A New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy

[damocles]

Reply to Boerseun

Re: A New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy

Originally Posted by damocles


For the calendar year 1993 the total capacity was 563.8, of which renewable( Geothermal/Solar/Wind/Biomass) was 3.4 and Hydroelectric(I consider this a renewable) was 90.7

For the calendar year 2002 the total capacity was 635.9, of which renewable( Geothermal/Solar/Wind/Biomass) was 23.6 and Hydroelectric(I consider this a renewable) was 93.3.

1. EU has come close to maxing out its riverine hydro-electric capacity.
2. Aside from France, as far as Nuclear goes? Pffffft.
3. Most growth comes from conventional thermal(fossil fuel) plants.
4. GSWB was the most aggressively pursued option, but its contribution remains INSIGNIFICANT.

A 700% increase, over nine years, INSIGNIFICANT?!? How, exactly?

GSWB output increased 700 percent. Valid stat.; but a deliberate misread of total EU generating capacity impact for the period. A 2.2% increase when GSWB was the primaryinvested effort at increasing generating capacity remains INSIGNIFICANT and is a wastage of time and scarce resources better spent elsewhere by the EU. D.

Originally Posted by damocles


It is usually GSWB that the greens cite as the future basis of electrical production.

What the greens forget; is that aside from riverine hydropower and passive conductive geothermal renewables, most present renewable energy technologies have these factors that if the technologies were scaled to the huge scales that the bycycle crowd envision would actually produce this;

1. GSWB entails toxic chemistry in its manufacture and maintenance.
2. GSWB introduces heavy metal poisons to the aquifer because of 1.
3. GSWB has a huge terrain footprint that takes farmland out of production.
4. GSWB due to its polllution scales destroys the ecologies upon which it imprints.
5. GSWB is a low density kilowatt per square meter land used generating scheme that is grossly inefficient.

As to:

B. said;

1. As opposed to thermal or nuclear power stations that generates no pollutants in its manufacture? Duh? The difference here, being, that GSWB doesn't produce pollutants when in operation - unlike your alternatives, thermal and nuclear. So point one is blown out of the water

--------------------------------


Why? Manufacture and maintenance for these systems is ongoing through the life of the system, or do you think the systems maintain themselves or don't wear out? The mine tailings(discards) for the raw materials components for solar collector arrays that would be equal in area to the area of New Jersey would cover an area 10 x the size of the collectors' surface area for example. That would be roughly equivalent to the surface area of Utah. D.

B. said:

2. Refer to the previous point. That's a pretty silly justification.

Refer to B's rebuttal of 1. and then my rebuttal of the rebuttal. I won't remark on "silly" as in good conscience I expect B. believes he is correct. I KNOW though that he is wrong. D.

B. wrote;

3. Huge footprint - sure. The US thermal energy complex has a footprint that spans halfway around the globe via the atmosphere. Brazilian treefrogs choke on their mosquitos so that the US can have streetlamps burning at ungodly hours. The difference here, is that per kilowatt the GSWB footprint might be considerably larger - but its effect on the ecosystem stops at the fencepost. Go GSWB!!!

An assertion? Prove it. Have you done the thermal pollution calculations or the weather pattern modifications caused by solar thermal collector systems at the magnitude engineering scales at which those systems have to operate to replace 30% fossil fuel generated U.S. capacity? If you think you have deserts now....D.

B. wrote.

4. HUH???

Farmland. Once you put a windmill farm on it.


http://www.turf.uiuc.edu/recent/rece...LL%20FARM3.JPG D.

B. wrote;

5. Compare healthcosts and ecological damage due to thermal/nuclear power generation. Add that cost to your electricity generation bill. Check you efficiency stats once more.

http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q...org/page84.htm


Old but still quite VALID. D.

Originally Posted by damocles


And that these problems are a factor of two greater than the ecological footprint per square meter of land used of the hydrocarbon technologies we use at present.

Its a psychotic approach to energy production by the green's own criterion for making a minimal impact on the ecology.

B. wrote;

Hey - let's throw all our eggs in one basket and use carbon-based fuels for our electricity generation! Let's rely on oil till the last drop in another twenty years' time! When the oil is finished, we're stuffed - but who cares; it's another 20 years away! And you call GSWB psychotic?! At best, I think you've made yourself guilty of a horribly unfortunate choice of words.

I stand by "psychotic". I prefer my science dosed with reality. If you had read others of my post you would have learned that I am a champion of hydrogen fuel cells for mobility, fusion for electrolysis of seawater for the hydrogen. hydro-electric and geo-thermal where we can get it, and save the POL products for lubrication, plastics and jet fuel. D.

Originally Posted by damocles


Suggestion. Visit either a windmill plantation or visit a solar collector array. Look at it. Scale the monstrosity up a THOUSAND times. Think of the copper, mercury, arsenic, selenium, silicon, lead, sulphur, etc. that went into building both contraptive abortions.....

Now think of the FOOTPRINT and where the thing was sited. Look at the LAND.

B. wrote;

Suggestion. After the above visitation, go visit any thermal power plant. Not only the plant itself, but the surrounds. Go and take air samples and precipitation acidity levels thousands of miles away downwind. THAT's your coal/oil-fired power station's footprint. Then go to the surrounding towns and test the locals for lung disease, etc. See the drop in agricultural output downwind as opposed to the same soil upwind. Also, keep in mind the crap coming out of those power stations after the input is burnt off.

Like where I worked?

SCE & G. South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G) - SCE&G is SCANA's principal subsidiary, a regulated utility that provides electric and natural gas service in central and southern South Carolina. SCE&G owns and operates the Virgil C. Summer nuclear power plant, a 885 MW PWR. D.

B. wrote.

Don't EVER call GSWB-type installations 'abortive contraptions' if the above is the alternative!

I have and will continue to do so for the reasons I've scattered in this and related posts. D.

Originally Posted by damocles


When you digest that, investigate fusion, and hydrogen fuel cells(the hydrogen coming from electrolysis of sea water). Fewer poisons involved. Smaller footprint. More concentrated energy production per square meter of land used. Far more electrical generation potentially available. THAT is the future.

B. wrote;

Electrolysis of seawater with power you get from where? What makes you think the production process in building a hydrogen fuel cell involves less poison? Last time I checked, that was a particularly filthy thing to manufacture!

Batteries are particularly nasty things to manufacture as are PZ and PV cells, stack scrubbers catalytic converters, and most CHEMICAL and ELECTRICAL industrial infrastructure products .There are poisons and heavy metal pollutants involved in every step of extraction of raw materials, manufacture of and maintenance of these systems and products. If you are an expert in mining; I suspect you know thess facts much better than I do.That argument environmentally cited against manufacturing ,distributing and maintaining fuel cells as part of an energy policy(platinum usage; for example) is a red herring issue when it comes to implementation. A more practical argument against fuel cells might be; can we find a common membrane material for hydrogen fuel cells that will allow a fuel-celled car to start at - 15 degrees centigrade?

Electrolysis power for extracting hydrogen comes from the electrical grid's generating capacity for electricity as it exists now. and as we modify it in the future(fusion, hydro, geo-thermal, with niche solar and wind generation where feasible.). . I look at how we MOVE in vehicles when I discuss hydrogen fuel cells. I don't regard it as a source of PRIMARY electrical generation. This was misunderstood? If so, I apologize for beiing unclear. D.

Originally Posted by damocles


Remember this, the power of the individual is ultimately measured by his access to electricity.

B. wrote philosophy;

------------------------------------------
The power of the individual will eventually most likely be how wisely he applies his mind to survive on this planet whilst keeping the rest of the planet in mind. Using resources in such a selfish way as if there's no tomorrow will ultimately lead to humankind's eventual end. Shooting down or retarding GSWB development because you've got a huge investment in carbon energy, and damn the rest, is no way for a government to behave.


-----------------------------------------------

I wrote economics. Americans pay for their energy like everyone else on this planet. TANSTAFL.

As for governments?

ITER is a bolloxed enterprise. Squandering TIME we don't have as our extractable POL reserves run out is no way for governments to behave.

http://fire.pppl.gov/iter_chinaview_011204.pdf

GSWB is incapable of meeting the CURRENT energy needs of humanity(not enough planetary surface square meterage per kilowatts required. When you think of arguing about the future of humanity, consider this; a typical Category Three hurricane like Katrina is actually an atmospheric heat engine that is about 3% efficient. It, in a day, has mechanical energy(winds) that roughly equates to more than 350 billion kilowatt hours or roughly half of what the United States uses in a year. What I want to do is get a crack at that kind of electrical generation capacity.(Very difficult to do, heat pollution!) That capability alone would make ALL of humanity quite rich, but it depends on DENSER; i. e. CONCENTRATED energy production capacity(Kilowattage per square meter area used.) than what we have now.

GSWB on the other hand forces us to choose to produce far less electricity per person because of its low DENSITY per square meter used.. There isn't enough square meterage of land on Earth that we can dedicate to such an approach that allows any other conclusion to be reached; economically, environmentally, or physically. That is a return to the 19th Century standard of living for humanity or worse. Ask the people of the middle east or of New Orleans NOW what that is like. D.

[Tagred]

All very interesting facts and figures, beautifully crafted arguments against the need to have any alternative sources of energy. But the simple fact is that they will come to noaught when carbon based fuels will no longer be sufficient to choke the atmosphere of its biggest user. Carbon based fuels are finite. When they do become uneconomical what would the proponents of it recommend as alternatives?

I think there is still some near sightedness going on. Of course it would be nice if we could increase our use of hydrocarbons tenfold say, especially in the developing countries, help them go through the development process we've all blundered our way through and never worry about where energy is coming from, but it remains that new energy must be sought from somewhere.

There are some good arguments here about how much damage a wind farm would be to ecologies, and how much toxic chemicals and resources used in their manufacture. The simple truth is that it is a fraction of the resources used to design, develop, build and maintain any hydrocarbon power generator.

The near sightedness I think comes in because people are unwilling to see that these technologies move forward. Wind turbines are more efficient now than they were 10yrs ago, and they continue to develop, it is the same with pv's, and they will continue to be more efficient. Surely people who work within the oil industry can acknowledge that you do not get a 100% efficient system by initial design. They above all are looking for cheaper and more effective ways of getting oil/coal from the ground. At best 40% efficient right now, 30yrs ago lucky if the managed to get 35% out of the rocks.

Nuclear fission stations are a cheap way of getting electricity sure, but then they are expensive to build and have 30yr lifespans by design. The waste has to be gotten rid off, either to the UK or some defined geological inert area, for cheap electricity fine, but for long tern use is no good.

Wind/wave and other alternative power generation is feasible, and will be economical and will provide whats needed. We will not need to cover the planet with wind farms, they are by default limited to certain areas. In the UK wind farms are also offshore, with some more huge farms proposed, so there will be no impact to ecologies, indeed their footprints will enhance oceanic environments.

I can understand why people dont like the idea of alternative fuels, we are used to guzzling 5miles /gallon, wasting fuel because we can, we dont care what happens to other nations because we are concerned about our pleasant energy rich homes. But, in the near future, alternatives must be sought and developed whether we like it or not.

[damocles]

All very interesting facts and figures, beautifully crafted arguments against the need to have any alternative sources of energy. But the simple fact is that they will come to noaught when carbon based fuels will no longer be sufficient to choke the atmosphere of its biggest user. Carbon based fuels are finite. When they do become uneconomical what would the proponents of it recommend as alternatives?

By Tagred

Was I unclear?

GSWB cannot supply one for one replacement NOW for the energy we currently produce in the United States.

Nor can it do so for the EU.

Japan? Forget it.

There is not enough usable surface area on the Earth or easily extractable resources to build and maintain for the mounting of a GSWB scheme to work to present day generating scales.

So what are the alternatives to GSWB and our dwindling extractable POL stocks?

I wrote about them; nuclear fusion, hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles, geothermal, and hydro-electric power. With wind and solar power in those niches where they are effective contributors.

Biomass I rejected. It is a hydrocarbon poison worse than oil.

Now, I know you read this in the above post, when I shot holes in the GSWB pipedream? If you didn't read this, where was I unclear?

[erich]

Dear Uncle Al,
Your logic and math are impeccable, However you seem to ignore the macro energy equation.
All fossil and nuke fuels ultimately add to the heat load of the biosphere while most of the solar / wind / thermal conversion technologies (except geothermal) recycle solar energy instead of releasing sequestered solar energy. This is the goal and definition of sustainability, not over loading the dynamic equilibrium of the biosphere.

Dear Damocles:
At least you seem to take account of this. Although I feel you dismiss the rising curve of increasing efficiency for PV, direct solar to hydrogen, wind and thermal conversion to electricity.

Cheers,
Erich J. Knight

[Boerseun]

Please, for the love of dog, read my post #18 again, and tell me what's wrong with that.

[damocles]

Originally Posted by erich

Dear Uncle Al,
Your logic and math are impeccable, However you seem to ignore the macro energy equation.
All fossil and nuke fuels ultimately add to the heat load of the biosphere while most of the solar / wind / thermal conversion technologies (except geothermal) recycle solar energy instead of releasing sequestered solar energy. This is the goal and definition of sustainability, not over loading the dynamic equilibrium of the biosphere.

Dear Damocles:
At least you seem to take account of this. Although I feel you dismiss the rising curve of increasing efficiency for PV, direct solar to hydrogen, wind and thermal conversion to electricity.

Cheers,
Erich J. Knight

Mr. K.

Uncle Al is a formidable no-nonsense logician. I KNOW he didn't ignore the heat loading question. He has a flair for the dramatic to make his point without cluttering the argument with "secondary" considerations-his primary point being that electrical efficiencies involve concentrations of generating capacity as well as throughput efficiencies of delivered work.

GSWB is not as efficient as the fossil-fuelled system we have now or simple economics(the profit motive) would have people(corporations) drilling heat taps, building solar collectors, establishing wind farms, erecting PV cell arrays and producing ethanol by the million gross metric ton lot.

There are many reasons why this doesn't happen;

NIMBY

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in560595.shtml

is just one.

I understand that PV cells have recently shown dramatic increases in efficiency that promise a decrease of up to 2x in surface area to generate the same amount of electricity as current PV cells.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/pier/renewa..._PIER_ENPV.pdf

That is significant.

But note that some of the PV cell approaches require scarce and often extremely poisonous resources with energy intensive extraction processes?

http://www.solarbuzz.com/Technologies.htm

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to cram PV cells or GSWB applications into the overall scheme wherever we can.

But how do you supply electricity to a continental railroad network? PV celled locomotives? Try dragging 20,000 ton trains with that solution!

How do you run a wheat combine? Or a farm tractor?

How do you move 100,000 ton freighters?(I have the idea that returning to efficient airfoil[sailing] ships for freighters under 5000 tons; when the cargo transshipped is not time critical makes great economic and environmental sense. Engineering scales where appropiate?)

See? You can be sensible, green, and PRACTICAL.

My argument is that GSWB is not the primary means. It is a niche approach to our energy needs.

Fusion is the means we know that gives the energy outputs we require to maintain our current standards of living in our concentrated cities. It is hugely scalable so that we can become energy rich per person. It isn't clean, though.

Those shells that surround the fusor and act as neutron traps will be radioactive hells to process and safely discard, as one example. And there is HEAT POLLUTION.

Still the throughput work efficiencies of fusion, while lower than our hydrocarbon fuelled generating plants at present, have no limit to scalability or improvement to its practical upper bound as we learn by doing. We can build HUGE and we can build efficient as we learn more about working plasmas in commercial fusion plants.

Then we have to tackle the HEAT LOADING in the bio-sphere. I know this may sound crazy to some, but you could pipe or radiate that heat to secondary systems to do work. Like a two-stage generating plant does now. We are clever hominids. We will find a way to mitigate.

Hydrogen fuel cells by comparison is like the stepchild in the overall energy equation. It, however, to my mind, is the GREEN half of the equation. In the United States, about half of our manmade greenhouse gases comes from autos and trucks. I would clearly like to replace that air pollution with water vapor.(More potable water to precipate out as RAIN! See I lump everything together. Hydrogen fuel cell cars can[very marginally] affect the current potable water shortage in America's west.)

Jokes aside, I have very green reasons for my argument.

[damocles]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Please, for the love of dog, read my post #18 again, and tell me what's wrong with that.

I answered in #23.

Eric - When you say you doubt their viability, do you mean the groups working on instituting Tesla's ideas - or do you mean Tesla's ideas specifically. I've been reading a lot of material about his idea's and they seem sound - but it appears that for financial reasons (that being the loss of) large institutions don't want his designs used. Am I way out of line here? I am by no means as knowledgeable as you all are, but I find your debates and ideas facinating. I thought you could shine a bit of light (and insight) on the Tesla issue for me. I know just enough to think Tesla's ideas sound wonderful - but not enough to have any clue about the pitfalls of his theory. I genuinely would like to understand. Please be patient with my persistent question . . .and enlighten me just a bit.

Jennfinn:

There are many Tesla groups working , but a Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/ on them makes me dought their viability.[/QUOTE]

[erich]

The throughput efficiencies of delivered work is exactly the kind of improvements that I see in the applications nano-tech. Let's take your locomotive and apply Borealis's motors, Power Chips, and graphite hydrogen storage. If I were uncle al I'm sure I could give you the exact well to wheel efficiency of todays diesel electric locomotives, but let me guess say 25%,This Thermionic locomotive design would be over 50%. The same goes for tractors and freighters. Although Airfoil Clipper ships sound cool.( the sailing speed record will probably break 50 knots this year)

But also note that some of the nano PV cell approaches require less scarce and often extremely non-poisonous resources with low energy intensive extraction processes.

P-B11 fusion looks real clean ( a little dirty helium)

Heat loading can be dealt with in many ways, cogeneration with thermionic chips, salting iron in areas of the ocean for plankton blooms to eat co2.( 1 lb of iron could conceivably sequester 100,000 lbs of CO2)

Jenn:
Unfortunately, on the Internet you'll find huge numbers of moderately technical people trying to pass off stuff they've made up as amazing breakthroughs. Its everywhere -- new types of fusion (cold or hot), inertialess drives, antigravity, zero-point energy etc. None of it is real to me unless it passes the google scholar test.

[damocles]

Erich, this is you?

1. NASA is right. Chen is wrong.
http://www.nanovip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=571
Did they ever solve the electrode problem?

2. Nano-machines(including PV cells) fry in the palm of my hand.

3. A PV cell powered train would work, if you accepted;
a. slow.
b. PV cells distributed across all the cars of the the entire train along with the drive motors for traction.
c. inability to climb a grade under load.

4. Borealis power chip motors are EXCELLENT! Mate that to a first class electrical generation scheme for a traction electric motored vehicle at the wheel and you indeed improve desired characteristics like torque and throughput work efficiencies. You could run a combine using such motors to capture waste heat and use it for work, but you need the current motors for things like PTOs and the traction. Fuel cells versus PV cells in such a combo? I know where my money goes.

5. Nothing says that we can't use direct solar to electrolysis for hydrogen extraction. I just wonder about scales. We need a LOT of hydrogen.(10 billion cubic liters liquified per year minimum?)

6. When I mention heat pollution, Erich, I mean HEAT as in thermal radiation. When you start discussing generating electricity at the orders of magnitude like a Category Three hurricane and call for that to be done by a collection of fusion plants(100 to 500 such generatiing plants) with working efficiencies that realistically might be 12-18% on the low side to as much as 30-50% on the high end.(There is that much uncertainty:

http://www.fusion.org.uk/techdocs/tofe16_cook.pdf

as to the throughput.), what is not uncertain is the amount of HEAT that you will generate as waste. That heat has to be either released into the environment or it has to be recovered as work. Either way it is a formidable problem to solve.

Aside from this, on goals we would be in complete agreement. Means we may quibble a bit, though I am open to any viable mix of electrical means of production(that doesn't offer the chimera of biomass as one of its elements) that puts oil to its proper use-as a lubricant, a souce for plastics, and as jet fuel; until we figure out how to build a hydrogen powered plane that actually works.(Good luck on that one!).