YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

[mheslep]

Some aspects of the Richard Alley PBS piece:

15.7 TW total energy consumption. Asks the question if renewables can meet that load, all of it. Gives silly platitudes, draws "0.01%" in the sand, mumbles something about transmission and storage without detail. Useless.
[STRIKE]
No mention of nuclear. [/STRIKE] New 4th gen nuclear mentioned in passing at the end.

Some hand waiving about geothermal - thousands of years. I like to count *possible* jewels too, but there's a difference between that and actually building geothermal plants with a sufficient *water supply* to produce something.

More mumbles about how hydro will cover wind and solar outages without detail. Mumbles about offshore wind, though the current amount in the US is zero.

"Some estimates say ..." conservation and efficiency could cut consumption by %23.

Alley might be a fine geologist but I gather he's just hand waiving happy thoughts here.

 

[edward]

Perhaps we need to take a closer look at the little things we may be missing. I spent three days in the same motel recently. This was unusual because I am usually arriving after dark and leaving early in the morning.

It was a typical mid priced motel. The A/C units were the typical through the wall heat pumps mounted under the window. I sat in a chair reading a magazine in the early afternoon and noticed that the A/C would run about three minutes then go off for about two minutes.

I immediately spotted the reason, the blasted air was blowing up behind the window curtains, then dropping back down and into the return. The curtains came down to the top of the A/C. I pushed the curtains back and set a book in front of them.

Now the unit ran for fifteen minutes straight and shut down for 18 minutes.

The units also need better insulation between the condenser (outdoor) section and the (interior) evaporator section. I say this because in the morning when the sun hit the east facing condensers the units would kick on for short runs. I walked around to the west side of the building in the afternoon and the same thing was happening.

The sensors for the thermostats were located in the return air stream. This wouldn't need a rocket science fix. The 50 room motel is only two years old.

 

[russ_watters]

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.

As a global warming documentary it's pretty good (a heckuva lot better than "An Inconvenient Truth"!), but I do also find it a little hand-wavey and naive/idealistic on the solutions.

-I agree that the lack of discussion of nuclear power is particularly glaring, since they target it at increasing from 5% to 20% of our power needs. That would make it the biggest or second biggest of our energy sources in their proposed mix (they don't break-out the different forms of alternate energy -- wind might end up bigger in their mix). Based on that, it should get at least as much treatment as solar and wind did...though the unstated subtext of the Navy fossil fuel reduction piece is probably an increase in nuclear power for large ships.

-They say hydro can go from 6% to 12% while also backing-up solar power (note: most if not all of their numbers are given in power, not energy). That doesn't compute. When one form is backing-up another, you can have one or the other, but you can't add both together. What hydro does is give you some storage capacity: so you add enough capacity to generate 24% of our power, while only running it at an average of 12%. Essentially, you double-up on all of the generators in the dams. That's a viable way to do it (the alternative is building a natural gas power plant next to every solar plant), but it was a misleading way to present the capacity.

-They gave geothermal power a couple of minutes of discussion, while saying we can triple it's current capacity. Wow, triple? That's...triple almost nothing is still almost nothing. Including a source of basically nothing is particularly glaring considering the absence of any discussion of nuclear power.

One good point, though, is I definitely like what the military is doing with alternate energy...notwithstanding the joke last month about generating fuel from seawater that got a lot of airtime.

 

[Wes Tausend]

As a global warming documentary it's pretty good (a heckuva lot better than "An Inconvenient Truth"!), but I do also find it a little hand-wavey and naive/idealistic on the solutions.

-I agree that the lack of discussion of nuclear power is particularly glaring, since they target it at increasing from 5% to 20% of our power needs. That would make it the biggest or second biggest of our energy sources in their proposed mix (they don't break-out the different forms of alternate energy -- wind might end up bigger in their mix). Based on that, it should get at least as much treatment as solar and wind did...though the unstated subtext of the Navy fossil fuel reduction piece is probably an increase in nuclear power for large ships.

-They say hydro can go from 6% to 12% while also backing-up solar power (note: most if not all of their numbers are given in power, not energy). That doesn't compute. When one form is backing-up another, you can have one or the other, but you can't add both together. What hydro does is give you some storage capacity: so you add enough capacity to generate 24% of our power, while only running it at an average of 12%. Essentially, you double-up on all of the generators in the dams. That's a viable way to do it (the alternative is building a natural gas power plant next to every solar plant), but it was a misleading way to present the capacity.

-They gave geothermal power a couple of minutes of discussion, while saying we can triple it's current capacity. Wow, triple? That's...triple almost nothing is still almost nothing. Including a source of basically nothing is particularly glaring considering the absence of any discussion of nuclear power.

One good point, though, is I definitely like what the military is doing with alternate energy...notwithstanding the joke last month about generating fuel from seawater that got a lot of airtime.

Thanks for replying, Russ. And a hand to the other gentlemen for replying too.

I don't have many friends or family that are willing to watch such documentaries, besides discuss their merits, so I have an appreciation for threads like yours. Thank you. The Richard Alley video is on my DVR and I can see I need to watch it again with the comments mentioned here in mind. I thought the video to be a good, comprehensive rough draft, my favorite, the "napkin" drawn version of a possible future blueprint.

I did think it was a bit vague, but assumed that was a consequence of squeezing the vast array of info into a one hour segment that would appeal to general PBS type audiences. Considering this, I kind of wonder if Dr. Alley didn't somewhat avoid nuclear power to appease some of the paranoid fringe element. He may be much more amenable to it than he initially let's on. He has a couple of books out that would make an interesting, and possibly more complete, read. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081095/?tag=pfamazon01-20 and http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6916.html

I consider myself to be a politically independent, but I very much agree with John McCain on stepping up the use of nuclear power. He is very comfortable with it, ostensibly because he lived in harmony with nuclear power aboard Navy vessels. I can't remember exactly where I ran across the mention, but someone once suggested that nuclear fission power would be well suited to smaller, remote/automated regional plants that were to be constructed in sealed, mass produced "shipping container" size module dimensions and buried underground. The security element was that any pilferers would have substancial digging to steal components. The safety element was supposed to be that cooling water would be gravity fed and not depend upon "iffy" pump operation. That our Navy can already use such condensed power-pak sizes is a major plus... i.e. sounded good to me.

I live in a major energy producing state, North Dakota. The huge Bakken oil reservoir is only the latest segment offering and does finally reduce our dependence on OPEC with the possible compromise of fracking damage to groundwaters. The southwest area of ND has significant uranium deposits. We have abundant coal here, unfortunately very dirty coal, as if there is such a thing as clean coal. We also have the fifth largest earthern hydroelectric dam here, Garrison Dam, and we are the second windiest state in the union, right behind Texas.

I'm not sure how the ND vs Corps of Engineers hydroelectric back-up policy works, but I believe the dam is restricted when power can be met by coal fired plants. If so, we already have an excess hydroelectric capacity that we decline to use, also a concern of yours, I believe. I suppose part of the reasoning would be that "free" government power cannot be allowed to compete with private enterprise. I think all the powerplants are owned by stockholders, cooperative or not. The other quite legitimate reasoning to restrict hydroelectric, is that coal fired plants do not do well cycling between cooling and reheating to vary power output, while hydroelectric can.

I worked for a railroad and we hauled slightly cleaner Wyoming Powder River coal, to mix with sulphurous ND coal, to just barely squeak by on the past latest emissions. Being downwind in the city of Bismarck, I once noted a Tribune article by a group of several local respiratory medical professionals pointing out the high incidence of respiratory issues now in the area. Biting the hand that once fed me, so much for asthmatic Teddy Roosevelt's ancestors ever coming here for the clean air again.

At a recent banquet, I ran into an old friend and high school classmate who worked in management for MDU (Montana-Dakota Utilities), our regional natural gas and electric supplier. After someone else broached the subject, I mentioned that we needed to find a way to seclude coal powerplant CO² as coal-synthesizer plant Dakota Gasification has learned to do, that is by selling it to oil companies to bury or just plain burying it. As I said, North Dakota has some of the dirtiest coal imaginable, and we have a lot of it. He protested that it would cost too much, and I retorted that it didn't matter considering the likely alternative. In exasperation, he said, "Well you can just sit in the dark then". Rather than further fuel an unhealthy argument I said nothing more. But I was thinking better me suffer now than my, and his, greatgrandchildren go without acceptable energy when the next bitter cold ice age arrives, possibly because we invited it. It's already cold enough here.

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[OmCheeto]

I do believe, I've dug myself a new hole.

I told someone the other day, that I would not debate opinion, after the first jab.
And you can't argue facts.
So what on Earth have I to discuss?^[1]

...The sensors for the thermostats were located in the return air stream.
...

How on Earth do you know that?

google google google

I spent three days in the same motel recently.
...

You took it apart.
You were only going to spend one night, but you decided to take the air conditioner apart.
And it took you two days, to put it back together.

:thumbs:

--------------------------
[1] Speculation.

 

[edward]

I do believe, I've dug myself a new hole.

Do you still have the shovel?

How on Earth do you know that?

google google google

I only had to pull out the filter and I could peek in and see the thermostat sensor. I believe in the A/C business they are called a feeler bulb

You took it apart.
You were only going to spend one night, but you decided to take the air conditioner apart.
And it took you two days, to put it back together.

No, no, no, I only do that at Luxury hotels with large central air conditioning systems.

 

[russ_watters]

Perhaps we need to take a closer look at the little things we may be missing. I spent three days in the same motel recently. This was unusual because I am usually arriving after dark and leaving early in the morning.

It was a typical mid priced motel. The A/C units were the typical through the wall heat pumps mounted under the window. I sat in a chair reading a magazine in the early afternoon and noticed that the A/C would run about three minutes then go off for about two minutes.

I immediately spotted the reason, the blasted air was blowing up behind the window curtains, then dropping back down and into the return. The curtains came down to the top of the A/C. I pushed the curtains back and set a book in front of them.

Now the unit ran for fifteen minutes straight and shut down for 18 minutes.

The units also need better insulation between the condenser (outdoor) section and the (interior) evaporator section. I say this because in the morning when the sun hit the east facing condensers the units would kick on for short runs. I walked around to the west side of the building in the afternoon and the same thing was happening.

The sensors for the thermostats were located in the return air stream. This wouldn't need a rocket science fix. The 50 room motel is only two years old.

Ehem:

This is called "retro-commissioning": http://cx.lbl.gov/definition.html

 

[russ_watters]

Quote by edward
"...The sensors for the thermostats were located in the return air stream."

How on Earth do you know that?

Ehem:

Before:

After:

google google google

You took it apart.
You were only going to spend one night, but you decided to take the air conditioner apart.
And it took you two days, to put it back together.

:thumbs:

--------------------------
[1] Speculation.

Can't speak for edward, but I was staying in that hotel room for business and I had some after-hours testing to do at a client's site that was picking-up again in the morning, so I arrived at the hotel at about midnight and wrote the note at quarter after one, to drop off at the front desk when I ckecked-out in the morning.

 

[russ_watters]

I don't have many friends or family that are willing to watch such documentaries...

Good way to kill a boring hour on an exercise bike.

I did think it was a bit vague, but assumed that was a consequence of squeezing the vast array of info into a one hour segment that would appeal to general PBS type audiences. Considering this, I kind of wonder if Dr. Alley didn't somewhat avoid nuclear power to appease some of the paranoid fringe element. He may be much more amenable to it than he initially let's on.

I agree with all of your perception. But I don't like it: if a subject is serious enough to treat seriously, then it should be treated seriously.

I live in a major energy producing state, North Dakota. The huge Bakken oil reservoir is only the latest segment offering and does finally reduce our dependence on OPEC with the possible compromise of fracking damage to groundwaters.

While we're at it, some mention was made of clean coal in the video, but nothing about fracking. Fracking is currently the only thing causing a significant reduction in coal use anywhere in the world. The US didn't even sign the Kyoto protocol and ignored it's carbon emission requirements, yet met them easily due to the sharp drop in coal use as power has switched to natural gas.

Certainly, fracking has the potential to pollute -- any industrial activity does -- and needs to be carefully regulated. But it is an important part of the transition to cleaner energy.

 

[OmCheeto]

Ehem:

Before:

After:

Can't speak for edward, but I was staying in that hotel room for business and I had some after-hours testing to do at a client's site that was picking-up again in the morning, so I arrived at the hotel at about midnight and wrote the note at quarter after one, to drop off at the front desk when I ckecked-out in the morning.

Good job fixing that. And your first image confirmed another suspicion I had, as to why edward's air conditioner was so poorly designed, yet were only two years old. They're made in China. What do they care about how efficient they are for the American market. And the contractors who build the hotels probably don't care either, as long as it's the cheapest thing on the market.

Perhaps you should learn Mandarin, or Cantonese, and do some consulting work.

And I can barely make out the refrigerant type from your image. It looks like R22.

hmmm...

Relief in Every Window, but Global Worry Too
...
Commercial interests foster the stalemate. Though the protocol aggressively reduces the use of HCFC-22 for cooling, it restricts production on a slower, more lenient timetable, and as a result, output has grown more than 60 percent in the past decade. Even in the United States, HCFC-22 is still profitably manufactured for use in older appliances, export and a few other industrial purposes that do not create significant emissions, like making Teflon.
...

You would probably understand the article better than I, but it looks like you can buy an R-22 unit here in the states, as long as it doesn't contain any refrigerant when it crosses the border, and fill it up after the fact.

ps. Greg should get ahold of the Hotel Assn. of America, and get us all a deal on hotel rates. It seems PF'ers are really good at fixing poorly designed/installed air conditioners.

 

[russ_watters]

And your first image confirmed another suspicion I had, as to why edward's air conditioner was so poorly designed, yet were only two years old. They're made in China. What do they care about how efficient they are for the American market. And the contractors who build the hotels probably don't care either, as long as it's the cheapest thing on the market.

Well, they care enough to meet the federal efficiency standards. They don't have a choice. Unfortunately, efficiency is a function of heat exchanger size, which is limited by sleeve size, so that type of air conditioner is significantly less efficient than a residential, free-standing condenser.

In this case, the problems were entirely due to the installing contractor's ineptitude.

 

[Wes Tausend]

Gentlemen,

I did finally get a chance to review the http://video.pbs.org/video/1855661681/ PBS video. Although Richard Alley presents it, the writer and director was Geoff Haines-Stiles (52:42) who is ultimately responsible for included content and it was produced by Erna Akuginow (52:47). See Erna Akuginow and Geoffrey Haines-Stiles for more.

Even after reading some criticisms here, I am still quite impressed by the comprehensive info addressed in an only one hour video on such a complicated concept. Having oft struggled to shorten much simpler forum posts on logical argument, I believe it was quite a feat to squeeze as much logic as they did into such a short synopsis.

I'm going to guess that the numbers Richard comes up with, such as the 0.01 percent (39:40) of available solar power that could provide in excess of current planet use, are not just his own, but part of a general professional consensus borrowed from published studies reviewed by the IPCC of which he is a "proud" member (01:35).

What Dr.Alley is proposing is modifying our present division of energy/power use to another that is more conducive to sustainability and ultimate human survival.

He presents some figures here (03:22 & 51:08) for present planetary use:
Fossil fuels...78%
Nuclear....5%
Hydro......6%
renewables...1%
wood & dung...10%
TOTAL....100%

And he suggests we set a 2030 goal (51:08):
Solar.....26%
Wind.....13%
Geothermal...13%
Biomass fuels...4%
Hydro...5% (reduced from 6%??)
SubTotal...61% renewable

And adding existing and new nuclear making up the other non-renewable 39%:
Nuclear...26%
Fossil fuel...13% (reduced from 78%!)
SubTotal...39% non-renewable fission/carbohydrates

Note that Richard Alley has assigned a high importance to nuclear power after all.

2030 Total:
renewable...61%
non-renewable...39%
2030 TOTAL...100%

I recently had a new V-10 engine installed in our thirsty Ford Excursion (Sierra Club Valdez award winner). I picked the best mechanic I could find with the full realization that he wasn't perfect. I would pick somebody like Richard Alley as my Earth mechanic. BTW, we more than make up for the thirsty Excursion with our hybrid Prius. The Excursion is a great HD tow vehicle and the Prius unbeatable as lightweight people transport.

Speaking of hybrids, here is an interesting link for the hybrid USS Makin Island (LHD-8). It's diesel-electric option is not much different than my locomotives that I used for the railroad. Somewhere back in the early '90's Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) was second only to the U.S. Navy in fuel usage. Since then this railroad merged with the old Santa Fe to become BNSF and include even more track and a larger fuel budget. BN was a pioneer in converting brush type DC locomotives to solid state brushless AC locomotives in North America and much of the beta testing was done between Mandan, ND and Glendive MT where I worked. The testing was done by German Siemen EE's as we made our trips. Siemens also certainly provides the solid state high efficiency DC power line system touted in Brazil in the video. I guess Edison and DC won afterall.

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[mfb]

Hydro...5% (reduced from 6%??)

The total demand is rising, a slightly reduced fraction can still mean a larger absolute value.

Solar.....26%
Wind.....13%
Nuclear...26%

This would mean we have to use electricity to heat buildings on a large scale. That is possible, but it will further increase the total consumption. And I guess we need a lot of electric cars as well to get that.
Nuclear power is quite unpopular in many countries, I don't see how this is supposed to happen (to have it available in 2030, site-specific planning would basically have to start now).

 

[AlephZero]

Solar.....26%
Wind.....13%
Nuclear...26%

This point has been made before, but it's worth asking the question again:

If the average output from Solar and Wind combined is 39%, what provides that 39% share of power when it's dark and the wind isn't blowing?

If it's nuclear, the installed capacity needs to be 65% not 26%. And you have to figure out a way to start up and shut down nuclear generators once per day, without compromising safety and plant reliability, to cover the solar load - even if you make the optimistic assumption that it's always windy somewhere in a big country like the USA.

And even assuming an optimistic 12 hours of sun per day averaged over a year, the installed solar power needs to be 52% to reach the 26% average...

 

[Wes Tausend]

Hydro...5% (reduced from 6%??)

The total demand is rising, a slightly reduced fraction can still mean a larger absolute value.

mfb,

I assume the proportions can be scaled up/down and even modified by experimentation. My guess, to meet projected energy needs, is that the suggested drastic drop to 13% of fossil fuel use is the key and this is only a demonstration model. I say key because due to various bootstrap greenhouse effects, CO² may already take the reaction of an over-reduction of fossil-burn to remove excess CO² from the atmosphere, as the current level seems already detrimental to continental weather in both structure damage and crop friendliness.
This seems a little unfriendly to long term fossil-fuel investors, though.

Solar.....26%
Wind.....13%
Nuclear...26%

This would mean we have to use electricity to heat buildings on a large scale. That is possible, but it will further increase the total consumption. And I guess we need a lot of electric cars as well to get that.
Nuclear power is quite unpopular in many countries, I don't see how this is supposed to happen (to have it available in 2030, site-specific planning would basically have to start now).

BUILDINGS
I owned a small home construction company in the mid '70's. Our major product was subcontract drywall and interior coatings. The 1973 OPEC Oil Crisis caused major changes in home construction. I got a sincere education in home air exchange vs trapped humidity when windows and doors suddenly met stringent new Federal requirements for air leakage to the exterior. Humans exude about 1 gallon of water per day per person and it was tough on my wall and ceiling warranty when damage from the trapped moisture proliferated.

About that same time some experimental homes in Saskatoon, CA were built so well insulated that they supposedly initially required no heating system whatsoever. IF I recall, the thick-walled home theoretically heated itself by the 100+ watts each, given off by the occupants. In reality, they skipped the double entry in most and installed 20KW heaters in each home (miserly portable 110v milk house heaters approach this 20KW). They, too, found the homes worked in principle until occupied, and then the stark need for air exchange arose. There still appears a rendition of the original experiment here and here.

The point is that electric heat is not expensive if one does not use much of it. Once it enters the dwelling, it is 100% efficient. All the energy is converted to heat and none is vented out as in combustion systems.

CARS
There appears to be a confusion as to what power will be used when (such as at night).

Currently, the answer is more simple. Electric grid requirements drop off late at night, so all powerplant investments are primarily daytime investments. There is a requirement surge mostly during dim mornings due to industrial coming on line as many are waking up in the dark hours, especially in northern states. Industrial use tapers off as evening approaches but humans turn on stoves and televisions, then suddenly it is lights out, A/C relaxes and power requirements sag by midnight. This inherent sporatic power use allows for moderate electrical grid structure, and low amp loads, to charge electric vehicles over night with less chance of overload. Thus the future answer is not so simple, but quite possible.

Electric cars for local travel are great, and fortunately the cars will require heavier after-sunset power at an opportune time. Solar PV cells cannot ever directly do this "night-job" in spite of the claimed fact that 80% of the planet could run from them just using American SW desert acreage... during the day (Unless we had trans-atlantic power cables), an unlikely scenario.

At night, hydroelectric power can supply the missing solar energy without exhausting water-shed resources during the day. Rather than build more dams, we must find a way to get by with what we have. I can suggest one way to do this would be to heavily drain these few dams during the night, then pump the water back up hill using solar power during the day. After all, it is the sun that makes the water "go uphill" in the first place. It would take a major dam redesign with upper and lower reservoirs, or at least adding a lower retention reservoir to existing dams. If this is possible, how might this otherwise be eloquently accomplished?

Here is how. My locomotives and my Prius use the same basic hybrid solid state systems. Both make use of the exchangability between motors and generators. The drive motor for the Prius can recharge the storage battery as a generator during deceleration. The locomotive uses the traction motors (one per axle) to regenerate electrical current during dynamic braking. The locomotive motors-turned-generators provide high resistance to rotation (brakes) when in generate mode. The kiloamps are dissipated as wasted heat through large fan driven "toaster grids" near the top of the body rather than recovered. So why couldn't properly designed dam generators be run backward as pump motors, during the day, using purposed excess renewable solar power?

NUCLEAR
I previously mentioned using mass produced nuclear microplants modeled after Navy vessels. Give homeowners a choice. Bury one in the neighborhood or run with a reduced power clamp if they won't "pay the not-in-my-back-yard bill." Kinda mean, I know. Heh, heh.

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[OmCheeto]

...
One good point, though, is I definitely like what the military is doing with alternate energy...notwithstanding the joke last month about generating fuel from seawater that got a lot of airtime.

It seems the Europeans are doing their own version of this comedy routine.

Synthesized 'solar' jet fuel: Renewable kerosene from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide
Date: May 3, 2014
Source: ETH Zürich
Summary: With the first ever production of synthesized "solar" jet fuel, the EU-funded SOLAR-JET project has successfully demonstrated the entire production chain for renewable kerosene obtained directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, therein potentially revolutionizing the future of aviation. This process has also the potential to produce any other type of fuel for transport applications, such as diesel, gasoline or pure hydrogen in a more sustainable way.

Ironically, I found this on EARTH-The Operators' Manual's Facebook page. It's actually quit good. I've shared many of their findings:

A High-Renewables Tomorrow, Today: El Hierro, Canary Islands
FEB 13, 2014
...
El Hierro now has five wind turbines with a combined installed capacity of 11.5 megawatts soon to provide the majority of the electricity for the island. When wind production exceeds demand, excess energy will pump water from a reservoir at the bottom of a volcanic cone to another reservoir at the top of the volcano 700 meters above sea level. The upper reservoir stores over 132 million gallons of water. The stored water acts as a battery. When demand rises and there is not enough wind power, the water will be released to four hydroelectric turbines with a total capacity of 11 MW.

The entire project, expected to come online this year, is projected to generate three times the island’s basic energy needs—for residents, farming cooperatives, fruit and fish canneries, and the 60,000 tourists who visit every year. Any excess electricity will be used to desalinate water at the island’s three desalination plants, delivering almost 3 million gallons of water a day, enough for drinking water and to cover part of the irrigation needs.
...

Though some people are upset by some of the stuff he posts, as in the one regarding predicted sea level rise:

Двигатель Измененией; I followed this page for the cool off-grid living tips you USED to post. Lately, all I've seen is uncorroborated pseudoscience and it's driving me crazy. Consider yourselves unfollowed.
Like · Reply · 29 April at 09:50

Jay Kanta; Well, Bye.
Like · 29 April at 11:51​

I tend to ignore uncorroborated pseudoscience.

...
The point is that electric heat is not expensive if one does not use much of it. Once it enters the dwelling, it is 100% efficient. All the energy is converted to heat and none is vented out as in combustion systems.

It's even cheaper, when you're more than 100% efficient:

Aug25-10, 08:09 AM
...

I did an experiment last summer using 1/2 inch 100' long black irrigation hose and a $22 bilge pump. The system collected ~2.3 kwh of thermal energy in about 3.5 hours.
...
Some numbers:
flow: 1.6 gpm (~ 24 watts pump)
area of hose: 0.27 m^2
system fluid capacity: 32 gallons
max delta T / hr: 11 'F
To = 61.7'F
Tf = 90.9'F

Eek! Late for work. BBL.

Let's see... 24 watts of electrical input over 3.5 hours yields 84 watt hours consumed.
Energy gained by the system was 2300 watt hours.
2300 - 84 = 2216 net watt hours
system efficiency: η = P_out / P_in
= 2216/84 = 2338% efficiency

Ha! Take that wikipaedia!

Efficiencies may not exceed 100%

Dullards have apparently never heard of the Kobayashi Maru. When in doubt, cheat.

Thanks,
Wes
...

You're welcome.

 

[Wes Tausend]

...

OmCheeto, thanks for responding. I am happy to see that I did not kill a healthy thread... as sometimes seems to happen.
...

...
One good point, though, is I definitely like what the military is doing with alternate energy...notwithstanding the joke last month about generating fuel from seawater that got a lot of airtime.

It seems the Europeans are doing their own version of this comedy routine.

Synthesized 'solar' jet fuel: Renewable kerosene from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide
Date: May 3, 2014
Source: ETH Zürich
Summary: With the first ever production of synthesized "solar" jet fuel, the EU-funded SOLAR-JET project has successfully demonstrated the entire production chain for renewable kerosene obtained directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, therein potentially revolutionizing the future of aviation. This process has also the potential to produce any other type of fuel for transport applications, such as diesel, gasoline or pure hydrogen in a more sustainable way.

OK. I finally had to look for what joke Russ was talking about. It is obvious that water and CO² are the byproducts of carbohydrate combustion, and the combustion process could theoretically be reversed. So my first thought was that it was simply one of the sensational claims often found on "propoganda airwaves" to influence the unwary. There is often an element of truth to these claims, the problem being that the fuel is not free, but requires an input of more than a gallon to make a gallon. The worst ones make use of the automobile alternator to form hydrogen which may then be burned by the attached combustion engine. The wit-challenged that believe this is helpful, do not recognise that the drag of the alternator cancels the tractive power produced, plus adds whatever efficiency losses are wasted getting there.

But if one does not "spend" a gallon+ to make a gallon of fuel, and uses free (otherwise wasted) solar energy instead, the loss doesn't count. So your link points out that the military benefit to the scurrilous seawater/fuel story that circulated is possibly true. It may use the Fischer–Tropsch process and is very similar to the synthesis work done by Dakota Gasification Company (DGC) since 1984 (whom I mentioned previously). A gentleman who works at the DGC plant mentioned that they have already done some preparation to produce diesel (from coal rather than water) in addition to the products mentioned on the wiki link. Rather than solar, they likely use dirty coal for energy conversion power, probably the next-door Antelope Valley Station, not so good. But the research is theoretically good.

There is one major flaw, for the purposes of this thread, in using seawater to extract the H, O & CO² to build a carbohydrate. Large portions of the greenhouse carbon gas are presently somewhat sequestered in the seawater if the temperature of the seawater does not rise, or somebody take it out by extraction. Our best science today begs that as possible, we keep as much CO² cornered anywhere, except in the upper atmosphere, as in after combustion. So while military fuel may be handily produced on site rather than by precarious shipping, it does not ultimately help save the world, and is of only short-term marginal benefit.

Ironically, I found this on EARTH-The Operators' Manual's Facebook page. It's actually quit good. I've shared many of their findings:

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2014_02_13_high_renewables_tomorrow_today_el_hierro_canary_islands
FEB 13, 2014
...
El Hierro now has five wind turbines with a combined installed capacity of 11.5 megawatts soon to provide the majority of the electricity for the island. When wind production exceeds demand, excess energy will pump water from a reservoir at the bottom of a volcanic cone to another reservoir at the top of the volcano 700 meters above sea level. The upper reservoir stores over 132 million gallons of water. The stored water acts as a battery. When demand rises and there is not enough wind power, the water will be released to four hydroelectric turbines with a total capacity of 11 MW.

The entire project, expected to come online this year, is projected to generate three times the island’s basic energy needs—for residents, farming cooperatives, fruit and fish canneries, and the 60,000 tourists who visit every year. Any excess electricity will be used to desalinate water at the island’s three desalination plants, delivering almost 3 million gallons of water a day, enough for drinking water and to cover part of the irrigation needs

Thanks for providing an example of hydro storage at work. It appears to be the most likely practical candidate for mega energy storage, although I have heard of a small power station using lead-acid batteries as an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). An acquaintance bought discounted used batteries for his own off-grid project from the source.

I'm not sure what all must be done to make huge generators reasonably interchangeable as drive motors to pump water back uphill, but it would help solve a packaging problem in existing hydroelectric power houses. I know that one may take a common induction motor (old wash machine), turn it at 3450 rpm, and derive inefficient 110v 60 cycle ac from it. The easiest back-yard experiment would be to use an induction motor to drive another precisely at the correct rpm and use the driven assembly to light incandescent bulbs as a test load.

Most well designed solid state brushless ac motors can be driven at any rpm as long as the computer matches the correct cycle phase to motor speed, exactly as modern locomotives do at hundreds of volts and thousands of amps. Locomotives are really mega-watt power stations and their German developer, Siemens, most certainly can design high power solid state power-plant devices as evidenced by their DC power line systems as used in Brazil etc. This is a far cry from the puny, unreliable 30 watt output transisters that frequently failed on 1970's audio stereos, for those that are old enough to remember.

Though some people are upset by some of the stuff he posts, as in the one regarding predicted sea level rise:

I followed this page for the cool off-grid living tips you USED to post. Lately, all I've seen is uncorroborated pseudoscience and it's driving me crazy. Consider yourselves unfollowed.
Like · Reply · 29 April at 09:50

Jay Kanta; Well, Bye.
Like · 29 April at 11:51

I tend to ignore uncorroborated pseudoscience.

I am not on Facebook and am unaware of this, but I can appreciate the humor in the terms, "uncorroborated pseudoscience". I do know the U.S. Navy is quite concerned about rising sea-levels since 100% of their bases will eventually flood world-wide. For myself, I will move my fuel-thirsty camper, and drag my fishing boat anchor up the beach to a dry spot.

...
The point is that electric heat is not expensive if one does not use much of it. Once it enters the dwelling, it is 100% efficient. All the energy is converted to heat and none is vented out as in combustion systems.

It's even cheaper, when you're more than 100% efficient:

According to the video the Chinese are way ahead of us here. They have solar hot water heat devices on many roofs now.

Let's see... 24 watts of electrical input over 3.5 hours yields 84 watt hours consumed.
Energy gained by the system was 2300 watt hours.
2300 - 84 = 2216 net watt hours
system efficiency: η = P_out / P_in
= 2216/84 = 2338% efficiency

Ha! Take that wikipaedia!

Cheater.

Dullards have apparently never heard of the Kobayashi Maru. When in doubt, cheat.

Being a dullard, I had to look it up. I will have to review my Star Trek collection.

Thanks,
Wes
...

You're welcome.

Now I feel as though I have been pre-welcomed for my thanks in my signature. It is something like pre-retaliation, only on the friendly side of the scale.

My local library had the book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081095/?tag=pfamazon01-20, so I checked it out and am in the process of reading it. It is very good and Richard does have more to say. He talks about everything from nuclear worth and politics, to the reason humans have the brain size that they do, due to "burning stuff".

We, as a species alone, dedicate our food intake and minimal digestion to brainpower, not the energy consuming long-gut digestion as does every other animal. The invention of fire and cooking (pre-digestion) allows us the smallest digestion tract on the planet, leaving more resources for thinking power as opposed to a cow eating raw vegetation and digesting it with four stomachs.

And that is just the first few pages. If, "genius is 99 perspiration and 1 inspiration", as Edison said, Richard is a genius. He doesn't just make this stuff up. There are 111 pages of the 479 page book dedicated just to professional reference notes and of course it was a remarkable team effort to package it.

At this point, I will say that Richard Alley is the best answer to Russ's original query about solving the world energy crisis. Russ, thanks for reminding me why I saved it on my DVR before retirement.

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[OmCheeto]

...It is obvious that water and CO² are the byproducts of carbohydrate combustion...

You are the first person to have ever used the word "carbohydrate" in this 9 year old thread.
hmmmm...

-----------------------------
ps. I have a full time job, and my responses are usually very short, M-F.
pps. I responded to someone on the NRL site, regarding "carbohydrate" production from seawater. They allow user comments. I did some math, and showed that a 500 megawatt nuclear reactor, could theoretically, create enough fuel, for all the planes on the ship, in ≈24 hours. In the back of my mind though, my lizard brain was laughing.

 

[Wes Tausend]

You are the first person to have ever used the word "carbohydrate" in this 9 year old thread.
hmmmm...

-----------------------------
ps. I have a full time job, and my responses are usually very short, M-F.
pps. I responded to someone on the NRL site, regarding "carbohydrate" production from seawater. They allow user comments. I did some math, and showed that a 500 megawatt nuclear reactor, could theoretically, create enough fuel, for all the planes on the ship, in ≈24 hours. In the back of my mind though, my lizard brain was laughing.

Whoops. Well, ok, I should have properly used the term hydrocarbon instead of carbohydrate. Sorry. I tend to do that.

In another thread, I recently used the term "finderscope", instead of "goto scope", to otherwise carefully describe (to a NASA engineer mind you) how Ptolemy's math is all that is needed (barring escape/re-entry) for NASA to shoot a rocket to Mars. Embarrassing.

My point was supposed to be that Ptolemy's geocentricity differs from Copernicus' heliocentricity only by intuition, not the math, which was/is nearly identical. But the point was undoubtedly somewhat lost by my incorrect use of the term "finderscope". A finderscope is a small wide-angle "rifle" scope used to aim a more powerful narrow field-of-view scope. OTOH, a goto scope has a built-in computerized calendar, clock and map to find which "sky-spot" Mars will be on any given night. The cheap, tiny goto computer differs little from the planetary prediction of Ptolemy's map of relativity which is all NASA needs to aim with (unless they slingshot a path near another planet).

So we could make food from seawater and CO² also.

P.S. It could be that the roots of laughing reside in the lizard brain. Laughing appears to be a form of regurgitation of unsavory logic.

Thanks, I think,
Wes
...

 

[OmCheeto]

...
So we could make food from seawater and CO² also.
...

Well, from what I've read, we've had a similar technology in use for over 10,000 years. It's called agriculture. And some smart people, as recently as 200 years ago, figured out how to turn wood into automobile fuel. Though I don't think the automobile existed back then. Probably why it took nearly another hundred years for there to be a market for the stuff.

The French chemist, Henri Braconnot, was the first to discover that cellulose could be hydrolyzed into sugars by treatment with sulfuric acid in 1819. The hydrolyzed sugar could then be processed to form ethanol through fermentation. The first commercialized ethanol production began in Germany in 1898, where they used acid to hydrolyze cellulose. In the United States, the Standard Alcohol Company opened the first cellulosic ethanol production plant in South Carolina in 1910 during WWI. Later a second plant was opened in Louisiana. However, both plants were closed after WWI due to economic reasons.

Yup

The year 1886 is regarded the year of birth of the modern automobile - with the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, by German inventor Karl Benz. Motorized wagons soon replaced animal-drafted carriages, especially after automobiles became affordable for many people when the Ford Model T was introduced in 1908.

hmmm... I just had a great idea. But like all my great ideas, someone else beat me to it.

The spouse of one of my coworkers, works for a company called Agilyx. I don't think I'd ever heard of the process that they used, but it sounded like it solved several problems, all at once.

They turn waste plastic, into fuel. I don't know where you are from, but in these parts, we recycle everything, with the possible exception of certain types of plastic. It sometimes takes me 3 months to fill my 20 gallon garbage can.

Anyways, my idea merged three things together.
Aircraft carriers not at war looking for fuel
Plastic to fuel
The Great Pacific garbage patch

and maybe some nets...

But...

Research of cleanup...
At TEDxDelft2012, Dutch Aerospace Engineering student Boyan Slat unveiled a concept for removing large amounts of marine debris from the five oceanic gyres. With his concept called The Ocean Cleanup, he proposes a radical clean-up that would use the surface currents to let the debris drift to specially designed arms and collection platforms. This way the running costs would be virtually zero, and the operation would be so efficient that it may even be profitable. The concept makes use of floating booms, that won’t catch the debris, but divert it. This way by-catch would be avoided, and even the smallest particles would be extracted. According to Boyan Slat's calculations, a gyre could realistically be cleaned up in five years' time, collecting at least 7.25 million tons of plastic combining all gyres. He however does note that an ocean-based cleanup is only half the story, and will therefore have to be paired with 'radical plastic pollution prevention methods in order to succeed'.
...

I think I like Boyan's idea better.

 

[Wes Tausend]

...

so we could make food from seawater and co₂also.

well, from what I've read, we've had a similar technology in use for over 10,000 years. It's called agriculture. And some smart people, as recently as 200 years ago, figured out how to turn wood into automobile fuel. Though i don't think the automobile existed back then. Probably why it took nearly another hundred years for there to be a market for the stuff.

Agriculture is really slow. I was thinking of a pizza Replicator.

the french chemist, henri braconnot, was the first to discover that cellulose could be hydrolyzed into sugars by treatment with sulfuric acid in 1819. The hydrolyzed sugar could then be processed to form ethanol through fermentation. The first commercialized ethanol production began in germany in 1898, where they used acid to hydrolyze cellulose. In the united states, the standard alcohol company opened the first cellulosic ethanol production plant in south carolina in 1910 during wwi. Later a second plant was opened in louisiana. However, both plants were closed after wwi due to economic reasons.

yup

the year 1886 is regarded the year of birth of the modern automobile - with the benz patent-motorwagen, by german inventor karl benz. Motorized wagons soon replaced animal-drafted carriages, especially after automobiles became affordable for many people when the ford model t was introduced in 1908

hmmm... I just had a great idea. But like all my great ideas, someone else beat me to it.

Speaking of great ideas, my great grandfather invented a transmission in 1902 and sold it to Henry Ford for mega $. So he was pretty cool. But he spent most of his free time planning to harness perpetual motion which is why he was probably fooling around with the gears. He wasn't fazed in 1905 by the craftiness of an exasperated swiss patent clerk. That clerk was finally able to point out to a long line of various obnoxious perpetual motion inventors why even the sun wasn't a good example of perpetual motion. Popular Mechanics was full of perpetual motion schemes in the late 1800's, early 1900's. By then everybody knew the sun lasted way, way longer than an ordinary coal fire and crackpots weren't invented yet. 'Til later.

Which occasionally worries me that my gravity-powered perpetual motion theory may be wrong too. It's absolutely ingenious, classic, wonderfully absurd and I'd tell you about it, but then the mentors would have to kill me.

the spouse of one of my coworkers, works for a company called agilyx. I don't think i'd ever heard of the process that they used, but it sounded like it solved several problems, all at once.

They turn waste plastic, into fuel. I don't know where you are from, but in these parts, we recycle everything, with the possible exception of certain types of plastic. It sometimes takes me 3 months to fill my 20 gallon garbage can.

Anyways, my idea merged three things together.
Aircraft carriers not at war looking for fuel
plastic to fuel
the great pacific garbage patch

and maybe some nets...

But...

at tedxdelft2012, dutch aerospace engineering student boyan slat unveiled a concept for removing large amounts of marine debris from the five oceanic gyres. With his concept called the ocean cleanup, he proposes a radical clean-up that would use the surface currents to let the debris drift to specially designed arms and collection platforms. This way the running costs would be virtually zero, and the operation would be so efficient that it may even be profitable. The concept makes use of floating booms, that won’t catch the debris, but divert it. This way by-catch would be avoided, and even the smallest particles would be extracted. According to boyan slat's calculations, a gyre could realistically be cleaned up in five years' time, collecting at least 7.25 million tons of plastic combining all gyres. He however does note that an ocean-based cleanup is only half the story, and will therefore have to be paired with 'radical plastic pollution prevention methods in order to succeed'.

i think i like boyan's idea better.

Boyan's perpetual ocean currents. I agree his idea is better. Unless they stop flowing when the arctic waters are sufficiently polluted with light-weight fresh icemelt water.

P.S. I'm kind of new here. Are we supposed to be doing this to Russ's thread? Not that perpetual motion wouldn't be a great energy source in a crisis.

As a token of on-topic compliance, I should mention that I was disappointed to find we only have a thirty year supply of recoverable fissionable nuclear material at current production rates... according to Richard Alley and his sources. We are now using surplus cold-war materials, not activly searching for more, and there is certainly more, but not nearly to the plentiful extent of harmful carbon fuels. So besides the nasty world politics involved, the resource appears basically too scarce for major practical implementation.

Fusion, which is not susceptable to limited U-235 reserves, inspires an inside energy industry joke that "fusion is the energy of the future and always will be". Fusion is not presently a chicken that Richard, or his international cohorts, will count.

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[mheslep]

As a token of on-topic compliance, I should mention that I was disappointed to find we only have a thirty year supply of recoverable fissionable nuclear material at current production rates... according to Richard Alley and his sources.

Sounds like Alley is dabbling in social policy more than geology. Known land based reserves, today, are 5 million tons of Uranium; consumption is 68,000 tons/year or 73 years. Likely reserves are 7 million tons, or 102 years, and that is with no increase in reserves. Yet reserves have increased ~0.1 million tones per year on average over the last 35.

We are now using surplus cold-war materials, not actively searching for more, ...
...

Uranium exploration is certainly ongoing, as indicated by the steady increase in known reserves.

There are still other fission energy alternatives.

• Breeding fertile fuels, i.e. U238, into fissionable isotopes, in which case the supply of fissionable material multiplies ~150 times instantly, with the couple decade's of supply already mined, processed, and set aside.
• Thorium is also a fertile fuel.
• Seawater based Uranium and Thorium

 

[mfb]

The costs of uranium are a small part of the overall costs - I remember something like 5%. Give or take a factor of 2 for this value, a doubling of the uranium price would still be a small effect on the costs of nuclear power and change the amount of available uranium significantly.

 

[gmax137]

The costs of uranium are a small part of the overall costs - I remember something like 5%. Give or take a factor of 2 for this value, a doubling of the uranium price would still be a small effect on the costs of nuclear power and change the amount of available uranium significantly.

...This is the total annual cost associated with the "burnup" of nuclear fuel resulting from the operation of the unit. This cost is based upon the amortized costs associated with the purchasing of uranium, conversion, enrichment, and fabrication services along with storage and shipment costs, and inventory (including interest) charges less any expected salvage value.

For a typical 1,000 MWe BWR or PWR, the approximate cost of fuel for one reload (replacing one third of the core) is about $40 million, based on an 18-month refueling cycle.

The average fuel cost at a nuclear power plant in 2012 was 0.75 cents / kWh.

from
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center...ts-Fuel,-Operation,-Waste-Disposal-Life-Cycle

If the generation cost is say 5 or 6 cents/kw-hr, then the fuel would be about 15% of the cost.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
P.S. I'm kind of new here. Are we supposed to be doing this to Russ's thread?

What are we doing to to Russ's thread?

Thanks,
Wes
...

You're welcome.

 

[Wes Tausend]

As a token of on-topic compliance, I should mention that I was disappointed to find we only have a thirty year supply of recoverable fissionable nuclear material at current production rates... according to Richard Alley and his sources

Sounds like Alley is dabbling in social policy more than geology. Known land based reserves, today, are 5 million tons of Uranium; consumption is 68,000 tons/year or 73 years. Likely reserves are 7 million tons, or 102 years, and that is with no increase in reserves. Yet reserves have increased ~0.1 million tones per year on average over the last 35.

I think you are correct, Alley is dabbling in social science a least as much as geology, in his video and his book. But social acceptance may be the real underlying concern regarding what Russ's engineering theme in Post #1 boils down to. And perhaps addressing social science should be the first point in Russ's post #2. So Alley, and all of us, must attempt to address social issues if we are to succeed in making a difference.

Another way to put it, I think we all here agree the technology, and dire need for solution exists, so just why is it taking so long to implement? As a concerned individual and able scientist, I believe Alley is well aware that he must approach with social caution. I will venture to say that Russ also realizes this, but purposely avoids being immediately mired in social controversy (post #1, first sentence second paragraph). My opinion is Russ took his time, in being very careful and quite courageous, in starting this thread.

I made a grave error in assessing what Alley meant by originally assuming his statement on using cold-war materials constituted a current lack of robust uranium exploration. Alley didn't actually say that there was no significant active search. I made the unfortunate hurried assumption there may not be, and that error is on me.

I'm not sure why Alley said that we have 30 years of uranium left. His exact sentence reads, "The proven reserves of uranium available at modern prices are quite limited, enough for only about thirty years at current production rates". Perhaps he meant at the accelerated use rate of his 2030 goal plan, but he did not directly say that either.

As I indicated in post #1002, Alley's video advocates increasing the world use of nuclear from current 5% to 26%, so he does not appear negative to the use of nuclear power to me. (I have also seen a 6% current use figure, bandied about in his book pages.) So now we could possibly take his 30 year estimate to be the result of dividing your 73-102 year supply by 4 or 5 because of escalated nuclear implementation and then slightly improving procurement to arrive at 30 years. His "30 year" footnote reference is this Stanford pdf, but I did not see a 30 year figure mentioned in an initial quick scan of the 26 page document. A media expansion list of the document is here.

I did see one negative fact about nuclear reactors that I didn't know, in the above mentioned Stanford PDF (pdf page #19 under 9. Energy supply disruption). Apparently several reactors were shut down in France in the 2004 European heat wave. I assumed the reactors always worked, even in hot weather. Maybe it was a super-cautious safety issue, and/or inadequate design.

We are now using surplus cold-war materials, not activly searching for more...

Uranium exploration is certainly ongoing, as indicated by the steady increase in known reserves.

There are still other fission energy alternatives.

• Breeding fertile fuels, i.e. U238, into fissionable isotopes, in which case the supply of fissionable material multiplies ~150 times instantly, with the couple decade's of supply already mined, processed, and set aside.
• Thorium is also a fertile fuel.
• Seawater based Uranium and Thorium

Earlier, I mentioned (posts #994, #1005) micro reactors as a possible solution to increasing nuclear power. One 2014 source, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Power-Reactors/Small-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/, comes from the same World-Nuclear.org link as your chart image above. Another 2013 NPR link claims the U.S. is already investing in these small, mass produced units. Wikipedia has a brief mention of Micro Reactors. These can be cooled by gravity-fed coolant water, eliminating pump failure.

Do you think they could be sufficiently cooled just anywhere after sustained operation? How? Secondary geothermal transfer? That would immediately involve pumps, even if a limited reservoir of gravity-fed emergency coolant was available. One might think that nuclear submarines might have solved heat containment, or else they are leaving a tell-tail non-stealthy thermal trail behind them. Anybody?

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[Wes Tausend]

The costs of uranium are a small part of the overall costs - I remember something like 5%. Give or take a factor of 2 for this value, a doubling of the uranium price would still be a small effect on the costs of nuclear power and change the amount of available uranium significantly.

I believe you are correct, present cost is not the main objection.

I think Alley's primary objection to expanding nuclear any more than 4 or 5 times, is that it is not now at all apparent that it is sustainable (renwable) over the long haul.

The secondary objection is that he (and Russ) are mainly concerned with world energy needs because that is eventually the only way Earth will be at peace. But sharing nuclear tech does represent a major security risk in this regard. Alley has gone to lengths to point out that the world doesn't need proliferation if we all both increase efficiencies and harness various renewable solar powers.

I believe Alley has taken a rational world position and is a viable candidate for leadership. OTOH, I think the U.S should increase nuclear energy use and quit burning dirty ND lignite coal, or clean it up, including sequestering CO₂. There will always be some CO₂emmissions, but we need to get our own house down to a low roar.

Thanks,
Wes
...

 

[Wes Tausend]

What are we doing to to Russ's thread?

Yeah. I guess you are right. I was drifting off topic, but you remained on energy production and use. My bad. Sorry.

Thanks for welcoming me,
Wes
...

 

[mheslep]

...
I think Alley's primary objection to expanding nuclear any more than 4 or 5 times, is that it is not now at all apparent that it is sustainable (renwable) over the long haul.

With breeder reactors, using known technology, yes its sustainable for a 1000 years or so.

But sharing nuclear tech does represent a major security risk in this regard.

Perhaps.

Alley has gone to lengths to point out that the world doesn't need proliferation if we all both increase efficiencies and harness various renewable solar powers.

There I strongly disagree. He's made claims. As this has never been demonstrated at scale, and given the intermittent nature, he has a rather large burden to even show how this *might* be done.

 

[Wes Tausend]

mheslep,

You may feel that I don't trust or like nuclear power, but I assure you that I do. Take note of my enthusiasm for exploring Micro Reactors. (Feel free to think and comment about them.) In realising that there are some serious problems with large plants and NIMBY, I suggested that small, safely below ground reactors could be quick and easy to manufacture and provide additional power to just those that are willing to accept them in their own backyard, whatever radiation or other hazards remain. It seems an extreme conditional measure... but what else is to be done considering the current stand-off? My dear wife has a saying she hangs on the wall: "Around here, after all is said and done, more gets said than done."

In an earlier post you suggested that the Alley video was too "hand wavy", while I got the impression that he knew and understood the big picture far more than he could squeeze into a 55 minute documentary. He makes vast use of independant professional references in his book, something I appreciate.

When I look at the http://www.world-nuclear.org/ industry website, I get the impression they are quite "hand wavy" (optimistic) and I fear you might be getting a large part of your info from this single source. A quick check around the net does not turn up any other site quite so optimistic, but I could be wrong. I am a bit reminded of the API website, where the motto effectively is, "Drill, baby, drill". I think you would agree it is important that we be discriminating in our sources of information. Now, otherwise, such enthusiast sites are great pools of info, but one must realize the spin and bias of advertising.

But I could be wrong about my website assessment. At any rate, Alley does promote the world stepping up to using nuclear for over 25% it's needs. He just maintains that it is certainly not thee sole answer.

...
I think Alley's primary objection to expanding nuclear any more than 4 or 5 times, is that it is not now at all apparent that it is sustainable (renwable) over the long haul.

With breeder reactors, using known technology, yes its sustainable for a 1000 years or so.

[critical hat on]
We have suddenly gone from 102 years to a 1000. Where did you get this 1000 from? Even if this is straight up, do we divide the 1000 by 4 to meet Alleys expanded 26% projected use by 2030? That nets us 250 "hand wave" years tops. What about growing world needs after 2030? Does exponential use after that reduce the 250 to less? What happens if we replace coal at present 78% use with just nuclear? How long will reserves last then? At least one of the alternate fission elements you mention, such as http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Thorium/, are not quite hatched yet:
''The use of thorium as a new primary energy source has been a tantalizing prospect for many years. Extracting its latent energy value in a cost-effective manner remains a challenge, and will require considerable R&D investment. This is occurring preeminently in China, with modest US support.
[/critical hat off]

But sharing nuclear tech does represent a major security risk in this regard.

Perhaps.

The judicious use of buried Micro Reactors might mitigate this, even if pre-packaged units are loaned to another country. If the property they are buried on constitutes sovereign territory like an embassy, we could possibly watch them like a hawk with satellite monitoring and take police action if they become threatened. Extreme, yes, but what else?

Alley has gone to lengths to point out that the world doesn't need proliferation if we all both increase efficiencies and harness various renewable solar powers.

There I strongly disagree. He's made claims. As this has never been demonstrated at scale, and given the intermittent nature, he has a rather large burden to even show how this *might* be done.

That is true. All he has done is make calculations and study some working isolated power plants. But so far all he claims is apparently in operation somewhere. None of it seems to depend on getting lucky in the laboratory. But I haven't finished the book yet either.

I do wish he would expand on the greater use of nuclear energy. The video was short on nuclear and he does not devote a lot of pages to it in the book either (I read ahead). Why did he pick 26% for 2030? Are wiser heads really of the consensus that nuclear is too limited to play a greater part, or does he, or they, have a bias?

Wes
...