On Electricity (Generation) 330
Engineer-Poet wrote a piece a few months back that focuses on electricity production; or rather how or what we will need to do to keep pace with people's demands while balancing that with environmental and economic impact. Lengthy but well-reasoned and good reading.
Related Reading (Score:5, Interesting)
I think creative solutions to electricity problems are in all our futures. Personally, I live about 75% off the grid and am looking forward to be able to afford to get all the way off -- but I need to get my roof re-done before I can even think about solar panels or mounting a wind turbine up there.
At any rate, fiction for thought.
Similar Ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
Transitionary period for Ethanol (Score:3, Interesting)
In the meantime, ethanol for corn will help get the infrastructure in place.
Re:Blogs suck. (Score:2, Interesting)
At least thats what I hope they're doing. The corn farmers have destroyed pretty much everything else thanks to their ridiculous subsidies, getting them off of their subsidies and getting food diversity back into our food chain will benefit everyone from the diabetic to the e.coli sufferers.
Re:Oil? What about soil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Much of our soil erosion and depletion is due to the way we grow crops: in strict rows, with chemicals to kill weeds and grass. While killing weeds makes picking corn easier by keeping the rows clean, there is a lot of exposed soil under the plants.
Grasses don't have this problem and actually help to maintain or even expand soil over time, and most have the added benefit of being perennial and self-propagating.
I'm curious, though... this article only outlines crops that work in the US. What will other countries do? Will rice or other water crops work for coastal countries?
End carbon emissions in 30 years (how to) (Score:5, Interesting)
Step 1: Build nuclear power plants. Update the designs with modern technology and give tax incentives for every new nuke plant built.
Reason: 50's and 60's technology nuke plants currently generate electricity for less money than any other technology, even coal. They cost less than a third of what oil and natural gas plants cost. With modern technology its likely we could improve safety while lowering the cost further. Speaking of safety: the worst US accident in 50 years of opererating nuclear energey plants was three mile island, in which no radiation leaked and no one got hurt.
Yes, worse accidents are possible. That means that over a long enough period of time they will happen. But weigh the rare environmental damage from a meltdown against the continuous destruction of the atmosphere by hyrdocarbon burning plants.
Step 2: With the cost of electricty driven cheap enough by nuke plants, shift to hydrogen-based internal combustion engines. With electrolysis done at off-peak hours to generate hydrogen from electricity, every home can be its own fueling station. Hydrogen burns with oxygen to make water, so go drive a steamer.
Reason: Imagine a city, maybe the city you live in, where the only air pollution is the occasional methane from peoples' farts! Nuclear makes its possible and these technologies are economical now, not just in some hypothetical future after more research.
Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Read more about it here, especially the section entitled Supply and Demand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electrici
Re:This is mentioned in the article (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:A couple more technologies (Score:3, Interesting)
Good news though: most fabs are built near sources of cheap electricity (hydroelectric).
But seriously, the best hope for solar is in large (and small) mirror arrays that allow the equivalent of many suns to be focused on a small (cheap) collector area ala 'Energy Innovations' the Idealab company.
But on another note. I don't think the author really understands what he is writing about. Some of his efficiency factor goals are definitely unrealisitic in the time-frame he describes. A charcoal to electricity process running at 50% efficiency is downright ridiculous.
Direct Carbon Fuel Cells are very expensive to make (require lots of electricity and other toxic chemicals) and have service lifetimes of only a few years depending on the purity of the fuel. Their efficiency is also low ~20%.
Because corn = money, that's why. (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, just because it's money-positive doesn't do spit for energy. The energy balance of corn ethanol may be as low as breakeven, according to a recent MIT analysis; even the USDA's numbers only come out to 1.09:1 after you correct their math [blogspot.com]. Should you manage bring that up to 2:1, you can still generate barely 16 billion gallons-net of ethanol (energy equivalent to 10-11 billion gallons of gasoline) out of the entire US corn crop.
As for why we don't look at cellulose.... it's because cellulose is a tough polymer evolved to be hard for bugs to eat, and we are better off using pyrolysis (charring or burning it) instead of hydrolysis (breakdown into sugars) to get energy out of it.
Sustainability [blogspot.com] actually does propose converting cellulose to ethanol, but via a rather indirect path:
It goes by a roundabout route, but it doesn't require any funny business and it tries to get useful energy at every step.
Best solution I know (Score:2, Interesting)
Which green solutions are best is sometimes debatable. But there is a new company that seems to best cover both 1&2, and it is one of the 'no-brainer' solutions. Citizenre will be renting solar panels out, letting them almost immediately save everyone money, while making each customer a sales person, familiar with product and issues. Its 100,000 panel/yr manufacturing plant is scheduled to come online in September 2007. They're currently using 2005 average power bill prices, and will switch to 2006 on Jan 31, 2007. The rate my Dad locked in, just by registering on the website, was 37% less than his current bill.
If you live in the US, and would like to sign up under me, sites are:
http://www.jointhesolution.com/solarnevada [jointhesolution.com] (as customer)
http://www.powur.com/solarnevada [powur.com] (as sales associate)
To ruthlessly give someone else commission, www.citizenre.com.
Re:Best solution I know (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They're typical media (Score:1, Interesting)
If you want to talk about air pollution, and believe me, I do, then you're going to have to tackle the carbon monoxide, toluene, not to mention methanol, that appears to be the byproduct of this 'safe' alternative.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for saving the environment. Which is why I think we should take a little time and do our research before substituting the ogre for the troll.
Re:Wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
However, merchant ships are large enough you realistically could nuclear power them. If I remember right, the nuclear powerplants on a Los Angelos class submarine crank out about the same horsepower as a medium sized bulk carrier or container ship get from their gigantic diesels, and the sub powerplants are about the same size, not accounting for fuel storage. An aircraft carrier is about the same size as a large container ship or a medium sized oil tanker.
But, the navy uses nuclear for its performance, not economics. No visible emissions to give away position, 20+ year refueling cycle reducing mission support, lots of horsepower (once you get to a certain size), and no air needed (very important for submarines). A nuclear merchant marine fleet would be really expensive, present extra regulatory challenges (probably the biggest showstopper), and would probably put on the miles a lot faster than the navy (that 20 year refueling cycle drops to 10 or even 5 years).
And avoid focusing so hard on one solution, to the detriment of others. There's a lot of application niches, and generally different solutions work better in different places. Batteries can work in commuter vehicles currently, but they suck in long-haul trucks.
Re:They're typical media (Score:1, Interesting)