YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

[mfb]

"Nothing magic". hmmmm... I like that.

There is something magic about those examples: they all happen to have a lot of hydroelectricity available. It is easy to show this cannot work on a larger scale - there are just not enough rivers with sufficient flow and height difference. It is an illusion to think every other town or country could simply adopt this strategy and we would have 100% renewable energy everywhere.

 

[rootone]

This thread is too long to read it all, so tidal has probably already been mentioned, but anyway I think it's a good candidate.
I don't live in the US, but it looks like there's quite a lot of useable coastline there.
It's big bonus over other renewables is that it is completely predictable.

 

[mheslep]

This thread is too long to read it all, so tidal has probably already been mentioned, but anyway I think it's a good candidate.
I don't live in the US, but it looks like there's quite a lot of useable coastline there.
It's big bonus over other renewables is that it is completely predictable.

Tidal power, all of it on the coastlines, is still a fraction of global consumption, and it's still intermittent.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/can-tides-turn-the-tide/

 

[rootone]

Ah OK. Interesting read.
I had thought that the available energy in tides was a lot greater than it actually is.
Only certain rare locations channel tides in a way so that they possesses useful amounts of energy that could be extracted.
Open sea tides average at about only 1 meter, and much of the coastline offers little more than that.
Even so, I guess it's worth exploiting in those parts that do have potential.

 

[OmCheeto]

Tidal power, all of it on the coastlines, is still a fraction of global consumption, and it's still intermittent.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/can-tides-turn-the-tide/

Wow. Have you posted articles by that guy before? I like people who do maths.

I like the one graph he posted:

 

[mheslep]

I find Murphy's DTM articles on energy to be excellent when he's actually doing the math, both in clarity of approach and accuracy.

However, he also has a habit IMO of introducing a thesis by rigorous maths, which are indeed solid, and then meandering into personal speculation, however likely or not, with varying context, and then treating that speculation as if it were just as irrefutable. That graph above is a good example: the data on the rise of energy use is known, but Murphy has no business putting the known rise alongside his his personal speculation on the when and rate of the decline. He's also made a statement about Hubert's peak oil theories, that Hubert's prediction of irreversible decline of US domestic oil production from its 1970's levels were "irrefutable", a claim he made a few years before the US oil industry refuted it.

 

[OmCheeto]

How did I miss this article?

Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables (Bloomberg)
This is the beginning of the end.
April 14, 2015

The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there's no going back.

Holy Moses! Bloomberg has a bunch of these articles. When did they become tree huggers?

Big Oil Is About to Lose Control of the Auto Industry
A pollution-free revolution is coming
April 16, 2015

While the U.S. pats itself on the back for the riches flowing from fracking wells, an upheaval in clean energy is quietly loosening the oil industry's grip on the automotive industry.

bolding mine

I've heard bad things about "Fracking". Though, I don't follow it closely enough to know whether or not the frack-o-phobes are telling the truth. Let's see if I can find something from a non-whacko site.

This one seems legit':

How safe is fracking? (The Economist)
August 19, 2013

Fracking is not without risk. As gas rises to the surface it can escape into drinking water. Recent research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, on the impact of drilling in the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from north-eastern Pennsylvania to southeastern New York, found that four-fifths of nearby wells contained methane and that concentrations of gas in the water in nearby homes were far higher than in those further away.

Sounds a bit bad, but the article leans towards pro-fracking.

But back to this string of Bloomberg articles:

Germany Proves Life With Less Fossil Fuel Getting Easier
April 12, 2015

The system Scheibner manages has been so successful that Germany experiences just 15 minutes a year of outages, compared with 68 minutes in France and more than four hours in Poland. The model in Germany, the biggest economy in the world to rely so heavily on renewables, is being copied from California to China as wind and solar displace traditional fuels such as nuclear and coal.

hmmm... The rest of the article makes the 'headline' sound like a bait and switch. It does not sound "easier".

“In 10 years, we will need to transport 25 gigawatts of renewable power from northern to southern Germany,” as atomic reactors in the south are closed, said Scheibner at the 50Hertz center. “We’re in a race against time.”

Though, I see nothing wrong with a good 'struggle', as it keeps you busy.

ps. I saw Wolram's post the other day about "Fireplaces", and being of the 'efficiency' nerd persuasion, I ran an experiment with my wood fired 'Franklin Stove' all day yesterday. I haven't run the numbers yet, but I've always been curious, since I made that post:

I just discovered that Oregon couldn't even power Oregon with our wood
...
I seriously doubt my old Franklin stove has an efficiency over 0.1%.

Numbers to follow. Some day...
I just completed science experiment #5. The first of which I started 48 hours ago.
So much data, so little time...

 

[mfb]

The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined.

The statement counts nuclear power as "renewable". And 1 GW in a coal power plant means you get ~800 MW, while 1 GW installed photovoltaics gives you on average something like 100 MW. We are far away from the point where the increase in delivered power from renewables is larger than the increase from fossil fuels, not even the 2030 forecast gives that. And it just means the current massive difference does not increase even more after that point.

 

[mheslep]

Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables (Bloomberg)
This is the beginning of the end.
April 14, 2015

The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there's no going back.

The Bloomberg fanfare is a comparison between the "capacity" of sources with very different capacity factors. Bloomber has new fossil capacity at 141 GW, which runs ~70% of the time (when its needed) so the average fossil fueled power is ~100 GW. The new "renewable" capacity is given as 143 GW. About half of that tally is the not-so-new technology of hydro and biomass, along with some nuclear. The other ~71 GW capacity is 35 GW wind and 35 GW solar. Solar runs ~20% of the time so its average power is 7 GW avg and wind at 33% is 12 GW avg, so that new wind and solar produce about 7% of total electric generation (coal-gas-hydro-nuclear-biomass-solar-wind).

Imagine instead an article exclaiming, WooHoo!, 7% new solar and wind, and by the way global consumption of trees (biomass) has doubled or tripled in the last few years. Such is not going to draw many readers, though it would convey a realistic picture of what's happening with wind and solar and biomass, and, well, in some media outlets that can't be allowed. Fortunately https://www.linkedin.com/pub/tom-randall/4/830/56 don't build and run the grid.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
[edit] Not quite true.

The truth of the matter is, that I've determined that the people running around PF are so freaking smart, that a mere hint of what I've discovered, would have them knowing exactly what it was, that I've stumbled upon. Mere mortals would laugh. But PF'ers, would slap the sides of their heads, in a "Why didn't I think of that"?, kind of way. (See: Pet Rocks, Road Reflectors. etc. )

My guess, as to why they haven't, is because, it's been my focus, from day one.

ps. My science experiment from yesterday was a complete failure.

The mosquito's survived...
But not for long...

 

[mfb]

Thread re-opened after cleanup. Please keep in mind that we do not discuss private unpublished theories and inventions (this comment is not related to the previous post).

 

[jim hardy]

(this comment is not related to the previous post).

OM's thought seems quite realistic. No reason in principle one couldn't use exhaust heat in a second thermodynamic cycle, just as in combined cycle power plants.
Before high temperature water chemistry got good there were a few plants built that boiled mercury at ~1000 degF and condensed it at ~400, using heat from the mercury condenser to boil water for a conventional steam plant. A friend of mine worked on the automatic controls for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_vapour_turbine

The advantage of operating a mercury-vapour turbine in conjunction with a steam power plant lies in the fact that the complete cycle can be worked over a very wide range of temperature without employing any abnormal pressure. The exhaust from the mercury turbine is used to raise steam for the steam turbine. The Hartford Electric Light Co. (U.S.A.) has a 10,000kW turbo-generator driven by mercury vapour, which reaches the turbine at 70 lb. per sq. in. (gauge), 880°F. The mercury vapour is condensed at 445°F and raises 129,000 lb. steam per hr. at 280 lb. per sq. in. pressure. The latter is superheated to 735°F and passed to the steam turbines. During 4 months continuous operation, this plant averaged about 0.715 lb. of coal per kWh of net output, about 43% of the output being from the mercury turbine generator and 57% from the steam plant. On maintained full-load the heat output averages 9800 B.Th.U. per net kWh. It is believed that maintenance costs will be lower than in ordinary steam plant. The back-pressure on the mercury turbine is fixed by the steam boiler pressure; only a small vacuum pump is needed, as there is no air or other gas in the mercury system.

Power plants designed by William Emmet were constructed by General Electric and operated between 1923 and 1950. Large plants included:

• Hartford, Connecticut, 1.8 MW, starting in 1922, uprated in stages to 15 MW in 1949
• Kearny, New Jersey, 20 MW mercury turbine +30 MW steam, started 1933
• Schenectady, New York,[3]
• Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 40 MW, 1950.[4][5]

Assuming 10,000 btu/lb coal that's a heat rate of just 7150 BTU/KWH which is darn good even today. Modern combined cycle plants might do 6000, nukes maybe 10,000, conventional coal 9,000 .

For automotive application a steam engine could return power to the drivetrain. I've long wanted to do that by re-plumbing an air conditioner compressor as a steam engine and returning power to engine through the fan belt.
Practical problems would be the same as with original steam automobiles, people up north wouldn't want their boiler to freeze up in winter.
Another working fluid like Freon seems natural, though.
Hobbyists turn old Chrysler V-2 air conditioner compressors into Stirling engines because they come with the needed 90 degree offset between cylinders. But that'd be a plumbing nightmare.so, OM - lots of us have eyed that exhaust heat stream you linked in "wild geese".
Keep up the good work. Something for over-the-road trucks might give a quick payback.

old jim

 

[OmCheeto]

OM's thought seems quite realistic. No reason in principle one couldn't use exhaust heat in a second thermodynamic cycle, just as in combined cycle power plants.
Before high temperature water chemistry got good there were a few plants built that boiled mercury at ~1000 degF and condensed it at ~400, using heat from the mercury condenser to boil water for a conventional steam plant. A friend of mine worked on the automatic controls for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_vapour_turbine
...

Interesting. Never heard of such a thing.

so, OM - lots of us have eyed that exhaust heat stream you linked in "wild geese".
Keep up the good work. Something for over-the-road trucks might give a quick payback.

old jim

I actually haven't worked on the 'wild geese' idea since it was posted. BMW has been working on it since 2000. 15 years!
If a multibillion dollar corporation can't figure out how to engineer something in that amount of time, then I probably didn't have much of a chance with my duct tape and sticks technology.

I posted it mainly as a reference to the fact that energy efficiency has been my primary interest in science since I arrived here.
As I mentioned to BlueSpanishLady last month, I've thrown most of my old ideas out the window.

And I'm not above stealing ideas. I thought this one was great:

Powertrain Drawbacks
April, 2011

I'm thinking about an on-board electrolysis unit that could convert water (with added electrolytes) into hydrogen and oxygen...

I like this idea. Consider your idea stolen.
...

AlephZero didn't seem to like the idea, but I loved it.

 

[Hachibei]

Personally I feel as though nuclear energy provides the safest in alternative energy and allows for the greatest amount of energy to be produced at the lowest cost rather than using hydroelectric power with the various problems cited above

 

[Buckleymanor]

Personally I feel as though nuclear energy provides the safest in alternative energy and allows for the greatest amount of energy to be produced at the lowest cost rather than using hydroelectric power with the various problems cited above

It would be interesting to ask the inhabitants around Chernoble or Fukashima if they share your feelings with regards the cost.

 

[russ_watters]

It would be interesting to ask the inhabitants around Chernoble or Fukashima if they share your feelings with regards the cost.

Asking only a small, select group of people about the cost does not provide a complete cost-benefit picture, nor does it provide any comparison with other costs. Also, it wrongly assumes those costs are the same everywhere.

 

[Buckleymanor]

Asking only a small, select group of people about the cost does not provide a complete cost-benefit picture, nor does it provide any comparison with other costs. Also, it wrongly assumes those costs are the same everywhere.

I agree but right or wrongly it does explain why the world does not embrace nuclear power with enthusiasm.

 

[russ_watters]

I agree but right or wrongly it does explain why the world does not embrace nuclear power with enthusiasm.

Broadly, that's kind of true and vastly different from one country to the next. France decided to go all nuclear in 1974 due to the first oil shock. The anti-nuclear movement was well underway in the US by then, mostly on political grounds (equating nuclear power with nuclear weapons). The US nuclear industry had already essentially stopped growing before Chernobyl in 1989.

Environmentalists have started to come around on nuclear power and the original anti nuke weapons opposition has largely dissipated. With coal being crushed by anti-global warming rules, it seems likely to have a comeback here.

All that said, I have this thread in the engineering section because I want to focus on technical/practical concerns. On that score, nuclear's merits are quite high compared to alternatives.

 

[mheslep]

the original anti nuke weapons opposition has largely dissipated.

If only. I think "replaced" with more of the same is more accurate. There seem to be quite few full time Caldicot replacements out there, degreed people fronting one man "institutes" who work out of their kitchens for decades trying to get published, and occasionally some junk papers slip into a journal. Mangano comes to mind. And the NYT still feels the need to publish the ravings of Caldicott.

The responses to the crackpots have grown concise, clear, but not sufficient to put them on the dustbin. The balance I think will allow some more nuclear plants, but still via an over-long and and over-expensive process that will make them too expensive in the US, continuing to be double and triple the price of Chinese and Indian projects. BTW, I think keeping US nuclear power at its current status quo (100 reactors and no more) serves the interests of all conventional power producers, including the owners of of large, expensive, 60 year life nuclear plants.

 

[OmCheeto]

Yay! I love it when someone else does the maths for me:

Engineers Develop Roadmap To Get The US To Run on 100% Renewable Energy By 2050 (IFLScience)
June 10, 2015 | by Aamna Mohdin

A new study suggests it’s entirely possible for the U.S. to run on 100% renewable energy in just 35 years. The radical plan outlines what each state needs to do to achieve this ambitious goal. What’s the main barrier to making this happen? Political willpower.

Mark Z. Jacobson, from Stanford University, and his research team outlined the changes in infrastructure and energy consumption that each state has to undergo to achieve this transition to clean energy. Jacobson points out in a statement that it’s “technologically and economically” possible to successfully achieve this “large scale transformation.” Researchers have even created an interactive map that showcases their plans.
...

Their interactive map is fun. It shows what is available in each state.
The original paper is available. (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015)
The only thing that seems too optimistic is aircraft.

...
Long-haul aircraft: by 2040, all remaining new aircraft are electrolytic cryogenic hydrogen (ref. 6, Section A.2.7) with electric power for idling, taxiing, and internal power. The limiting factors to a faster transition are the time and social changes required for the redesign of aircraft and the design and operation of airports.
...

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out what "Ref. 6, Section A.2.7" was.
And I've only found one commercial sized aircraft that was cryogenic hydrogen powered: Tupolev Tu-155

 

[mheslep]

Jacobson and Delucchi produce more that is "too optimistic". The plan is wind heavy, but in my state for instance the onshore wind resource is nearly nil so the plan calls for 50% offshore wind. Yet there's not a single offshore commercial turbine running today in US waters. This is the case though the US is the world's largest onshore generator of wind. Therefore I would expect some discussion in the paper of why this is so, at least, and what's required to mitigate obstacles. Offshore wind is currently almost three times the price of CC natural gas generation per kWh, a gap that no practical carbon tax will close. But Jacobson et al are not interested, though it turns out there are also good environmental reasons for the lack of wind turbines in US waters that won't go away. They might as well have assumed 50% fusion power.

 

[OmCheeto]

One of the nice things about crossposting on PF and Facebook, is that I get comments from PF Emeritus:

Regarding the "Roadmap" post I posted yesterday evening:

Thanks for posting this. It's fascinating! I totally agree that it's politics that will prevent it, especially in a state where the sheeple are proudly displaying their "Friends of Coal" license plates and bumper stickers. The coal barons have convinced them that if we move away from coal, the state economy will collapse and there will be huge unemployment. Somehow they manage to ignore the horrible impact on health and the environment of both coal mining and coal-fired power plants, and that very few people are still employed in those industries due to automation and corporate greed. I've tried telling state lawmakers and anyone else who will listen that clinging to dying technology doesn't help our economy, shifting to new technology and new industries before everyone else hops on the bandwagon does. I liked that there were job creation numbers, and not just short term employment, but 40 year employment, in other words, steady employment for someone's full working lifetime from early 20s until retirement. That is REAL job creation, not these projects we get that employ people for two years and then don't need them anymore. I know, I'm sort of ranting on this, but it gets very frustrating living in a state where people keep voting against their own interests because they believe the political corporate propaganda.

My response was; "Wow"

My only other response to the post was:

Om's BFF; (I won't even read the article) That's cute. Good luck.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 23 hrs​

To which I responded:

Om; They do list, in the very first paragraph, the biggest barrier: political willpower. So yah, it's doable, but, I agree with you, it has a snowball's chance in hell of happening. I only shared this, as I was curious about their numbers. They link to an interactive map that shows how it is most feasible in each of the 50 states.​

ps. Moonie gave me permission, to share her thoughts on the matter.
pss. Hypatia liked my post too! Though, she did not give me permission to mention that. My bad.

 

[Ziga Casar]

58 sites.. that's a lot to read.. I think you have talked about geothermal energy, in case you didn't: The US have on the west coast enough potencial for using geothermal energy for more 1000 years with the present energy use (if one can believe the book "End of Oil"). This is a great alternative form of energy, because with the oil finding technics, it's pretty easy to get to the thermal water in the underground and than you just need to make pipes to the turbins and back to the ground a few km away. But, I'm more a fusion fan, I'm really excited about the the building and making of ITER in France. Fussion power plants are definately a better option than Nucklear plants, because the site product is helium, not radioactive, and we are getting low on helium anyway.

 

[mfb]

Job creation = higher costs
All those additional jobs will need someone to pay for them. You cannot have something cheaper with more employees at the same wage, that does not work. Every concept that claims to increase employment rate and reduce cost at the same time has some calculation error. It can work if you export something and kill jobs elsewhere, of course.

 

[Jimster41]

Policy change in New York meant to improve market responsiveness to energy industry transformation trends
http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/26BE8A93967E604785257CC40066B91A?OpenDocument

An Environmental Defense Fund Blog on NY's "Reforming The Energy Vision" PSC policy initiative.
http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange...-energy-vision-just-got-a-little-bit-clearer/

This is maybe a better overview. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/new-york-launches-major-regulatory-reform-for-utilities

Hawaii is committed to a 100% renewables by 2045
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/100-percent-renewable-hawaii-says-aloha

 

[OmCheeto]

Job creation = higher costs
All those additional jobs will need someone to pay for them. You cannot have something cheaper with more employees at the same wage, that does not work. Every concept that claims to increase employment rate and reduce cost at the same time has some calculation error. It can work if you export something and kill jobs elsewhere, of course.

Is it safe to assume you are referring to the most recent article I posted?
If so, I see it differently.
I just transcribed the cost of crude oil imports into the USA. [ref]
Over the last ten years, they have averaged around $258 billion per year.
That's $2.6 trillion over the last 10 years, with the total from 1973 to 2014 being only $4.1 trillion.
So the trend looks pretty bad to me.

The article claims that the net transition gain in employment will be 5.9 million.

≈3.9 million 40-year construction jobs
≈2.0 million 40-year operation jobs for the energy facilities alone
the sum of which would outweigh the ≈3.9 million jobs lost in the conventional energy sector.​

The permanent result will be a loss of 1.9 million jobs.

As always, I see a trade deficit to be a much worse burden on a nation, than an internal cost, as, in the later case, the money is recycled. In the former case, you have to figure out what to sell someone in order to break even.

According to another source, the total trade imbalance for the same period is $10 trillion. [ref]

So I consider the $4.1 trillion, to be significant.
The rest of the imbalance is of course, a topic for another thread. And I won't go there, as even I don't know how to fix stupid.

 

[mfb]

Well, not importing something goes in the same direction as exporting something. On a more global scale, it is still just a redistribution of money. Not all redistributions are bad, of course.

 

[mheslep]

U.S. oil imports are on trend to zero by 2020

 

[mheslep]

http://www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/images/2015_03_figure1.png [ IMG]

Net energy imports

 

[mheslep]

 

[jlefevre76]

I think the reason the political will is not there yet can be described with a metaphor: why plant a farm in your backyard if the wild fruit trees still have enough fruit growing on them to sustain yourself? For the short term, we have enough fruit trees, and nobody wants to look at the long term when the population grows faster than our ability to harvest fossil fuels. In the meantime, fossil fuels are cheap and convenient, and frankly I think a lot of people would complain about the inconveniences associated with renewable energy. So, politicians are not all the keen on inconveniencing their constituents and becoming the bad guy.

Some of the chemical processes are really promising though, like the Navy's CO2 seawater to gasoline and/or jet fuel technology. It offers the same amount of convenience once the fuel is produced (with an energy penalty), it's just not as cheap or easy as pulling oil out of the ground and refining it. Biofuels have a lot of room to grow if algae biofuel can become economical in terms of EROEI and financial cost, or if other biofuel crops can be developed and grown on land that is otherwise not considered arable farmland.

So, maybe when the metaphorical fruit trees start to become bare enough for people to worry, then will the main part of the population start to take renewable energy seriously. I'm not all that hopeful it will happen very soon. For the time being, government and corporations only seem interested in the what makes the most amount of profit and is convenient.

In any case, thanks for sharing, always neat to see plans that are developing around this problem. The biggest thing that I feel is neglected in the transition is storage. Not all forms of energy storage proposed are going to be as convenient as using fossil fuels, which could mean some serious societal and technological changes if they are adopted (like cryogenic hydrogen powered airplanes, for instance...)

 

[OmCheeto]

Well, not importing something goes in the same direction as exporting something. On a more global scale, it is still just a redistribution of money. Not all redistributions are bad, of course.

I guess this can be true.
I just read that Fisker Automotive has come back to life, via its new owner Wanxiang, Chinas largest automotive parts manufacturer, and plans on building the Karma.
Fisker Automotive Plots a Rebirth for Karma (WSJ 6/23/2015)
Wanxiang also owns A123, who was the manufacturer of the batteries for the Karma.
So then, if we hadn't had such a horrific trade imbalance, $3.2 trillion[ref], with China over the last 14 years, they'd have not had the money to buy the two bankrupt companies. But they did, and now Americans will get to have jobs, and pay taxes, and give us another Tesla like company, which in the end, will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
So the redistribution of wealth from America to China, in this case, looks good.

I wonder how our other foreign investors are doing.
SolarWorld AG stock prices:

Date          price     ROI
01/24/2015    $0.35     n/a
02/14/2015   $53.95     153
6/26/2015    $13.20     36.7

wow

SolarWorld AG, a German based company, invested about $500 million in my state a few years back.
Yay!

hmmmm... I wonder if this is their "thank you", for taking in my mom, and the rest of us wretched refuse, off of their hands.

 

[mheslep]

... which in the end, will reduce our dependence on foreign :

Shale oil, tar sands oil, and to lesser degree vehicle efficiency has reduced oil imports to N. America, and is on trend to zero N American oil imports by 2020.

 

[OmCheeto]

Shale oil, tar sands oil, and to lesser degree vehicle efficiency has reduced oil imports to N. America, and is on trend to zero N American oil imports by 2020.

To paraphrase:

I think the reason the political will is not there yet can be described with a metaphor: why plant a farm in your backyard if the wild fruit trees still have enough fruit growing on them to sustain yourself?

Yup, we're harvesting more fruit, which keeps us alive, for now. Unfortunately, fracking, and other methods, are giving us a poisonous, ugly, and malformed fruit.

7th generation...

 

[mheslep]

To paraphrase:
Yup, we're harvesting more fruit, which keeps us alive, for now. Unfortunately, fracking, and other methods, are giving us a poisonous, ugly, and malformed fruit.

7th generation...

Dagnabit OC, I told you to stop loop watching Strangelove and taking up all that Ripper on Precious Bodily Fluids.