YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

[par10]

My first post so apologies if I am repeating what others have already said.

Yes we must replace our reliance on oil and gas for the generation of electricity and as the power medium of our transport, even though the use of fracture drilling technology has greatly increased the availability of gas in the USA and hopefully it will here in the UK and other areas around the globe.

I say hopefully because we need the breathing room that the new reserves of gas will give us in order to finally put a power generation strategy into place that is cogent and not one based on hypotheticals.

Nuclear, Wind, Wave and Solar are all green scources of power, Nuclear is much maligned and its dangers are so exagerated that the facts are lost in myth, Seven Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima have proven that the world does not end when a nuclear power plant is destroyed or badly damaged.

What is the consensus on this forum about the arguments put forward by Harry Braun in the review paper of 2008 The Phoenix Project: Shifting To A Solar Hydrogen Economy By 2020 ??

Given that all power generation has its peak demands and that during 20:30 and 06:00 most generating plants are running well below capacity if at all, is there not an argument for Hydrogen production during off peak times to supplement the fuel demands of peak time power generation.

In the UK coal fired power plants have been taken off line to meet the Green criteria that the former Government signed up to at that time, these plants were still perfectly functional and had a profitable working life left except for the fact that they were coal fired, the UK is now left with the spectre of a power shortage in the not to distant future because green technology has not producing power in the required quantity that was promised, as we know Wind power, Solar power and Wave power do need specific environmental criteria to be in place for power to be produced.

Nuclear works at all times regardless of weather or time of day, is compact regarding surface area but cannot compete with the negative arguments put out by the many pressure groups that exist.

Is there not an argument for the production of off peak Hydrogen utilising Wind, Wave, Hydro, Gas and Nuclear power plants to run existing Coal fired power plants that have or are due to be decommissioned?

 

[Felchi]

Traxfam, you're suggesting a rise in prices to encourage a switch to renewable resources.

Unfortunately, people don't change quickly. Just look at skyrocketing oil prices. Yet gasoline-fueled cars remain on the streets, despite the cost.

 

[Traxfam]

Felchi, absolutely correct I was not aiming short term I was looking out 30 years. The beauty of this system is it does not pick winners or losers, it puts money into renewables that cost more than fossil fuels. The problem with most of the noncarbon source renewables is the capital cost, if you can get past the initial capital cost they begin to look very attractive (of course that is not true for carbon based renewables).

 

[Straw_Cat]

My focus is on reducing the amount of energy used in buildings. You can either buy and install more insulation, better windows and doors, tighten up the building so it doesn't leak, and the like, or you can spend money on energy to heat and cool the structures.

And once that is done, you can spend some more money to do it all over again. And again after that, ad nauseum.

As the price of energy rises, the savings brought about by reducing energy input increases: the cheapest energy is the energy you don't use.

That won't solve all of North America's energy problems, but it could cut out 25-30% of it. That's a start. :-) And by reducing electrical demand, the amount of CO2 and chemical byproducts of generating power from coal, nuke plants, etc, will be reduced.

There are getting to be more and more houses and other structures which supply their own power. They're easy to spot during a power failure: they're the ones with the lights still on. :-)

 

[Straw_Cat]

The oil-producing states on the Arabian Peninsula are all moving to supplying all their energy needs using renewable energy. The UAE just appointed the CEO of MASDAR, the UAE's largest renewable energy company, a Minister of State. Saudi Arabia last year commited itself to providing 100% of it's power from RE sources. Morocco has started on this path as well, with an initial goal of at least 40% renewable energy.

You might want to ask yourself (and ask RE nay-sayers) why they are doing this: what do they know that we aren't being told?

By the end of 2015 or early in 2016, solar power will be cheaper than carbon-based energy. And the price will drop after that as more advances are made in technologies. Same goes for wind and wave energy.

 

[Straw_Cat]

Yes, for the current Rankine cycle, low temperature designs. But high temperature reactors are theoretically possible and they could work on a Brayton cycle without water.

Before we build any more nuke plants, maybe we should solve the problems caused by mining and processing the ores and in getting rid of the waste byproducts first. Almost all nuclear industry waste in the US and Canada is piled up waiting for someone to figure out how to dispose of it. They haven't figured that out yet, but the research has only been going on now for 7 decades.
Maybe someone will solve this problem in, oh, 7 centuries. Meanwhile, Handford's older stockpiles leak like a sieve.
You don't want to know what's going on in Russia...

A thorium reactor might work a tiny bit better, but we won't know that until the first one is built and has been in operation for a long enough time (plant #1 is now about to be built...).

 

[russ_watters]

There are several options for getting rid of nuclear waste. The problems with them are political, not technical in nature.

 

[Felchi]

par10, what do you mean by running coal power plants?

 

[gmax137]

par10, what do you mean by running coal power plants?

Not to speak for par10, but the suggestion seems to be to produce hydrogen using excess capacity at other generating facilities, and then burn the hydrogen in the existing coal boilers when needed. Unfortunately, the windmills don't produce excess anything, and even if they did, coal boilers are designed with very specific fuel attributes (they are not designed to burn "coal" but rather they are optimized for the specific coal that they will be fed). I doubt you could simply pipe H2 in there instead and expect it to work well.

 

[Felchi]

Could you instead create something like a hydrogen fuel cell, but on a much higher scale?
After all, water vapour is greenhouse gas so thermal generation is not the most best means of energy production unless the water is recycled.

 

[Buckleymanor]

Felchi, absolutely correct I was not aiming short term I was looking out 30 years. The beauty of this system is it does not pick winners or losers,

and 20% for administrative cost.

Says it all, I wan't a job as an administrator.

 

[Traxfam]

Give me break, it is a realistic number considering who would be running the program. If it could be privatized, 5-10% would be realistic.

 

[Crazymechanic]

While suggesting energy production principles we always have to remember not only science but the human psychology.As in the end of the day the average consumer is not a a scientist in fact most of them do know only that "radiation kills" they never know which one , how much from where at what circumstances.
Radiation is dangerous no doubt and a coal plant will always be better looking because people know that the worst thing it can happen there is a fire or an explosion of a pressure tank which usually not takes any lives if only a few.People don't see long term effects like smoke from chimneys.
Speaking about nuclear with all the budget that was spent on military purposes only both from the US and the USSR it would have been enough to build a dozen "Chernobyls" but a thousand times safer and probably underground so that even in the case of an accident no serious harm would be done to the atmosphere.
In fact the Chernobyl RBMK type reactor turned out such a tragedy basically because of two reasons and believe it or not all of them very directly political and human in nature not technical.
The reactor was huge (the biggest and most powerful type of reactor in the world at the time) and it was pushed to be constructed fast because two things , firstly they needed a lot of electricity for the factories and houses both military and civilian and they needed ever more plutonium which was ofcourse only because of military use.
Russia had a lot of great nuclear physicists and they could have built the reactor much safer and with a safety building and all those things but the government never listened to any of that , they were too busy with conquering the world and making a communist revolution than looking after things in the motherland.The USSR was too busy of supplying airplanes and fighter jets to all kinds of third world countries in Africa, Latin America.
So it all is political in nature.
Chernobyl was a huge mistake made by poor judgment , utterly careless leadership and a few quite ambitious operators that tragic night who were not given the full design properties and parameters of the reactor they were pushing to the limits, why? Because of the unimaginable secrecy that was the key element of the many victories and also defeats of the USSR.

So now after all that I said the media actually is doing a lot of bad things because they don't tell the truth as it is , they say that nuclear reactors are unsafe.That is not true that is FALSE. As I said it was not the fault of the reactor even though the RBMK type is a pretty dangerous machine with some nasty drawbacks like the positive void coefficient (water coolant increases in pressure when lower pump speeds are switch on and it causes steam to form which in the case of RBMK slows down the neutron absorption and hence an increase in reactivity)
Now with all these drawbacks , in a little country called Lithuania two RBMK 1500 type reactors were built in 1975.They were enough to supply almoust the whole country And they were working with not a slightest mistake or problem throughout the almoust 30 years of their lifespan which would have been longer if not for the EU advice to shut them down because Europarlament is full with people who are against nuclear energy.

So what is the lesson from this.Even a unsafe by design reactor can work with no problems throughout the years then why can't we build much safer ones better ones even underground ones or strongly protected and everything would be fine.
Even if the Chernobyl reactor would have been encapsulated heavily like some scientists proposed to do it before building then there would be no massive fallout at all it would be just a local problem.remember that the reactor once blown up was practically like a camp fire burning wide open.

So I think that to increase the efficiency of our lights , heating and other civil everyday uses is a primary task , then building safe nuclear reactors is also the primary task , and then let's not wait but look for the possible fusion future , but while not let's stick with the fission present and ever increasing levels of efficiency.
let's be real no wind no solar will ever be able to fully produce our energy demand, by 2050 there will be about 10 000 000 000 people in the world and if their average income will also increase the energy demand will just grow.This is not a problem for the US this is a problem for the world.Even countries like China Russia and Brazil with all their huge rivers cannot supply all their demand from Hydro power , so nuclear will have to kick in.
The population is growing but the amount of sun we get doesn't increase like that also the gravitational potential of water doesn't increase much as the rivers are how they are.So these are the kind of resources which although renewable are limited to only a certain maximum amount of energy , nuclear is not , you can push the limits evermore.
And if fusion will come in then there is a huge headroom for future increase in demand also a extremely lowered risk of accident.

 

[Felchi]

Even with the safety of nuclear reactors, the average consumer, as you say, would never stand for large scale implementation of nuclear near arable land or human settlements. Thus if many are built, they will probably be far from human settlements, leading to large loss of energy over the transmission distance.

 

[mheslep]

...maybe we should solve the problems caused by mining...

What problems?

 

[mheslep]

That is not true that is FALSE. As I said it was not the fault of the reactor even though the RBMK type is a pretty dangerous machine with some nasty drawbacks like the positive void coefficient ...

Machines that require near perfect human control, all the time, else the result is catastrophic accident can fairly be called dangerous machines. The RBMK was a dangerous design.

 

[Crazymechanic]

I never said RBMK were not dangerous but I tried to point out why they were dangerous , again who makes a reactor , who builds it who operates it and etc , it's all humans all the way, starting from he blueprints ending with the actual design and control of it.Now who's to blame the reactor for that it did not have enough security systems and a better design with less drawbacks or the humans who deliberately built such a machine because the political ideology pressed upon fast and large amounts of cheap electricity and also most importantly a huge supply of plutonium for the military and ofcourse in such design objectives the RBMK did very good.
It was a powerful machine in the right hands.
So the storyline is that everything can be safe and everything can be dangerous it all depends on the "man" who uses it and builds it.

A kitchen knife is one of the oldest tools that helps us with cooking and making food it also is the most famous and widely used murder or attack tool in the world.
Now what are we about to do , make all knives illegal? Or teach the public , judge the guilty and make a batter tomorrow? I think the same applies to nuclear energy.Things can't be good or bad they are just things if we use them with care and wisely not for short profit and bad capitalist intentions then they can actually work and we can design better and better ones.
In the end of the day it is not about nuclear energy or oil or CO2 pollution it's about us and how we want to see the world and are we ready to do something to make a better tomorrow or just live for the moment (which is vastly advocated these days) and make as much profit and not care about the rest.

 

[Mike_In_Plano]

Energy production and economy are intractable. What may be considered an energy problem may also be considered an economic opportunity. Thus anything proposed must offset existing interests.
Ultimately, it is very difficult to argue against the long term viability and cost benefit of breeder reactor technology augmented with waste fuel refinement.
All of the necessarily technology is well established. And the thorough used of the fuel would establish electrical generation that could sustain our current rate of consumption for thousands of years.
The drawbacks are many fold with this almost ideal source of electricity:
1 - Investors in low cost natural gas plants and natural gas production would be strongly opposed to the competition.
2 - Those who are rightly opposed to nuclear power based upon the slipshod way it has been managed in the past (i.e. waste without a plan) will be in opposition.
3 - International actors will be very upset with the notion of plutonium generation from these facilities. I've read that there's an isotope of plutonium that poisons it as a bomb material and is exceedingly difficult to remove. Perhaps that would be a work about.
4 - In the end, there is still waste. Less waste, but still it must be dealt with.

In any case, the breeder reactor is my energy source of choice. Some point out that thorium processes may be the big breakthrough, and they may. But for now, this is the most fuel efficient process that we have at our disposal.

 

[mheslep]

4 - In the end, there is still waste. Less waste, but still it must be dealt with.

Depends on the waste. If no actinides are produced then the waste must only be dealt with for order of decades before it decays away.

 

[Alt-Bringer]

seems like its been awhile since anyone posted here, but since its pinned...

it may have been said but, there is some research going into the bioelectric systems of electric eels
mainly to create a small scale synthetic version of their systems, for use in powering medical devices
like pacemakers

if they get that far, the next logical step would be "can we up-scale to create self-charging batteries"
starting most likely at cellphones then going to automotive, and evetually to "battery plants" (power stations)

 

[par10]

Not to speak for par10, but the suggestion seems to be to produce hydrogen using excess capacity at other generating facilities, and then burn the hydrogen in the existing coal boilers when needed. Unfortunately, the windmills don't produce excess anything, and even if they did, coal boilers are designed with very specific fuel attributes (they are not designed to burn "coal" but rather they are optimized for the specific coal that they will be fed). I doubt you could simply pipe H2 in there instead and expect it to work well.

your answer is pretty much what I was getting at, however there is alwas excess in power production, at night plant has to be kept on line in case it is needed, it is accepted that the power producers have refined the art of assessing what the power requirements are for each hour of the day, but they always have to ensure that power is available.

Windmills will provide excess power during the night when conventional Gas, Coal or Nuclear power stations are kept on line because it is to costly to shut them down overnight. Providing the wind blows then windmills will generate power.

The point about furnaces being manufactured to suit the fuel is accepted but what would the cost of new furnaces be compared to complete new power stations?

 

[OmCheeto]

seems like its been awhile since anyone posted here, but since its pinned...

it may have been said but, there is some research going into the bioelectric systems of electric eels
mainly to create a small scale synthetic version of their systems, for use in powering medical devices
like pacemakers

if they get that far, the next logical step would be "can we up-scale to create self-charging batteries"
starting most likely at cellphones then going to automotive, and evetually to "battery plants" (power stations)

Interesting: Designing artificial cells to harness the biological ion concentration gradient

I would research this further, but I would be late for work.

One problem I see with the system, is that it is fish based. Fish eat. Things that eat, poop. I'm already tired of changing the oil in my automobile, and don't look forward to changing its diapers.

And cellphones?

LisaB; "Om! What the hell is running down the side of your face?"
Om; "I think my cellphone just pooped on me..."

 

[texasman1979]

use ocean water in a new giant nuke plant to both make electricity and refill the ogallala aquifer.

use the spent fuel rods that can still maintain 2000+ degrees to help lengthen the life of the fuel.

make the plant a small high speed turbine and generator on a transmission.

use the electricity made for even greater steam production and several smaller generators.

with the new water in the aquifer plant corn and soybeans in desert areas increasing the green of the planet and a renewable fuel source for cars and trucks and planes.

the cost would be several trillion but the benefits would be incalculable.

 

[Straw_Cat]

Sure, no problem at all, Texasman. A simple minded fix with one small problem: Not one bit of all the uranium that has ever been refined has yet to be put into long term storage. And I mean long term. What are you doing for the next 45,000+ years?

Keep in mind that nuke plants spend almost as much down time refueling, etc, as they spend operating (a detail that energy companies would prefer you weren't aware of.) So, with diminishing demand for the plutonium the whole industry creates, the ~real~ cost of producing nuclear power is a lot higher than most people realize. In basic terms, it's not a cost-effective way to generate power or revenue (especially if the energy company has to pay for storing spent uranium, and highly radioactive power plant infrastructure when it comes time to dismantle those.)

When the day comes that the nuke companies have to pay the downstream costs from cradle to grave of their operations, rather than passing those onto the taxpayer, no one will invest in these things. Japan now seriously regrets having chosen the nuclear option, and a large percentage of their nation is going to suffer from the Fukushima disaster for many centuries.
The recent news from Japan tells us the Emperor's family is suffering health problems from radiation poisoning, brought about because the royal household gets it's food from royal farms in the region damaged by the reactor meltdowns.
And we who live outside of Japan are not immune from being affected by the radioactive contamination: the radioactivity of much of the fish (especially top predator species like tuna) in the Pacific ocean is getting closer (or exceeding) safe levels for consumption. This includes tuna, etc, caught off the west coast of North and South America.

For comparison, think about a Solar Spill: most of us would call that a Nice Day.

I am not in favour of growing corn and soy for use as fuel, especially in desert regions. Partly because most of the corn and almost all of the soy is now genetically modified, and partly because irrigating large parts of the average desert impacts a lot of species which are adapted to those arid climates. (However, The Sahara could be partly adapted for some types of agriculture... Hopefully, in ways that minimize the need for artificial fertilizers, especially petroleum-based ones.)

Say No to Nukes.

 

[texasman1979]

The Sun is a good place for long term storage of unusable nuclear waste. Using the spent fuel rods to warm the water before it enters the chamber makes for a lessor amount of fuel needed and reduces down time, not to mention the size of the reactor would be smaller. All the electricity made from the plant would be for desalination purposes only. And which is better to modify, the desert which has a relatively small amount of life, or rain forest type areas with 100 times the life?

This is the only immediately actionable plan with current technology. All other plans require much more innovation to implement.

 

[Straw_Cat]

A mineable uranium deposit contains between 1 and 2% uranium. That leaves you with 98-99% waste to deal with, a lot of it radioactive or otherwise a major problem (thorium, radium, radon, lead, and so-on). So, for every 1 kilo of U238 and U235 you extract, you will have to place 98 or 99 kilos of waste in a rocket and blast it into space. In an un-reusable capsule that's strong enough to not break open if the rocket fails to reach space and become free of the Earth's gravity.
That's for every 100 kilos. Now consider that they mine tonnes of this stuff.
And that each launch into space requires a million or more pounds of fuel and produces a huge amount of acid rain to boot.

The best container for nuclear fuel is the one it comes in: leave it in the ore body.
(I had a key part to play in getting uranium mining banned forever in B.C. a few years ago...)

This spring, 100% of all new energy production in the US that came on-line was renewable energy: wind, solar, and so-forth. And the rate of this type of energy production is going up.
By the end of 2015, or early 2016, the cost of renewable energy production will have dropped below the cost of comparable non-renewable energy.
There is a need for more innovation, but for the most part, these technologies are already well advanced. As for storing the energy, the latest battery technology advances seem to have taken care of that, and they appear to be quite inexpensive at that.

One new technology I really would promote is the one called 'salt water greenhouses' (google for that). This uses airflow and sunlight to de-salinate sea water, and produces potable water for use in the greenhouses and nearby communities. The pumps (and possible condensing plates) can run off solar panels and/or wind turbines. :-) These have been built on the Arabian Peninsula and in Australia, and work just fine. If I had the $$, I'd build a series of them in Morocco and/or Baja California. Southwest Texas would be another great place for them, and these could turn the Big Bend area into viable farmland.
With careful planning, this could increase the biodiversity of those places, and still preserve local species.

 

[Straw_Cat]

Seawater, or salt water, greenhouse links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_greenhouse
Quote: "The technology was introduced by British inventor Charlie Paton in the early 1990s and is being developed by his UK company Seawater Greenhouse Ltd."
http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/02/18/seawater-greenhouses-produce-tomatoes-in-the-desert/
And search for seawater greenhouse on YouTube for some videos, if interested.

If you've ever been around an old-fashioned swamp cooler, you'll understand how these work to desalinate the seawater. I think this is a brilliant technology.

 

[texasman1979]

build an actual space plane.

wind, solar, etc. is too inconsistent for a mass desalination process.

the green houses would have to be the size of a medium size state to equal the desalination capability of electricity.

its far too easy, just too many people concerned with cost and profit.

 

[gmax137]

Anyone else think this thread has just about run its course?

 

[texasman1979]

Until something is actually done to improve the environment, this thread will not have ran its course.

I saw the post and decided to add my little tidbit.

I have posted on facebook a number of things that would help.

Desalinate Gulf of Mexico water to refill the aquifer. Turn the Sahara green with a living renewable alternative to oil for ground transportation using desalinated Mediterranean water. My little 17 horse Yanmar tractor is more than strong enough to turn more then 30 120 amp alternators. The fueled motor does not have to be on a direct drive to a generator. You can route the power through a drive train/transmission. Design them for speed rather than low end torque.

Electricity is so easy to generate it is ridiculous and with that electricity comes a million other things that can actually help this planet.

The reason the things above are not done is not because they are impossible, its because there is no direct way to profit from it. What they don't realize is that there is trillions to be made indirectly.

The only thing necessary to totally fix our energy crisis is to separate human lives from profit. As long as there is a "cost of living" there is only a matter of time till the cost outweighs the life. Then it is over for us all.

Step one: Make human life itself valuable.