post until Sunday and that means something for fun, not related to politics.  Well, not current politics anyway.

I recently re-read Rhodes' excellent book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb".*  If you've not read it and want to read an excellent and well-researched and written history on the topic, you will not do better than this book.  I linked to its Wikipedia page below if you'd like read up prior to, you know, reading up.

This post isn't actually about the book though.  It's about a John Donne poem mentioned in the book (by or relating to Oppenheimer).  The poem is Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God.  I linked to it below the book.  

Interesting poem.  The imagery in it is what first caught my eye.**  Violent is not the right word I want here, but I'm struggling to find another that is apt.  Passionate perhaps?  There is a definite sense of wanting to give over to God without holding anything back; this combined with the feeling of knowing beforehand that what God wants for us is to our benefit, but that we can't quite get there on our own.  

I was talking with a colleague who teaches philosophy recently and shared this poem with him and that led to a discussion about sacred art, music, and poetry.  

It's my contention that we have a lot of exposition about religion anymore and it feels like we don't have a lot of the emotional side of it.  That is, lots of learning and sermons, less of the raw experience of the divine (even that unmediated by words).

He agreed and indicated that since the printing press was invented the trend has been toward more reason in sermons.

Not sure on that contention, but I'm inclined to defer to his explanation seeing as how he teaches classes on religion and I teach on physics.

If you have thoughts on any of this feel free to add to the comments below.  I'd be curious to hear.  Keep in mind too that with regard to art, no one is more an authority than you.  You and not anyone else get to decide what it means to you.  

At any rate, a new poem to add to your collection if you've been keeping one.

Have a good rest of the day and back at it Sunday!

*Rhodes did a similar history about the H bomb.  Also good, also recommended.

**If you're the type that says, "I never get poetry, I couldn't ever understand or see what people said it was supposed to be about", I sympathize. If you're open to some advice, it would be this.  Stop.  That is not what this is about.  It took me til my 40's but I think I finally get it.  Poetry, art, music, is not about what your teacher says it should be about.  It's not about "getting" a message or another, save for the message that is yours.  That is, stop thinking about it.  Just experience it and do so without thinking you need to find a hidden meaning.  The only real meaning is the feeling it evokes in you and that's different for us all.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_Atomic_Bomb

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44106/holy-sonnets-batter-my-heart-three-persond-god