YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

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The discussion centers on developing a comprehensive plan to address the US energy crisis, emphasizing the need to define specific problems such as pollution from coal, rising demand outpacing supply, foreign oil dependence, and high costs. A proposed solution involves a 30-year, multi-phase approach that includes constructing modern nuclear power plants, heavily funding alternative energy research, and implementing immediate regulations to reduce pollution. The plan outlines a significant investment, potentially $3 trillion over 30 years, but promises long-term benefits like reduced pollution, increased energy capacity, and lower costs. Participants also highlight the importance of political will and public awareness in driving these changes. Ultimately, the conversation underscores the urgency of addressing energy issues through innovative and practical solutions.
  • #961
OmCheeto said:
The dual powered vehicles saw an 83% jump over their 2012 total of 52,835 units.
I did the math and determined that if that rate were to hold up, it would take only 12 years to replace all the vehicles in the USA. It made me smile.
A colleague increased his family size by 50% this month. If the rate holds up, it would take only 4.5 years to replace the worldwide population with his family :-p.

Solar energy can help, but that alone will not fix anything. The sun does not shine at night, or when it is cloudy.
 
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  • #962
mfb said:
A colleague increased his family size by 50% this month. If the rate holds up, it would take only 4.5 years to replace the worldwide population with his family :-p.
:rolleyes:
Solar energy can help, but that alone will not fix anything. The sun does not shine at night, or when it is cloudy.

According to what I've read, Feynman's dad said the entire world is powered by solar energy.

And the sun does shine at night.

And the sun does shine when it's cloudy.

:-p x 2

--------------------------
My eternal thanks to Moonbear, who taught me how to win an argument. :)
 
  • #963
According to what I've read, Feynman's dad said the entire world is powered by solar energy.
Sure, but burning the stored energy (as oil, gas and coal) is problematic.
Oh, and nuclear energy does not come from the sun.

And the sun does shine at night.
To be more precise, the sun does not shine on photovoltaic cells at night (local night for the photovoltaics). At least not in any relevant amount. And clouds give a similar problem.
 
  • #964
stevedunklee said:
.. I asked one of the execs why they were spending 5 billion to make it when they could produce the same amount of power installing one million 50 watt wind alternators one per power pole for less than 250 million...

Electric power is almost worthless unless you can turn it on and off at will.
 
  • #965
gmax137 said:
Electric power is almost worthless unless you can turn it on and off at will.

This is true. I once traded one of my 50 watt solar panels for a friend's surplus air conditioner. Although I've been using the air conditioner for 3 years, I've yet to deliver the solar panel. I told them it would be useless unless they purchased a deep cycle battery, as the panel would just be a silly wall ornament without one.

pf.2014.02.01.0857.OmCheeto_has_weird_stuff_in_his_living_room.jpg

mfb said:
Sure, but burning the stored energy (as oil, gas and coal) is problematic.
Agreed.
Oh, and nuclear energy does not come from the sun.
Maybe not from our sun, but it's common knowledge where Uranium came from.

The Earth's uranium was produced in one or more supernovae over 6 billion years ago.
To my knowledge, you can't have a supernovae without a sun.
Without a supernovae, there would be no Uranium.
With no Uranium(et al), there would be no nuclear power.
Hence, nuclear energy is also, ultimately, solar in origin.
To be more precise, the sun does not shine on photovoltaic cells at night (local night for the photovoltaics). At least not in any relevant amount. And clouds give a similar problem.

Hence the deep cycle battery sitting in my living room.

ps. It's really only there to keep the crack heads from stealing it out of my boat. I cycle it lightly through the winter month by powering my xmas lights.
 
  • #966
Most forms of energy production have problems. My older brother has been off the grid for almost 30 years. Small power sources must have a disconect in case of storms or accidents . Will millions of solar panels and dark paved roads contribute to global warming? I see the time comming where it is legislated corp must provide housing within walking distance for workers, so everyone ends up living in town. We are already more than half way there. Cut the daily comute downfrom an hours drive to walking and oil use drops to a trickle.
 
  • #967
OmCheeto said:
Maybe not from our sun, but it's common knowledge where Uranium came from.
From supernovae of other stars. I see "sun" as the star in our solar system.

stevedunklee said:
Will millions of solar panels and dark paved roads contribute to global warming?
No. You would have to cover a significant fraction of the surface of Earth with very dark materials to see any influence.
 
  • #968
stevedunklee said:
Will millions of solar panels and dark paved roads contribute to global warming?

It might have the opposite effect, if there is less black soot in the atmosphere falling on the arctic and antarctic ice sheets.
 
  • #969
stevedunklee said:
Will millions of solar panels and dark paved roads contribute to global warming?

From what I understand roads do contribute to local warming in some areas (a.k.a. the "heat island effect") but do not provide enough of AA difference in terms of net global albedo change to affect global climate.

Solar panels may at some point be efficient enough to have a net cooling effect, if they are able to convert more power to electricity than would have been heat without them there.

stevedunklee said:
I see the time comming where it is legislated corp must provide housing within walking distance for workers, so everyone ends up living in town.

Forget it, this doesn't need to (and shouldn't) be legislated. Its up to the employee to decide where they want to live with the salary they are paid.
 
  • #970
Out in the Mojave Desert, California, a "Huge thermal plant opens as solar industry grows"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/huge-thermal-plant-opens-solar-industry-grows-052553628--finance.html
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal land near the California-Nevada border, formally opens Thursday after years of regulatory and legal tangles ranging from relocating protected tortoises to assessing the impact on Mojave milkweed and other plants.

The $2.2 billion complex of three generating units, owned by NRG Energy Inc., Google Inc. and BrightSource Energy, can produce nearly 400 megawatts — enough power for 140,000 homes. It began making electricity last year.

. . . .
http://ivanpah.nrgenergy.com/

Update:
NIPTON, Calif. — The Ivanpah solar power plant stretches over more than five square miles of the Mojave Desert. Almost 350,000 mirrors the size of garage doors tilt toward the sun with an ability to energize 140,000 homes. The plant, which took almost four years and thousands of workers assembling millions of parts to complete, officially opened on Thursday, the first electric generator of its kind.

It could also be the last.

Since the project began, the price of rival technologies has plummeted, incentives have begun to disappear and the appetite among investors for mammoth solar farms has waned. Although several large, new projects have been coming online in recent months — many in the last quarter of 2013 — experts say fewer are beginning construction and not all of those under development will be completed.
. . . .
A Huge Solar Plant Opens, Facing Doubts About Its Future
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/b...ant-opens-facing-doubts-about-its-future.html
 
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  • #972
johnbbahm said:
Sorry about the long response.
Both articles state the efficiency is about 60 %, but if the input power was was surplus,
it had little value anyway.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/06/audi-20130625.html
http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.html
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas
I had a followup to the technology.
http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/det...ower-to-gas-facility_100011859/#axzz2tEyPMOG8
Audi, has their plant open now.
I could envision an energy credit system, where a homeowner earns energy credit
for their excess generated power (whatever the source). The credit could be used
to buy gasoline, heating oil, pay the electric bill ect..
The real elegance of storing surplus power as hydrocarbons, is the shelve life,
and the fact the we already have a world wide distribution infrastructure.
Based on the Navy's description, it sounds like a modern olefin refinery could convert
over to man made fuels without much effort.
( Perhaps some PE here could correct me if I am wrong.)
The first reports from fraunhofer, I read, They were talking about a conversion unit that would
sit outside peoples houses, and make natural gas, to put back into the gas grid.
I am think the efficiencies of scale, would win out.
 
  • #973
mheslep said:
Yes, though they are now in some trouble for bird kills of all things. Would be ironic if they had to nix the solar and burn gas to run turbine for environmental reasons.

I think Danger covered wind turbine generator bird kills some years back. To expand on his idea, just replace KFC[1] with STS[2].

--------------------------
1. Kentucky Fried Chicken
2. Solar Toasted Sparrows
 
  • #974
OmCheeto said:
I think Danger covered wind turbine generator bird kills some years back. To expand on his idea, just replace KFC[1] with STS[2].

...


Speaking of bird kill, I think Facebook is broken. One of my left wing political feeds has been posting sciency type stuff lately.
(One of the first comments was; "and hopefully less deadly to migrating birds including Bald Eagles?"):confused:

40 minutes long, but well worth my time.

Why VAWTs may be 10 times better than HAWTs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyOmwfH5GxA

Professor Dabiri is my kind of scientist.

VAWT: Vertical axis wind turbine
HAWT: Horizontal axis wind turbine
 
  • #975
A nulcear scientist should invent a micro nuclear reactor that does not release radioactive material and that is not powerfull enough to blow up a city block and is safe. If such a device was ever invented the amount of new revolutionary inventions would grow exponentially in my oppinion. Most problems when it comes to science projects are a small enough power source to power a device that needs a lot of energy.(i.e.) star wars program. The primary reason we are not having laser rifles and science fiction space vehicles coming true is because congress does not allow scientist to expirement with such useful technology.
 
  • #976
Jewish_Vulcan said:
A nulcear scientist should invent a micro nuclear reactor that does not release radioactive material and that is not powerfull enough to blow up a city block and is safe. If such a device was ever invented the amount of new revolutionary inventions would grow exponentially in my oppinion. Most problems when it comes to science projects are a small enough power source to power a device that needs a lot of energy.(i.e.) star wars program. The primary reason we are not having laser rifles and science fiction space vehicles coming true is because congress does not allow scientist to expirement with such useful technology.

As an American, I can only say, that I feel really sorry for you, wherever it is you live. I do such experiments daily. Well, ok, not daily, but almost every weekend. Well, ok, maybe not almost every weekend, but sometimes.

Today I built an electrical generator out of magnets, a cd, a drill, and an old speaker coil.

It did not work at all.

But that's besides the point.

If your congress is not allowing you, and/or your scientists, to do experiments, then you need to elect a new congress.
 
  • #977
Peter Thiel gave a talk not long ago suggesting government, that is government regulation, was exactly the reason advances in physical technology, i.e. hardware if you like, have stagnated. One of the few areas left almost completely unregulated so far has been software and the internet, so it continues to progress. I largely agree.

So yes you are free to experiment in your basement OmC but should you actually try to bring something to market other than a phone app you risk a great deal.
 
  • #978
mheslep said:
Peter Thiel gave a talk not long ago suggesting government, that is government regulation, was exactly the reason advances in physical technology, i.e. hardware if you like, have stagnated. One of the few areas left almost completely unregulated so far has been software and the internet, so it continues to progress. I largely agree.
There is a clear causal relationship in the other direction.
Areas that progress quickly are usually less regulated, as the governments are not quick enough to keep up.

Therefore, correlation alone is not an argument.
 
  • #979
mfb said:
There is a clear causal relationship in the other direction.
What do you mean by in the other direction? That there's a casual relationship between regulation and the fielding of technology?
 
  • #980
mheslep said:
What do you mean by in the other direction? That there's a casual relationship between regulation and the fielding of technology?

I believe mfb's point was that while it may appear a compelling argument that government regulation causes stagnation in technological progress, that is not a sound conclusion as correlation does not imply causation. It may very well be, as mfb suggested, that technologies that progress rapidly, do so because they are ahead of the slow-moving government, and so progress faster than regulations can keep up with.

In one instance, government implements regulations, which hinder technological progress.

In the other, technological progress happens quickly, when it finally stagnates, government regulations can catch up. So you see stagnated technologies with lots of regulation and may think that the regulation is what's keeping it back, but that's not necessarily true.
 
  • #981
  • #982
Travis_King said:
I believe mfb's point was that while it may appear a compelling argument that government regulation causes stagnation in technological progress, that is not a sound conclusion as correlation does not imply causation...

I agree there that correlation is not causation, never proof, but depending on the fact set it can be persuasive. We have not only a strong positive correlation between regulation and new hardware (e.g. transportation, biotech, energy), but also a strong negative correlation between regulation and computers/the internet.
 
  • #983
mheslep said:
What do you mean by in the other direction?
See the following sentence in the post you quoted.
I agree there that correlation is not causation, never proof, but depending on the fact set it can be persuasive. We have not only a strong positive correlation between regulation and new hardware (e.g. transportation, biotech, energy), but also a strong negative correlation between regulation and computers/the internet.
This is still the same correlation. "Some technology branch is developing fast => the government does not catch up with regulations" is a well-known reason for this correlation. If you suggest that the other direction is important (so technological development depends on regulations in some way), you need evidence independent of the correlation.
 
  • #984
mheslep said:
...
The reigning king of storage is pumped hydro, at something like $0.04/Wh for a big project like Bath County, and it should be coming up on 10000 cycles soon with the end of life still far in the future.

It looks like Germany may be doing this.

Germany's Key to Clean Energy Is…This Coal Mine?

The numbers look a bit odd. I was discussing digging a geothermal heat sink at work a while back after I saw your post and wondered how many thousands of gallons it would take to cover all my electrical needs for a day with a 600 foot well. It came out to about 7 gallons. :confused:

So when the above article states:
...
fill the place up with water—up to 35 million cubic feet of it...

Renewable power would pump some of the water back to the surface, and then gravity would take care of the rest, draining the water back into the mine through an energy-producing turbine. Altogether, the system would have enough storage capacity to power up to 410 typical German homes.
...

It didn't seem like very many homes.

Their image shows the mine at 3300 ft.

Translating to SI units (I'm assuming the original units were SI, as the volume and depth values were suspiciously, um, easy to work with...)
1,000,000 m^3 (volume of water)
1,000,000,000 kg (mass of water)
1,000 m (depth of mine)
9.8 (g)
9,800,000,000,000 joules (pe=mgh)
3,600,000 (joules / kwh)
2,722,222 kwh
410 DE homes
6,640 kwh/DE home

My average electrical usage is about 1,000 kWh/month, so it looks like they can power 410 homes, at my rate, for around 6 months.

or
crunch, crunch, crunch

≈80,000 DE homes for a day

pre-"Submit Reply" edit:

It would appear that German households use significantly less energy that I do, and I appear to be quite the average American: 3500 DE vs 12,000 USA (kWh/yr)

So bump those numbers up to 410 DE homes for a year, and 160,000 DE homes for a day.

ps. I just re-ran the numbers on my 600 ft deep well and came up with 18,701 gallons. It would appear I was off by a factor of 2672, which is a very strange factor to be off by, IMHO. :redface:
 
  • #985
They do use a lot less power per household. One source, the pdf file linked below, had them using an average of 6,200 kwh per household in 2009, and this one has a figure much lower: 3,512 kwh.

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption

Pdf file from 2009.
http://www05.abb.com/global/scot/scot316.nsf/veritydisplay/5793753d3056bfb4c12578640051183f/$file/germany.pdf

The EU has a standard which has a goal of having new houses and other buildings use 10 kwh/ year per square meter, or less, and 30% of that should come from renewables. A square meter is about 10.764 square feet. That's 1 kwh/year per square foot.
Or less.
A few years back Ontario was thinking about setting a standard like this for new construction in that province, but they tabled the suggestion until later.
 
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  • #986
(I'm assuming the original units were SI, as the volume and depth values were suspiciously, um, easy to work with...)
Sure, it is not a US-project, there is no need to use exotic inconsistent unit systems.

That number of 410 looks very low. Did they divide 160000 home*days by 365? Would fit.
I guess the energy storage would be designed for storage periods of the order of one week, which leads to ~20 000 homes.
 
  • #987
mfb said:
Sure, it is not a US-project, there is no need to use exotic inconsistent unit systems.
I found the original image on the paper written by Prof. André Niemann, which indeed lists everything in metric units. Though he does not list a volume.
That number of 410 looks very low. Did they divide 160000 home*days by 365? Would fit.
I guess the energy storage would be designed for storage periods of the order of one week, which leads to ~20 000 homes.
The only other numbers he lists in the original paper are:

First valuations show a predicted power rage from 200 to 600 MW.

It also appears that this is old news:

Event
Nutzung von Anlagen des Bergbaus zur Speicherung regenerativer Energie
(Use of facilities of the mining industry for the storage of renewable energy)
Am 30. November 2011
...


Perhaps I should contact my cousins in Germany, and have them go interview him properly. They live about 150 km to the east of Essen.
 
  • #988
russ_watters said:
We always have threads on various pieces of the puzzle, but what I want here is for people to post a coherent plan of how to fix the energy problems we have in the US (and critique what others propose). Some groundrules:

First, though most would agree there are issues, people won't necessarily agree on what they are/what the most important are. So define the problem as you see it before proposing the solution. The usual suspects are: safety, capacity, pollution, cost, future availability of resources, and foreign dependence. Obviously, feel free to modify that list.

Second, I want specific, coherent plans. Don't just say 'reduce CO2 emissions' or 'increase production' - tell me how.

Third, money is important, but not critical (for this thread), so don't let it constrain your ambition. I want solutions that will work - paying for them is another matter. Obviously, any solution will require making tough choices and (in the short term, anyway) spending a lot of money. No need to build a new budget to support it. If you say you want to spend a trillion dollars a year, fine (but the benefit had better be big).

http://www.agmrc.org/markets/info/energyoverview.pdf is a site from another thread with some background info on what we use for what.

I'll go first...

After all the suspected extraneous off topic info probably posted ad infinitum here, I'd be surprised if Russ even continues to read his own thread anymore. That may be my sorrow, as the following PBS video (53:42) documentary link is very, very good (in my opinion), and well worth seeing.

If some folks have not already seen this, there is an excellent treatise on how to fix the climate, "a coherent plan of how to fix the energy problems we have in the US". It is located on the PBS website and called http://video.pbs.org/video/1855661681/ .

A geologist named Richard Alley not only describes the present greenhouse problem, but if it's the same unmodified program I saw, I believe he calculates what combination of energy varieties can reduce emissions to reverse the warming trend and yet exceed the future energy requirements of earth. While I'm sure no comprehensive plan is without flaw or controversy, this is the best public presentation I've ever seen to date and does not differ entirely from your own.

If you read this, Russ, and the above PBS video has been mentioned before, I apologise. I did not read all 55 pages of this thread, but I did search it for terms: Richard Alley, Earth: The Operators Manual.

Thanks,
Wes
...
 
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  • #989
Wes Tausend said:
After all the suspected extraneous off topic info probably posted ad infinitum here, I'd be surprised if Russ even continues to read his own thread anymore. That may be my sorrow, as the following PBS video (53:42) documentary link is very, very good (in my opinion), and well worth seeing.

If some folks have not already seen this, there is an excellent treatise on how to fix the climate, "a coherent plan of how to fix the energy problems we have in the US". It is located on the PBS website and called http://video.pbs.org/video/1855661681/ .

A geologist named Richard Alley not only describes the present greenhouse problem, but if it's the same unmodified program I saw, I believe he calculates what combination of energy varieties can reduce emissions to reverse the warming trend and yet exceed the future energy requirements of earth. While I'm sure no comprehensive plan is without flaw or controversy, this is the best public presentation I've ever seen to date and does not differ entirely from your own.

If you read this, Russ, and the above PBS video has been mentioned before, I apologise. I did not read all 55 pages of this thread, but I did search it for terms: Richard Alley, Earth: The Operators Manual.

Thanks,
Wes
...

I approve of some of the content of your prescribed video, as it looks like a one hour synopsis of what has been discussed in this nearly 10 year old thread. I leave it to Russ, to blast the b.s., as I've better things to do today.
 
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  • #990
Wes Tausend said:
After all the suspected extraneous off topic info probably posted ad infinitum here, I'd be surprised if Russ even continues to read his own thread anymore. That may be my sorrow, as the following PBS video (53:42) documentary link is very, very good (in my opinion), and well worth seeing.

If some folks have not already seen this, there is an excellent treatise on how to fix the climate, "a coherent plan of how to fix the energy problems we have in the US". It is located on the PBS website and called http://video.pbs.org/video/1855661681/ .

A geologist named Richard Alley not only describes the present greenhouse problem, but if it's the same unmodified program I saw, I believe he calculates what combination of energy varieties can reduce emissions to reverse the warming trend and yet exceed the future energy requirements of earth. While I'm sure no comprehensive plan is without flaw or controversy, this is the best public presentation I've ever seen to date and does not differ entirely from your own.

If you read this, Russ, and the above PBS video has been mentioned before, I apologise. I did not read all 55 pages of this thread, but I did search it for terms: Richard Alley, Earth: The Operators Manual.

Thanks,
Wes
...

See the "tell me how" phrase in Russ's OP? Could you try a couple narrow illustrations, from what you saw in the PBS piece or elsewhere? I don't think "watch this video" gets you off the hook.
 
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