Pickens Plan -alternative energy

[taylaron]

"The Pickens Plan"
I've started this thread because I recently heard about a billionaires plan to utilize the alternative energy resources which the United States can provide and I am interested in what other people think about it. This effort is to help solve/ drastically reduce the United State's dependency on foreign oil by mainly utilizing wind and natural gas sources.
pretty much all the information you need is on their website (below)

The main website's link is here: http://www.pickensplan.org/"
a general information youtube video here: there is also a pretty good one on their site(above)http://youtube.com/user/pickensplan"


Input from some professionals regarding their opinion on alternative energy and / or solutions the world energy crisis would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[OmCheeto]

"The Pickens Plan"
I've started this thread because I recently heard about a billionaires plan to utilize the alternative energy resources which the United States can provide and I am interested in what other people think about it. This effort is to help solve/ drastically reduce the United State's dependency on foreign oil by mainly utilizing wind and natural gas sources.
pretty much all the information you need is on their website (below)

The main website's link is here: http://www.pickensplan.org/"
a general information youtube video here: there is also a pretty good one on their site(above)http://youtube.com/user/pickensplan" Input from some professionals regarding their opinion on alternative energy and / or solutions the world energy crisis would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Beat you to it by almost two hours.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1795573&postcount=106

For me it seems a no brainer. But then again, I'm not a professional anything.

I've only been "schooled" in thermodynamics, nuclear engineering, economics, electrical engineering, computer science, materials sciences, foreign language, electrical power transmission, physics, 7 terms of calculus, 1 class of philosophy, read my sisters college level psychology text when I was 14, and have an IQ of 160.

As I mentioned, energy independence is a no brainer. Modifying peoples behavior to achieve such a thing is the greatest challenge, IMHO.

Aspects of this question have been discussed from many points of view over the last few months:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=238787"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=211274"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=239058"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=232274"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=10454"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=231887"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=210033"
Green Homes


There may be a lot more. I've not been here long.

 

[taylaron]

thanks, its hard to find these threads... even using PF's search engine.
then when you do find it you're like ...durr why didnt i think of that.

 

[taylaron]

its nice to see some people with bucks willing to spend some...
hopefully more will turn out like Pickens...

 

[OmCheeto]

thanks, its hard to find these threads... even using PF's search engine.
then when you do find it you're like ...durr why didnt i think of that.

I would ignore the PF search engine and use either google or yahoo. Their spiders are fighting for world domination.

I've found that if you type something unique in the forum, sometimes it shows up just minutes later on the two search engines.

Try "Lesbian auto mechanics repair Schwarzenegger's Noggin"

In quotes of course.

its nice to see some people with bucks willing to spend some...
hopefully more will turn out like Pickens...

I doubt he will lose a penny on the venture. Wind and solar may seem expensive, but the long term payoff is almost a sure thing. But you never know, someone might invent something like cold fusion in a couple of years. Then all the naysayers can say "See! Told you it was a stupid idea!" But I doubt it.

 

[taylaron]

Im praying Chetto
I'm praying...

 

[OmCheeto]

Im praying Chetto
I'm praying...

Did you try the google bot test? It worked.

Oh, and by the way, the Pickens Plan isn't all that innovative.
It's just that now it's getting to be more than just an environmental issue.
My electrical utility has had a "clean wind" option available for years.
I pay an extra $3.50 a month and they take the money and buy their fancy windmills.
I'm not sure if you saw my post last week where I mentioned that one of the wind farms was producing so much energy, they had to flip the switch as the power lines were at maximum capacity.

"[URL
So, for the first time, BPA power managers began calling wind-farm operators with orders to curtail power generation.[/URL]

I thought I was going to cry. TOO MUCH ENERGY!

How serendipitous that our measly pittance to save the salmon would one day be a piece in an energy independence puzzle.

 

[vanesch]

I thought I was going to cry. TOO MUCH ENERGY!

But that's exactly the problem: too much energy one hour, not enough the next...

 

[Astronuc]

I thought I was going to cry. TOO MUCH ENERGY!

BPA should send the excess energy to California, and displace some of the generation from gas turbines which cycle more rapidly than hydropower.


If one believes in the market place, the demand is there, so the federal government does not need to be subsidizing energy generators.

 

[FredGarvin]

I'd like to see someone divert the obscene amount of energy used for the big lift to get water to southern California. Put some energy into making that area self sufficient in water and the country could save a very large amount of energy.

 

[OmCheeto]

But that's exactly the problem: too much energy one hour, not enough the next...

How many liquid-solid-gas hydrocarbon, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar plants are there?
One simply turns down the output of the dirty plants when the clean outputs are operating.
It's called load shifting.
I used to do it all the time.
And it's not like it's a square wave or something.

BPA should send the excess energy to California, and displace some of the generation from gas turbines which cycle more rapidly than hydropower.

When I heard the news on the radio, that was the situation they stated. The power lines to California were maxed out.

If one believes in the market place, the demand is there, so the federal government does not need to be subsidizing energy generators.

Well... maybe not the generators. But the deep pockets of the Feds might get the transmission lines up for California a bit faster. Something like the works projects they had during the depression.

Although I'm not a commy or a socialist, the market place hasn't always stuck me as having the national interest at heart. If we'd waited for the market place to get us into space, we'd never have gone.

Pickens plan is fine, but it is just one of a number of mega-projects that should have been started years ago.

 

[Astronuc]

I have yet to see a truly free market. I do notice that prices seem to be the same, and that there is little competition. And certainly Enron and others manipulated the market by withholding supply until the California market was desparate to pay many times the normal price.

In NY, there was a move to deregulate with the idea that electricity would become less expensive through competition. The local utilities sold their generation and became strictly T&D. In theory, I could buy electricity from any provider and then pay a T&D fee the local utility. However, the cheap electricity is far away and there essentially was no savings.

The financial companies and lawyers made millions of $ doing deals, but the consumers did not save anything. Some people who switch ended up paying more, and when the grid went down, we were without power for a couple of days, even though the local utility's grid was attached to several power plants. They should have been able to isolate the local area and provide power, but thanks to deregulations and restructuring - that wasn't possible.

 

[Astronuc]

I'd like to see someone divert the obscene amount of energy used for the big lift to get water to southern California. Put some energy into making that area self sufficient in water and the country could save a very large amount of energy.

What I don't understand is why the mid-west gets horrific floods yet the aquifers and California are dry.

Why can't the flood waters be collected and diverted to the aquifer or to California?

In S. California, they ought to use solar thermal desalination plants way down south from LA down to San Diego. Every time I fly to SD, I see aqueducts going through the desert. That makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[taylaron]

Did you try the google bot test? It worked.

Oh, and by the way, the Pickens Plan isn't all that innovative.
It's just that now it's getting to be more than just an environmental issue.
My electrical utility has had a "clean wind" option available for years.
I pay an extra $3.50 a month and they take the money and buy their fancy windmills.
I'm not sure if you saw my post last week where I mentioned that one of the wind farms was producing so much energy, they had to flip the switch as the power lines were at maximum capacity.

"[URL
So, for the first time, BPA power managers began calling wind-farm operators with orders to curtail power generation.[/URL]

I thought I was going to cry. TOO MUCH ENERGY!

How serendipitous that our measly pittance to save the salmon would one day be a piece in an energy independence puzzle.

a big issue here is being able to store and or transmit that energy to where it its needed...

What I don't understand is why the mid-west gets horrific floods yet the aquifers and California are dry.

Why can't the flood waters be collected and diverted to the aquifer or to California?

In S. California, they ought to use solar thermal desalination plants way down south from LA down to San Diego. Every time I fly to SD, I see aqueducts going through the desert. That makes absolutely no sense to me.

im no expert astornuc but my guess is that there is too much water coming down from the mountains too fast to either store or divert; resulting in floods. fixing this is not a small undertaking and would cost tens of millions.

and i also agree with vanesch about supply and demand.

oh boy, if we came up with a brilliant way of mass producing effective energy storage; we wouldent have many of these problems we have today.

its just an issue of someone willing to spend a lot of money to fund the research. i think we should be putting more and more into this; knowing that is a blockade for technology in a big way.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think Pickens has his eye on the ball. This isn't about oil or the environment, this is about the almost $700 Billion sent annually to foreign oil suppliers. We need to solve the rest of the problems, but we can't do it if we bankrupt the country, which is what Pickens is worried about. He describes it as the "largest transfer of wealth in history", and he thinks we are running out of time to end this rape.

I think his idea is brilliant: The easiest way to immediately reduce the dependence on foreign oil is to burn natural gas currently used for the grid, instead of petro, as much as possible, and replace the NG with wind power for the grid.

Brilliant! No wonder he's a billionare.

My uncle [worked for an oil company - Richfield, which is now part of ARCO] drove a NG powered car when I was a kid. It is a tried and true technology.

Note also that he says what I've been saying all along: We don't have the time to build and commission enough nuclear plants, even if we wanted to.

 

[PRDan4th]

I think Boone is on the right track! Both wind and CNG is proven technology today. The idea of replacing natural gas with wind in power generation is great. Natural gas in compressed form is used widely in many countries today. Much more gas could be produced with new technology for producing from sub-sea hydrate formations in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore South Carolina in 1000 ft. water depths. If this production is commercialized natural gas would be plentiful for many years.

Solar power is also a good prospect for reducing power generation's dependence on gas. Both solar and wind have cycling production capabilities based on sunny days and wind speed. Power generation must follow the demand curve and this leaves gaps that must be picked up be storage (batteries or pumped hydro) or the use of peaking turbines on gas or diesel. Coal and nuclear will continue to provide the base load power generation.

What the US Government must do is provide the land use in areas that are ideally suited for wind or solar and streamline the permitting process to expedite the development of this type of power generation.

 

[stewartcs]

I think Boone is on the right track! Both wind and CNG is proven technology today. The idea of replacing natural gas with wind in power generation is great. Natural gas in compressed form is used widely in many countries today. Much more gas could be produced with new technology for producing from sub-sea hydrate formations in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore South Carolina in 1000 ft. water depths. If this production is commercialized natural gas would be plentiful for many years.

Solar power is also a good prospect for reducing power generation's dependence on gas. Both solar and wind have cycling production capabilities based on sunny days and wind speed. Power generation must follow the demand curve and this leaves gaps that must be picked up be storage (batteries or pumped hydro) or the use of peaking turbines on gas or diesel. Coal and nuclear will continue to provide the base load power generation.

What the US Government must do is provide the land use in areas that are ideally suited for wind or solar and streamline the permitting process to expedite the development of this type of power generation.

I like the hydrate idea...but I don't think they have any way of harvesting it.

The main problem with Pickens idea is the required area of land. The government doesn't own it so in order for them to acquire it they would have to take it by Eminent Domain. This is good for everyone except the guy who owns the land.

CS

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I like the hydrate idea...but I don't think they have any way of harvesting it.

The main problem with Pickens idea is the required area of land. The government doesn't own it so in order for them to acquire it they would have to take it by Eminent Domain. This is good for everyone except the guy who owns the land.

CS

The people who own the land could still retain ownership and use the land for cattle or agriculture, while making an additional profit by renting the land for wind use. It could be a real sweet deal for landowners.

One of the richest families around here owns an ideal site for radio and cell towers - a small hill along the I-5 corridor. They rent the land out for antennas and make a small fortune each year.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I thought 22% was the amount of energy supplied to the grid from natural gas, but in my own notes [DOE 1998] I show NG at 23.2%, and petro at 38.8% of our TOTAL energy supply. This is of ~ 100 Quads of energy annually.

If we can really generate that much power using wind, then we could virtually eliminate the need for imported oil. I didn't think that was possible. Is it possible to produce 22 Quads of energy annually using wind?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Imagine what this would mean to our economy. It would be like handing out $2300 checks to every person in the US, every year.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

But that's exactly the problem: too much energy one hour, not enough the next...

I don't know that this will be such an issue if we are talking about generators ranging from the Northern to Southern border of the US. I am thinking that we would see enough averaging to negate the dead zones. Also, it's not like solar where we go dead at night. In principle, in many parts of the US, turbines could operate almost continuously. We also have some buffering from coal, nuclear, and hydro power in that they can go to maximum output when wind conditions are generally unfavorable. Likewise, high-wind days would allow coal plants [in particular] to reduce their outputs.

 

[stewartcs]

The people who own the land could still retain ownership and use the land for cattle or agriculture, while making an additional profit by renting the land for wind use. It could be a real sweet deal for landowners.

One of the richest families around here owns an ideal site for radio and cell towers - a small hill along the I-5 corridor. They rent the land out for antennas and make a small fortune each year.

I suppose that's true. But there's still the problem and cost of the transmission lines from these areas to the grid.

It seems like it would take a tremendous amount of land though to replace the energy currently obtained from fossil fuels.

As a side note, there is a huge amount of natural gas off the coast of the Carolinas and Virginia too. I suspect that the states would eventually ease the bans on exploration in those areas.

CS

 

[taylaron]

Solar power is also a good prospect for reducing power generation's dependence on gas. Both solar and wind have cycling production capabilities based on sunny days and wind speed. Power generation must follow the demand curve and this leaves gaps that must be picked up be storage (batteries or pumped hydro) or the use of peaking turbines on gas or diesel. Coal and nuclear will continue to provide the base load power generation.

What the US Government must do is provide the land use in areas that are ideally suited for wind or solar and streamline the permitting process to expedite the development of this type of power generation.

Imagine what this would mean to our economy. It would be like handing out $2300 checks to every person in the US, every year.

beauty aint it Ivan...

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

im all for windmills; but there are some characteristics about them that i don't like.
something i think many people don't realize or know is that whither it is a windy day, or a really windy day, it doesn't matter. windmills are either turning at 1 possible speed, or not at all. this is because of the US's default 60Hz in the grid. different inputs from power sources of different frequencies will produce "beats" which we can't have. windmills don't crank out more juice into the grid if it is an especially windy day. unfortunately.

i wish this could be easily overcame. its easy for a single house that has a generator on top of the house being AC/DC depending on the electronic device; unfortunatly that is not society's norm...

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

i think my next car will be natural gas...yep.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It just happens that the NG slice of our total fossil fuel energy, and the NG slice of the grid are both about 22%. That lead me to think he meant total energy.

We use about 500,000 million cubic feet of NG monthly to produce electricity.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/tablees1a.html#_ftnref3

We get about 1020 BTU per cf of NG
http://www.energy.rochester.edu/units/conversions.pdf

So we burn a total of about 5E11 BTU of NG monthly for electrical power.

At 125,000 BTUs per gallon for gasoline, and assuming approximately the same efficiency [as a best case], we get the equivalent of about 4 billion gallons of gasoline per month, or 130 million gallons per day. We use about 400 million gallons of gasoline per day.

So this would displace about 25%-30% of our gasoline consumption. It would all cost well over a trillion dollars just for the turbines and infrastructure. So at $4 per gallon equivalent for gasoline, I show a payback in about 6 years if we consider only capital costs. But aside from operating costs, etc, I'm not sure how much we need to derate the efficiency for NG as compared to gasoline combustion.

We wouldn't kill the $700 billion dollar annual petro deficit, but we might reduce it by 100 billion or so.

 

[taylaron]

...
We wouldn't kill the $700 billion dollar annual petro deficit, but we might reduce it by 100 billion or so.

anything at this point to help the petro deficit would be awesome. for the usa (haha Pakistan!)

regarding NG cars; if i had a cheap supply of NG (propane right now costs about the same as gas...) i would use it to fuel the (unleaded fuel) car i have now. all i would have to do is exchange the fuel tank meant for NG and then get a different carburetor. among other little things.
could methane provide enough energy per cf to run a car effectively? compared to propane.

methane sources are all around us; waist and compost are going to be a nice thing to have around... (for methane generation) i still don't understand why that isn't more popular in the US. hey!--you could generate your own methane at your home from your waste! (enough for a car?)
there's green thinking for you; using your crap to fuel your car (from the fumes in principal)

------------------------------
what is the problem with powering your car with CO2? obviously we've got too much of that. that's the dream green car for ya...

 

[OmCheeto]

it doesn't matter. windmills are either turning at 1 possible speed, or not at all. this is because of the US's default 60Hz in the grid. different inputs from power sources of different frequencies will produce "beats" which we can't have. windmills don't crank out more juice into the grid if it is an especially windy day. unfortunately.

Can your provide a reference for this?
It runs contrary to my experience in electrical power transmission.

 

[taylaron]

Can your provide a reference for this?
It runs contrary to my experience in electrical power transmission.

My father is an Electrical Engineer and we were talking about the ups and downs of windmills. please correct me if he is wrong. the technology might have changed since he was taught.

i do admit it is unfortunate.

but it does however make sense because you've got a generator up there that outputs x amount of electricity during low winds and 2x energy in high winds...in order to have the energy applied to the grid; you would need to store it in a battery somewhere and then use an inverter to convert the electricity into 60Hz. A lot of the energy will be lost to heat when you use an inverter; they are very very inefficient. right? you can't have a windmill that increases its frequency based upon how fast the rotor is turning. based on how AC generators work.
that is my understanding.

 

[LowlyPion]

im all for windmills; but there are some characteristics about them that i don't like.
something i think many people don't realize or know is that whither it is a windy day, or a really windy day, it doesn't matter. windmills are either turning at 1 possible speed, or not at all. this is because of the US's default 60Hz in the grid. different inputs from power sources of different frequencies will produce "beats" which we can't have. windmills don't crank out more juice into the grid if it is an especially windy day. unfortunately.

Actually the whole purpose of the DC to AC inverter/converter is to establish synchronicity with the grid power I believe. The battery banks provide a reservoir in which to capture the power over a range of wind conditions and then they supply the home or the grid or both.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My father is an Electrical Engineer and we were talking about the ups and downs of windmills. please correct me if he is wrong. the technology might have changed since he was taught.

i do admit it is unfortunate.

but it does however make sense because you've got a generator up there that outputs x amount of electricity during low winds and 2x energy in high winds...in order to have the energy applied to the grid; you would need to store it in a battery somewhere and then use an inverter to convert the electricity into 60Hz. A lot of the energy will be lost to heat when you use an inverter; they are very very inefficient. right? you can't have a windmill that increases its frequency based upon how fast the rotor is turning. based on how AC generators work.
that is my understanding.

From what I have seen, we are now using variable pitch blades that allow the turbine to compensate for wind conditions.

Today, inverter technology is extremely efficient - having a theoretical maximum efficiency of about 95%. This results from PWM and PFM [pulse width, and pulse frequency modulation], that allows the transistors to operate near peak efficiency at all times. In the bad old days, using linear technology, half of the energy was lost in the transistors. but today that 50% is down to nearly 5%. Also, modern field effect transistors [FETs], and insulated gate bipolar transistors [IGBTs], can have an on resistance as low as 0.3 ohms or lower, which also helps to reduce the losses.

There is also the notion of intelligent field control on the coils and rotors of the generators or alternators. I don't know how sophisticated we get in regards to wind generators or how this is usually managed, but there are ways to control the generator fields to allow for increasing power production given a fixed shaft speed - in effect, electronic gears.

 

[OmCheeto]

My father is an Electrical Engineer and we were talking about the ups and downs of windmills. please correct me if he is wrong. the technology might have changed since he was taught.

i do admit it is unfortunate.

I asked for a reference because I've been out of the industry for about 25 years. So I'm a bit rusty myself. And I know very little about the multimegawatt windmills.

Ok. I'll do the research...

They use http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/15mw/specs.htm" . That is very peculiar. I'm only familiar with synchronous grid generators.

Ah ha!

http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wtrb/async.htm
This type of generator is not widely used outside the wind turbine industry

but it does however make sense because you've got a generator up there that outputs x amount of electricity during low winds and 2x energy in high winds...in order to have the energy applied to the grid; you would need to store it in a battery somewhere and then use an inverter to convert the electricity into 60Hz. A lot of the energy will be lost to heat when you use an inverter; they are very very inefficient. right? you can't have a windmill that increases its frequency based upon how fast the rotor is turning. based on how AC generators work.
that is my understanding.

No, you do not need to store the energy.

If you have 3 electric plants online supplying the grid(coal, nuclear, natural gas), and a wind farm comes online, you reduce the output of the least desirable source of energy, thus extending the life of that fuel source.

Until Ivan perfects algae-oil, we are going to be dependent on fossil fuels.

But there's still the problem and cost of the transmission lines from these areas to the grid.

I keep seeing these kind of statements. I do not see this as a problem. It is a fact. We will have to pay for improved infrastructure.

After all, the existing transmission lines didn't grow on trees. Our parents and grandparents paid for them.

 

[taylaron]

From what I have seen, we are now using variable pitch blades that allow the turbine to compensate for wind conditions.

Today, inverter technology is extremely efficient - having a theoretical maximum efficiency of about 95%. This results from PWM and PFM [pulse width, and pulse frequency modulation], that allows the transistors to operate near peak efficiency at all times. In the bad old days, using linear technology, half of the energy was lost in the transistors. but today that 50% is down to nearly 5%. Also, modern field effect transistors [FETs], and insulated gate bipolar transistors [IGBTs], can have an on resistance as low as 0.3 ohms or lower, which also helps to reduce the losses.

well there you go kids, this another example of old technology in a modern world...
those improvments are great! haha, that changes a lot of my perspective.
thanks.

There is also the notion of intelligent field control on the coils and rotors of the generators or alternators. I don't know how sophisticated we get in regards to wind generators or how this is usually managed, but there are ways to control the generator fields to allow for increasing power production given a fixed shaft speed - in effect, electronic gears.

im afraid i don't understand your statement on electric gears ivan because you can't generate more energy by uping the gears. you will only lose or gain torque in proportion to your gear ratio. loss of energy from friction. but you know all this.
i suppose i don't understand your concept.

I asked for a reference because I've been out of the industry for about 25 years. So I'm a bit rusty myself. And I know very little about the multimegawatt windmills.

Ok. I'll do the research...

They use http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/15mw/specs.htm" . That is very peculiar. I'm only familiar with synchronous grid generators.

Ah ha!





No, you do not need to store the energy.

If you have 3 electric plants online supplying the grid(coal, nuclear, natural gas), and a wind farm comes online, you reduce the output of the least desirable source of energy, thus extending the life of that fuel source.

Until Ivan perfects algae-oil, we are going to be dependent on fossil fuels.



I keep seeing these kind of statements. I do not see this as a problem. It is a fact. We will have to pay for improved infrastructure.

After all, the existing transmission lines didn't grow on trees. Our parents and grandparents paid for them.

i suppose your statement on transmission lines is correct; but in order to upgrade to more powerful systems, work must be done about it. but that is another thread.

your statement on the equalizing of your three energy sources (wind, coal, nuclear) makes perfect sense but wouldn't that kind of undermine the problem about energy loss/ shortages across the USA?

but clearly you would want to reserve as much of the non renewable sources as possible.

 

[OmCheeto]

im afraid i don't understand your statement on electric gears ivan because you can't generate more energy by uping the gears. you will only lose or gain torque in proportion to your gear ratio. loss of energy from friction. but you know all this.
i suppose i don't understand your concept.

As an electrical engineer, your father should be able to explain why gearing is necessary in windmills.

i suppose your statement on transmission lines is correct; but in order to upgrade to more powerful systems, work must be done about it. but that is another thread.

Without an improved transmission system, the Pickens Plan is just a bunch of windmills. So I'd say it's not another thread. This is an integral part of the plan, whether he states it explicitly or not.

your statement on the equalizing of your three energy sources (wind, coal, nuclear) makes perfect sense but wouldn't that kind of undermine the problem about energy loss/ shortages across the USA?

No. As I stated earlier, the Pickens plan is only one of many megaprojects that should be going on.
For starters, I'd like to see:
a. 2000 watts of grid connected photo-voltaic panels on every home in the US. (Individual energy storage is optional)
b. 10000 watt passive solar collectors on all those homes as well.
c. A well researched national wind project.
d. 50 new nuclear plants.
e. Detroit spitting out 30 million plug in EV-hybrids a year.
f. Ivan, CEO of CEC*, now the richest man in the world, being picketed by PETA.(People for the Ethical Treatment of Algae.)

*Chlorophyta Energy Consortium

but clearly you would want to reserve as much of the non renewable sources as possible.

Exactly. With the exception of d & f above, I would like to see all of the above implemented within the next 3 years. We can worry about full energy independence in 10 years.

Perhaps we should buy our last barrel of foreign oil on the 4th of July, 2018.
Now that would be something to celebrate.

 

[taylaron]

I agree with everything you just said; although 50 nuclear plants produces an enormous amount of radioactive waste. other than that; I am all for it.
lets just hope the people who count (have money and authority) think the same as we do...

 

[OmCheeto]

I agree with everything you just said; although 50 nuclear plants produces an enormous amount of radioactive waste. other than that; I am all for it.
lets just hope the people who count (have money and authority) think the same as we do...

As a former nuclear industry employee, having gotten 500 milli-rem's of extra radiation in the 4 years I worked around the reactor, I'd always hoped they'd supply me with a glass & concrete encased thermal nuclear waste module, buried 10 feet under my house, for my hot water & heating needs. But that's asking a bit much.

 

[taylaron]

As a former nuclear industry employee, having gotten 500 milli-rem's of extra radiation in the 4 years I worked around the reactor, I'd always hoped they'd supply me with a glass & concrete encased thermal nuclear waste module, buried 10 feet under my house, for my hot water & heating needs. But that's asking a bit much.

haha, it certainly has it's ups and downs

 

[taylaron]

thats how they power low energy electronics in cold environments. they use the hot energy from the nuclear cell with the cold outside temperature to run a sterling engine. ingenious.

 

[OmCheeto]

thats how they power low energy electronics in cold environments. they use the hot energy from the nuclear cell with the cold outside temperature to run a sterling engine. ingenious.

Can you provide a reference for that?
From my sterling engine research, this idea doesn't sound very plausible.

 

[taylaron]

why not cheeto?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

im afraid i don't understand your statement on electric gears ivan because you can't generate more energy by uping the gears. you will only lose or gain torque in proportion to your gear ratio. loss of energy from friction. but you know all this.
i suppose i don't understand your concept..

You are thinking of creating more power than we have at the input by increasing the gear ratio, but this isn't the situation. This is a matter of utilizing the power input for a given speed. Power is the product of torque and angular velocity, so for a fixed velocity, the power produced varies as the torque.

But, are we limited to a fixed velocity? I wouldn't think so. That too should be able to vary with wind conditions if we use inverters.

 

[mheslep]

...No, you do not need to store the energy.

If you have 3 electric plants online supplying the grid(coal, nuclear, natural gas), and a wind farm comes online, you reduce the output of the least desirable source of energy, thus extending the life of that fuel source.

Once a highly variable power source like wind becomes more than some small percentage of the the over all power grid then, yes, some method will have to be implemented to store the energy, as has been discussed at length in other threads. Hydro power plants can store excess wind power for instance. Then the wind has to have a transmission connection to the hydro, and unfortunately not much hydro is located in the wind belt Pickens plans to develop. It doesn't make good technical or economic sense to rely heavily on large, centralized coal or nuclear plants for a 1:1 backup as suggested here. Large boilers can not be quickly turned on and off, and the boiler runs less efficiently this way. Gas turbines can be, but then Mr Pickens wants to move all the CNG over to transportation. And for any large plant, the owners want to run it at maximum capacity for economic reasons, selling every possible kWh to pay for that large initial investment.

The Pickens' plan has a goal of 20% (200GW), and that is right at the limit of what is thought feasible.

DoE sponsored web site, introducing their '20% by 2030' plan:
http://www.20percentwind.org/default.aspx
the detailed report here:
http://www.20percentwind.org/20percent_wind_energy_report_05-11-08_wk.pdf
Edit:
Interesting Details from the report:
-Chapter 4 discusses plans to overcome the variability problem, entitled:
"Transmission and Integration into the U.S. Electric System"
-Modern wind turbine capacity factor has been growing, reaching 36% average for US 2005 farms, with some hitting 45%, Figure 2-4. I've read elsewhere turbine capacity is expected to reach 40% average eventually.

 

[mheslep]

Attached is Figure 4-1 from the '20% ...' report, as it nicely shows the situation. Its simulated but realistic data for two weeks from an area in Minnesota. The conventional power grid there has a peak capacity of 10GWatts, and of 1500 MW nameplate capacity has been installed. The green curve at the bottom shows the wind varying from occasionally zero up to peak, and averaging ~30 some percent.

The authors make the point that since both the demand and the wind generation are independent random variables, combining the two gives a total system variability of only sqrt( 2 * variability(wind) x variability(load) ), and not the raw sum of the two.

 

[nucleus]

There was an article in a Toronto newspaper a couple weeks ago regarding the Danish wind system.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080711.RREYNOLDS11/TPStory/TPBusiness/

 

[rolerbe]

[RANT = ON]

There are 3 basic "energy independence" problems to be solved:

• 'Alternative' energy sources (including grow your own corn for ethanol, etc.) have their place, but do not have sufficient total energy capacity to meet even current world population needs, let alone the needs generated by growing future demand. Also if alternative sources were utilized to the full, there would be significant ecological ramifications.

• Petrochemical (including coal) resources are finite. Even fission nuclear does not last that long due to limits on uranium deposits, etc. One can debate the projections, but they are all around 50 to 100 years at best -- even with all the exotic extraction methods not yet in play. I think we can all agree that we'd like to see human civilization continue longer than 100 years.

• Petrochemical use places us at risk due to ecological impact. One can debate whether global warming is due to the greenhouse effect of petrochemical energy use or not, but one cannot debate that it would be better to hedge our bets on this question by reducing carbon emissions

So what's a poor human race to do? Yes, we can optimize, exploit, and multipath the use of the various current energy sources, but its a short term holding action at best. Where's the promised land after all these efforts? Currently there isn't one. No matter how efficient and clever we get with the current sources we fall off the cliff in about 100 years.

Are we doomed to go dark, or is there an out? Yes -- Fusion. Leads to solutions for all the issues above. But, its too long of a play for the corporate world to take on. We need to push our governments to start doing what governments should be doing -- which is looking long term -- 60+ years, not just the myopia of the 6 year election cycle. We need to fund Fusion research big time, not the piddles it is currently getting. If the US were serious about maintaining the premier superpower position, they would lead this charge, not just tag along as an ITER also ran. Write your congressman!

[/RANT]

 

[OmCheeto]

I'd like to see someone divert the obscene amount of energy used for the big lift to get water to southern California. Put some energy into making that area self sufficient in water and the country could save a very large amount of energy.

I'd never heard of the "Big Lift" until you mentioned it. (Proper name: Edmonston Pumping Plant)

Researching the California Aqueduct, the Big Lift only consumes about a third of the energy to run the whole thing; 2.87 gigawatt's. http://wwwswpao.water.ca.gov/publications/bulletin/95/view/tables/ti-3.htm"

hmmm...
12,563,473,215 kwh/yr to run the California aqueduct system(assuming running at 50% capacity 24/7)
0.1 $/kwh
$1,256,347,321.47 annual cost

Powering this set of pumps would require about 2.5 billion dollars worth of the 1.5mw ge wind turbines. http://www.power-technology.com/projects/callahan/"

So wind turbines could potentially pay for themselves in 2 years.

It is interesting to note that the people who designed the aqueduct have installed power generating plants to recoup some of the energy expended in pumping the water over various elevations.

http://www.publicaffairs.water.ca.gov/swp/swptoday.cfm
Water flowing down the East Branch generates power at Alamo Powerplant then is pumped uphill by Pearblossom Pumping Plant. The plant lifts the water 540 feet. From there, it flows downhill through an open aqueduct, linked at its end to four underground pipelines which carry the water into the Mojave Siphon Powerplant, which discharges the water into Lake Silverwood. When water is needed, it is discharged into Devil Canyon Powerplant and its two afterbays.

So the storage problem of overactive wind farms seems to already have been solved.

And the turbines might pay for themselves in less than 2 years.

 

[LowlyPion]

Of course they should fund alternative energy. Not sure that the question about giving it to Pickens is exactly the right choice, but surely with no limits set on population growth world wide, the only choice on the population/energy treadmill is to develop more energy.

 

[OmCheeto]

Of course they should fund alternative energy. Not sure that the question about giving it to Pickens is exactly the right choice, but surely with no limits set on population growth world wide, the only choice on the population/energy treadmill is to develop more energy.

Although overpopulation is the http://home.europa.com/%7Egarry/populationoverlast12000years.jpg" in our running out of energy, it probably deserves a thread all it's own.

But just to tie it in a bit, if the world had discovered oil around the time we had reached a world population level of 300 million, and maintained it there, the oil might have lasted 3000, rather than just 150 years.

But since we didn't, it didn't, and all we can do now is fix it.

 

[LowlyPion]

But since we didn't, it didn't, and all we can do now is fix it.

I agree, that is the only variable that can be addressed today. And energy technology that will last longer than in ground oil supplies surely must be the most useful legacy we can give off to the next generation.

 

[mheslep]

[RANT = ON]

There are 3 basic "energy independence" problems to be solved:

• 'Alternative' energy sources (including grow your own corn for ethanol, etc.) have their place, but do not have sufficient total energy capacity to meet even current world population needs, let alone the needs generated by growing future demand. Also if alternative sources were utilized to the full, there would be significant ecological ramifications.

This is entirely incorrect. The wind energy in the atmosphere by itself, or the solar energy incident on the Earth's surface by itself, both far exceed the current energy demands of the planet. And that is only counting energy realizable with existing technology. The problems lie in issues like matching the energy source to the demand type (electricity vs gasoline/diesel for transportation), location (Arizona sun vs Maine winters), having the energy when you need it (calm days/ cloudy days), and of course the economics - even if the technology exists does the renewable source cost much more than existing fossil or nuclear sources. Regards demand growth, the energy required per $ of GDP has been dropping for some years in the advanced industrial countries. One can expect the third world demands to grow but as those countries mature economically their energy demand growth will also slow. Regards ecological impact, the only issue I'm aware of that might be called ecologically significant is the use of biofuels (like corn) that compete for food crop land; alga oil or cellulosic switch grass are better upcoming alternatives.
Spend some time here:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/

 

[mheslep]

I'd never heard of the "Big Lift" until you mentioned it. (Proper name: Edmonston Pumping Plant)

Researching the California Aqueduct, the Big Lift only consumes about a third of the energy to run the whole thing; 2.87 gigawatt's. http://wwwswpao.water.ca.gov/publications/bulletin/95/view/tables/ti-3.htm"

hmmm...
12,563,473,215 kwh/yr to run the California aqueduct system(assuming running at 50% capacity 24/7)
0.1 $/kwh
$1,256,347,321.47 annual cost

Powering this set of pumps would require about 2.5 billion dollars worth of the 1.5mw ge wind turbines. http://www.power-technology.com/projects/callahan/" .

Nope, common mistake. You were using the price in the ref given for the turbine nameplate rating. The 1.5MW is nameplate, or maximum turbine power. Those wind turbines need to be derated to an average 37% capacity factor; that's the best average production coming from 2006 turbines installed in good US wind locations. Also, that ref 2005 price of slightly less than $1000/ Nameplate kilowatt is a bit dated now. Wind cost has risen since then given the wind installation spike, and sharply recently due to inflation (steel tower/concrete costs) so that now wind installation is now closer to $1700/kilowatt (nameplate). The cost then to provide 2.87GW average power to those pumps solely from wind is more like 8 to 12 billion dollars. That also does not include any transmission needed, though you might need that regardless of source, and we've neglected any cost required to regulate the wind power via the water flow.
www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41869.pdf

 

[rolerbe]

This is entirely incorrect.

I stand corrected. Thanks for making me do a little more direct research on this. I will have to amend the first statement, but believe the net conclusion is still correct. It appears true that the total incident energy on the Earth from the sun is something on the order of 3,000 times current total human energy consumption.

Of course, even in the best of cases, we can harvest only a very small fraction of this incident energy. How large the fraction can be, either by technological or ecological limitation remains to be debated. I think it is too small, but will be doing more research.