Power Supply Options 5

[owg]

Is there a place on Eng-Tips where power supply options for the Earth are discussed? It looks like nuclear will be out of favour for a few decades and it is hard to take wind and solar seriously as major reliable components of a supply mix. Natural gas seems to be in favour in spite of its generation of CO2.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[cvg]

sure we can "encourage" India and China, but when have they ever listened to us (or anybody else for that matter)? Market forces drive development of power just like it drives everything else. When cold fusion solar snakes are economically feasible or required by law, they will get built...

 

[KENAT]

From their point of view, why should they listen, we got where we are burning lots of coal & oil, seems a bit unfair to say they can't do the same.

Obviously now we have some reason to believe that burning all that fossil fuel may have had negative consequences that outweigh some of the benefits but that's easy to say now we're at the standard of living etc. that we're at.

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[rb1957]

i agree ... so why are they exempt for CO2 emissions, particularly when they're going to be burning more and more. why are governments distorting the market with incentives for "green power" ?

the market doesn't dictate what happens ... politics does (because politics can adjust the market to suit it own ends).

 

[CastMetal]

Politics can only infuse so much inefficiency into the markets in the name of the greater good. At a point (300$ a barrel for bio-fuel?) self-interest of the people will shift politics back to the market solution for their needs.

The overshoot between being too market friendly (self-interested) and too socially conscientious is one way of looking at the never ending swing between Right and Left wing majorities in many political systems.

 

[cvg]

why are governments distorting the market with incentives for "green power" ?

politicians are catering to environmental activists that are telling them that the world as we know it will end in a few short years because of globabl warming that is caused by our out of control consumption of fossil fuels which can all be reversed by giving tax credits for producing green energy and LEED certification and penalizing those who dare to burn anything. The ultimate solution is to make laws that artificially raise the price of energy to high levels such that demand is greatly reduced, thus forcing complete change over to alternative energy which will reverse the climate change. All of this globabl warming hysteria based on admittedly sketchy "science", much of which was paid for by the same politicians and environmentalists and with the end result in mind prior to the study, it is not surprising what the results of the studies have been.

 

[flash3780]

A lot of governments are focused on reducing CO2 emissions, but are they really as dangerous as many think they are? I often question the accuracy of the collected data and how that relates to the deviations in the mean temperature of the earth. Often, we're talking about fractions of a degree. Also, the hockey stick curve that everyone is so familiar with is based on proposed feedback loop that multiplies the effect of the increase.

From a practical point of view, making a model that is accurate to the fraction of a degree is dubious. Measuring temperatures to the fraction of a degree is difficult. Can you imagine the difficulty associated with creating a thermal model of the entire planet? Do we really want to hang our hat on these numbers?

The other dubious side of things is money. Currently, there is a lot of money involved in global warming predictions and research. A cynical person might question whether the money involved might influence the direction of the research.

I'm all for innovation. I think that cleaner energy producing technologies are desirable and environmental legislation is required for maintaining a clean environment. However, increasing the cost of energy by limiting things like carbon dioxide emissions based on computer models that have thus far proven inaccurate seems ill-advised. Actually, it hurts people. Especially poor people who spend a larger portion of their disposable income heating their houses and turning on the lights at night.

I know this is a bit off topic for this thread, but CO2 has been mentioned several times, so I wanted to address it.

It's interesting: When I was in elementary school we watched filmstrips about the coming ice age. Now we're concerned about rising temperatures. From my understanding, many of the same people were involved in both sets of predictions.

 

[mauricestoker]

I thought encouraging the Chinese to burn more coal was intentional. That seems to be where the mountain tops in this state are going. They send us bad pet food, we send high sulfur coal in exchange. I think it's called "clean coal".

Unfortunately, the silliness never ends, no matter who the clown is. I remember in the Reagan years the "killer trees" concept, where trees were responsible for lowered air quality and acid rain. When that feel out of vogue, the converstion turned to cattle farts being responsible for the ozone layer going away.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

 

[rb1957]

a few people will get rich at the expense of everyone else.

i think we need new ideas to tackle our energy consumption.

petroleum is limited (ok we won't run out tomorrow, but some time). ok, we've got loads of coal, NG, shale-oil, tar sands, etc but these'll return less energy (ie will be more expensive and intrusive). there's the nuke option, but pressurised water reactors are inherently dangerous (ok, fallible).

renewables (solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc) will only be IMHO niche producers of energy. there are some places where they'll reliably produce output, and lots of places where they'll be unreliable.

biomass ... maybe, why not ? it'll be expensive to start with, but that'll reduce as the techniques get improved. using foodstocks in a hungry world sounds more than a bit daft.

of course the long term hope (dream?) is fusion, but that is for the later 2st century.

SPS, new nuke designs ... why not ?

energy is going to get more expensive. the demand for energy is only going to increase. the rational thing for us engineers to consider is how to improve efficiency and how to "exploit" other sources of energy.

 

[GregLocock]

Just a quick reminder

http://www.withouthotair.com/

runs through the options. It looks as though a typical western nation uses about 200 kWh per person per day, in energy.

He works out that if everything renewable was done a European country could generate about 25% of that.

His conculsion is simple:"Let’s be realistic. Just like Britain, Europe can’t live on its own renewables. So
if the aim is to get off fossil fuels, Europe needs nuclear power, or solar
power in other people’s deserts (as discussed on p179), or both."




Cheers

Greg Locock


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[owg]

GregLocock - Thanks for posting of the"withouthotair" link. I had not come across it.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[csd72]

I find these arguments about consistency and lack of base power a bit superfluous as there are ways around it that are already in use and no doubt others that will crop up.

I can remember seeing in PA a pair of dams with a pump between them. Excess power was used to pump the water uphill during the offpeak so it could be used during the peak. I am sure better ways of doing this could be sought.

I also disagree that nuclear power is completely out of the agenda for the next couple of years 40 year old nuclear power has no comparison to modern ones. Back then computers were the size of a room.

 

[GregLocock]

The trouble with any hydro scheme is that it has to be enormous to make it work (consider the potential energy stored when you pump a ton of water up a 100m hill, enough to keep a toaster running to toast a loaf of bread) and most of the good sites are gone.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[moltenmetal]

There are plenty of ways to moderate demand and to store energy from renewables.

None of them make any economic sense until there's a price on carbon emisssions to the atmosphere.

This is not a technical problem. It is an economic one.

 

[mauricestoker]

SnTMan,

I was doing reearch last night, watching an Austin Powers rerun, and I think the Swedish pump makers have the lead, not the flash light shakers.

 

[cvg]

I thought hydropower had been around for a 100-years, what R&D is needed? What we really need is to relax the environmental rules so we can build more dams...

WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S. 4/5/11 (PennWell) --
Hydropower is a clean, efficient renewable energy source that is poised to play a larger role in the nation's renewable energy portfolio, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told hundreds of hydropower professionals gathered at the 2011 National Hydropower Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The senator's NHA address followed on the heels of her introduction of the bipartisan Hydropower Improvement Act of 2011, which is aimed at boosting U.S. hydropower generation.

WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S. 4/5/11 (PennWell) --
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have announced $26.6 million in funding for research and development projects to advance hydropower technology, including pumped-storage hydropower.

 

[KENAT]

Cars and Aircraft have been around for 100+ years too but R&D still gets done on them, seems a silly statement.

For pump stores I'd have thought ways to get them online even quicker might be beneficial. Perhaps more efficient pumps & turbines etc. could be developed as well.

As to the supposed environmental issues, hydropower may not be as 'green' as some like to think. If the area flooded has a lot of vegetation then supposedly as it rots it adds considerable green house gases in it's own right. Plus there are all the little critters that get flooded that may upset other shades of greenies.

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[cvg]

but (lack of) R&D is not really what is stopping us from building hydro projects. And I'm not sure taxpayers need to subsidize the owners R&D efforts so they can install more efficient turbines. Will the taxpayers see any of that money come back? This research would be a drop in the bucket for the hydro companies and they are already doing it as they see the need to upgrade turbines or software and increase efficiency. The fact is that new hydropower dams rarely get permitted in the US due primarily to environmental issues that go far beyond any rotting vegetation. Think spawning salmon, downstream erosion, downstream reduction in flow... We are in fact removing dams as fast as we are building new ones, just so the fish can again spawn like they did a 100 years ago. I'm sure the fish appreciate it.

 

[KENAT]

Is it angled just to building new projects, or making better use of the dams etc. we already have?

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[cvg]

hard to tell, however as with most federal research grant money, it is pretty much up to the researcher what he wants to study. Hopefully it is more productive than estimating the amount of methane gas belched by cows...

 

[flash3780]

I thought hydropower had been around for a 100-years

I think you may be off by at least a few thousand years with that statement.

http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-discoveries/videos/roman-water-wheels#roman-water-wheels