"Alternative" Energy myths and facts
By Tracer Bullet Posted in User Blogs — Comments (126) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from Diaries by Thomas. See here for a correction that removes the only reason I didn't promote earlier (with more grace than I've shown in similar circumstances).
I'm sick of knuckleheads in the MSM throwing around phrases like alternative energy, so it's time to clear up exactly what an alternative energy is or isn't.
Here are the 4 ways to make energy:
1)Chemical reactions
2)Nuclear reactions
3)Gravitational reactions
4)Weak force reactions
#3 means hydro power, as in dams, so forget that - not enough waterfalls. #4 means beta particle radioactive decay, which we use for pacemakers, space ships, smoke alarms, and little else. That leaves #1 and 2.
There shouldn't be much confusion as to what nuclear power is: it's the generation of power through the fission induced heating of water that then goes as steam turbines. The fuel is either U 235 or Pu 239, and these fuels can in turn be made from U 238 and Th 232. We have so much of these fuels that we will never, ever run out, ever. They are found in the soil, like Iron, and cannot be used up before our sun explodes. Therefore, nuclear power is an "alternative energy" to fossil fuel.
Chemical power covers wind, solar, and fossil fuels.
More below.Solar power is the chemical conversion of sunlight (~.6 eV photons) into electrical energy through solar cells. (Solar power can also be used to heat stuff up and then use it to make electrical energy, but the efficiency is similar or worse, so i'm just going to cut out the middleman and treat it as above).
Now here is where things get stupid, a.k.a. where the MSM has no expertise. Wind power is the use of wind currents to drive wind turbines. It is fundamentally a chemical reaction because wind is driven by rising air masses, and air masses rise becaus they absorb the sun's photons and heat up - a chemical reaction. The result: wind and solar power come from the same source, and you cannot use sunlight to have both at once. This fact is often lost on well intentioned people, to the detriment of us all.
Is solar energy an "alternative" energy? Let's do the math, right here right now. Let's assume the use of solar power exclusively.
The solar energy available for exploitation at ground level in North America is about 1000 watts per square meter. Many atmospheric factors, however, reduce the practical limit on extractable energy. Assuming 12 hours of daylight, that amount drops to 500 watts. Solar cells currently have an efficiency rate of approximately 15%(this amount is a practical limit, it cannot be substantially altered), dropping the amount of power to 75 watts . The effects of poor weather are difficult to gauge, but a 25% loss factor from sunlight blocking condensation is a reasonable estimate bringing the practical limit to 56 watts per square meter on average. Even ignoring big factors like dust in the atmosphere, inefficiencies and losses in operation, and the losses you'd incur by piping energy from places like New Mexico to North Dakota, 56 watts per square meter means you'd need 22,000 square miles of land area to get the 10^20 joules per year that we use in the USA. That's .6% of our land area at best, and probably several times that if you include the factors i'm generously leaving out. So let's say more like 3-6% of our land area. Holy SH*T! Do you know how much metal that is in terms of solar cells and piping lines? We've been around for 200 years here, and all of our buildings put together don't occupy a fraction of that much land. Forget the cost of all that apparatus, good luck knocking down homes, forests, wildlife areas etc. just to erect such a beast. Not only that, but let's say that in the next 40 years our energy need doubles. That's 10% of our land area under solar cells. For you non engineers, that's frankly impossible.
Conclusion: solar power is viable as a supplement in many places like Florida, Texas, New Mexico, etc. It could probably even handle a majority of power needs in places like Sante Fe. But in the sense that an "alternative energy" must really be alternative - i.e, it must take the place of fossil fuels, solar energy is not alternative.
Wind power suffers the same trouble. The maximum energy in watts that can be captured by a windmill is approximately equal to the velocity of the wind (in meters per second) cubed. If we assume, quite optimistically, that the wind blows at 20 mph all the time, everywhere in the United States, then it would be possible to generate about (8.9)3 or 705 watts of energy per square meter of wind turbine blade. To supply about 10^20 joules of energy per year that we use, America would need to use about 4.5 billion square meters of wind blades every second. In more recognizable terms, this corresponds to 700 square miles of blades. Currently, a large windmill can provide about 100 square meters of blade. In addition, windmills must be placed at least 50 meters away from one another. Then, the approximately 45 million windmills that are needed to provide America's power would cover approximately .11 million square kilometers, equal to 1.1% the land area of the continental United States, a prohibitively large number. Since you never get idealized conditions in real life, it's probably several times this much, so you'd have to cover 5% or more of the country with wind blaes - and you're back to the same problems as with solar. Argh. So wind power is also not an alternative energy, although once again, places like Michigan, California, and Oregon could probably power entire cities with them (provided they don't try and use solar too!).
On a quick side note, people sometimes ask me whether tidal platform which exploit tidal power are a good idea. No. They are a terrible one. So are solar platforms over the water. Nothing is a worse idea than diverting light or tidal energy away from the ocean shelf, which contains the building blocks of the ecosystem. Nothing. Not only that, but you'd get almost nothing for your troubles, and have fun constructing the billions of tons of metal wheels and rigs necessary, all without killing off wildlife. I do not want to find out what happens to the ocean life when I remove the currents that keep the ecosystem stable, and neither should anyone else. I sometimes wish I could burn people like this for energy from the fat that makes their heads. As a side note on a side note, why do solar power enthusiasts never stop to wonder what happens when you remove 10% of the solar energy that plants use from the environment? Amazing.
Last, fossil fuels. But wait, I thought we were talking about alternative energy. I'm sad to say that some people are so technically illiterate that there are actually fossil fuels that masquerade as alternative energy from...fossil fuels. The main offender is the fraud known as "hydrogen power."
Hydrogen power isn't so much a power as it is a way of using either solar or fossil fuel energy, the same way that deep-frying is a way of preparing food, rather than a meal by itself. Hydrogen power combines oxygen and hydrogen to get water and electrochemical energy. The only problem is that you need hydrogen and oxygen as fuel to do that, and there's no naturally occuring hydrogen. Oops. To make hydrogen, you can do several things. You can split it from water...which takes as much energy as you later get from recombining it, for a net gain of zero (actually, even less because of thermodynamics). You can get it from solar cells, which can use sun energy to make hydrogen. This is just a fancy way of saying "solar power" since a solar cell can't make electricity and hydrogen at the same time. Last, you can get hydrogen by cracking existing fossil fuels into hydrocarbons and extra hydrogen. Unfortunately, fossil fuels are the very thing you're trying not to use, so once again, hydrogen power is NOT alternative energy. Do not be fooled.
So, looking at the options, it looks like it's nuclear power, or shivering in the dark, as far as most of the USA is concerned. Oh sure, it could be possible to get maybe 10% or so (just do the math) of our power from solar and wind and other stuff, and it might be a good idea to do that. I guess I'd prefer to have a constant supply of power at my fingertips, no hassle, in the form of cheap, clean, abundant uranium, so abundant that we fire it out of our war planes as "depleted" uranium.
Clean? But I thought nuclear power was SO DANGEROUS, NUCLEAR WASTE, TERRORISTS, OMG. Do not be fooled, none of it is true. Total up all the deaths caused by mining coal/oil, chemical refinery mishaps, black lung, etc, and you will find that fossil fuels kill 1000s a year, every year, and that nuclear kills 0. That's right, 0. The amount of radiation released at 3 mile was harmless (just read the gov't report). It turns out that living next to bricks produces more radiation than living near a power plant, rumors to the contrary - check any nuclear engineering text for details. Furthermore, nuclear waste can be endlessly stuffed into the abundance of hot, deserted, sandy places that populate our charming Far West, especially since only one football field per year of waste is made, stacked a few yards high, in all plants, everywhere. I'd take that over the slag heaps outside refineries any day. Last, and let me emphasize this highly. Simply having stolen nuclear fuel is as close to having a nuclear bomb as having a cow and grain is to having a hamburger. All the main parts of a nuclear weapon that have any secret importance involve the firing mechanism. Goofball nations like North Korea and Iran and Russia have plenty of fuel, and terrorists would not need to travel to America, steal it, then run back to get some. In fact, we should ENCOURAGE such idiotic risks if we can, if not for the fact that few terrorists would be stupid enough to try.
Beam me up.
At far less than the current cost of diesel, people will certainly do it. Methane is not a particularly valuable thing to produce, so that is not much of a feature... it is a pollutant that is often just burned off where it is produced instead of being used for anything useful. It often does not make any economic sense to collect it and transport it somewhere else.
If you actually price vegetable oil into the equation you end up at several dollars per gallon... more than the current pump price even without all that tax embedded into the price. That's the problem. Free used oil is not abundant enough to be any kind of viable solution. It would be pretty cheap to make diesel fuel with free crude oil as well.
so this is a question. My Neighbor makes Diesel Fuel from used peanut oil from chinese restaraunts. It cost him about for 40-50 cents a gallon to produce. What is the feasability of peanut oil?
Electrons become excited but none are added or subtracted. You can heat steel and excite electrons but it is still steel (not chemically changed).
You're right even the Russian one was fairly safe but it was actually orders from the Kremlin and some poor decisions that made it go boom.
Beta particles are emitted by the nucleus making it nuclear. For example Tritium which is Hydrogen with 2 neutrons is radioactive. It produces beta radiation and becomes Helium. You do not change elements with out a nuclear reaction. I think the weak forces you were referring to were things like Vander Waals forces? Or maybe I'm not up on my nuclear terminology as I think.
The advantage of bio-fuels is that they can be poured into a tank. Plants are very efficient and not all their energy comes from the sun they take advantage of various chemical reactions as well. For example mushrooms grow just fine without sunlight.
That includes a buried propane supply and power transfer switch and installation. That was for a 30 Kw peak power generator.
The solar system includes battery system, AC inverters electric grid tie in and installation.
I haven't done anything yet but if we have another hurricane season like the last one and FPL gets another set of surcharges for not doing their job. Solar is going to look mighty attractive.
I think we have something of a communication disconnect.
The first half of my post was a joke. Some people consider it a pretty good one.
The other half was me saying that I don't have a physics degree and didn't continue studying it long enough to really understand how it works but I Did stay long enough to know that Beta Decay is considered one of the Weak Forces and not one of the Nuclear Forces.
Again, I don't know why.
And I didn't say anything about Phase Changes and Convection Currents. I know that they weren't taught in the little Chemistry I studied (at least not outside of the Chemical Reaction and how they fit in in the Equation).
You've pretty much exhausted my knowledge of theoretical science.
Want to get into the Practical stuff, like circuits and the energy needed to smash a door or a lock of cement...?
According to family members of mine who sell the stupid things, they don't make any sense for people who drive their cars till they fall apart around them (like my family).
They are, however, perfectly reasonable for folks who drive for 30-50k miles over the course of a few years and then trade in for the newest model.
The latter group makes up a Significant portion of the driving population...
Is sold to farmers to fertilize their fields. The lagoons are to collect it until it can be sold. It does have value and doesn't stay on the pig farms right now, though I can't say anything you do is going to do much to improve the smell of a pig farm much.
People take into account the entire cost of more efficient technologies, not just the savings. If I can save 10% on my heating costs, that is great. If it is going to take 20 years to pay back at a 0% rate of return, I'm not at all interested. Most people are smart enough to do what is in their best interest. It is not "fear" or "lack of education" controlling their behavior.
For example, I don't own a hybrid because I don't want all of the costs associated with owning one. The massive capital depreciation and the large expensive repairs (new batteries for instance) looming down the road. I prefer to buy used cars for $3000 and drive them for 50-100k miles, even though they aren't as fuel efficient. I come out way ahead.
We need more technical types in Congress. Period.
We are much more concerned with Gay rights! and Identity Politics! and Flag Burning! than we are about solving the world's energy problems. Frankly, Mike Bloomberg was correct the other day when he opined that America has lost its leadership in science and engineering. We can't send up a space shuttle without people poring over ever single surface for things that might lead to a tragedy. We can't build nuclear reactors because of NIMBY. We can't store the fuel we have from the nuclear reactors that already exist because of the enviros. We can't support fusion because nobody knows about it. We can't do anything except...keep burning oil and coal and eventually have the American people be forced to accept a carbon cap 'n trade scheme.
I hope Americans like their International Carbon Foodstamps while they have their all their rights!
They render the rest of the argument invalid even though it makes good points.
Chemical Change
a change in the chemical composition of a substance to produce a new material with new properties (An example of a chemical change is wood turning to ash and smoke when it burns.)
Kinetic Energy
Energy that a body has as a result of its motion. Mathematically, it is defined as one-half the product of a body's mass and the square of its speed.
Thermal Energy
Energy in a body due to its temperature.
Potential Energy (gravitational potential0
The energy that matter has because of its position or because of the arrangement of atoms or parts
Chemical Potential Energy
Energy in the chemical bonds of matter.
Nuclear Binding Energy (Nuclear Potential Energy)
Energy stored in the binding energy of the atomic nucleus.
You can generate electricity or other forms of kinetic energy by either tapping and transforming existing kinetic energy (Wind or tidal power by example) or by tapping a potential energy source. (burning fuel to break chemical bonds or using a nuclear reaction to release the binding energy of the nucleus)
Wind Power is not chemical or gravitational in nature it is the tapping of the kinetic energy of a moving mass of air. If you want to talk about its ultimate source that would be sun or nuclear fusion.
Solar power in general is not chemical. Photovoltaic cells trap a photon to excite an electron-hole pair the electron travels through a circuit to recombine. There is no chemical change. The other methods involve allowing materials to absorb photons to become hot, and drive a thermal engine. There are versions of solar power that use photons to drive a chemical reaction. Photosynthesis is a biological example. There are reactions which use solar power to generate Hydrogen.
Solar and wind power are not the same and are not incompatible. There is no reason except possible shade that you couldnt have windmills on the same land as a solar farm.
Your statement about the practical limit for solarpower of 15% is just baseless. There have been solar cells that produce 30% efficiencies for years. Solar powere stirling engines also produce similar efficiencies. Second the assumption about the amount of land and new construction is unfounded. There are these things called Roofs. A simple alternative would be solar on the roof of a hybrid car.
You are 100% correct about nuclear power though. It is here now and it works.
Will be radiated back into the air. Sure, underneath the panels would be shaded, but being underneath them would be a lot like being inside a house with an uninsulated black roof. You are not directly exposed to the sun but it is going to be awfully hot inside.
to realize you were talking to me. Ok I'll admit the first two are debatable. What is a BS these days anyway?
#3 you're wrong. When you change the nucleus by definition you have a nuclear reaction.
#4 you're wrong. Are you arguing that phase changes and convection currents are chemical reactions?
But I Do stand by the fact that drilling in the Arctic has been shown for over 30 years to have Beneficial effects on the local wildlife and ecology.
Furthermore, It would provide a Tremendously greater amount of energy before we deplete the wells than all the wind-turbines in the world.
Practice dictates otherwise. At least, it does if the builders of the panels want them to last very long at all.
And you really have me wishing that I had a better understanding of the engineering involved in the installation of Solar Panels. I am so out of my depth it's not funny right now.
So if anyone has a link I can follow that will help ease my lack of knowledge here and/or can just straight up inform me on this thread, I'd greatly appreciate it...
Another problem in our fine state besides hurricanes is shady contractors. When wilma hit my power was out for nearly 2 weeks. My neighbors was not.
After Wilma I priced out generator that would tie into the house wiring it came to roughly about 22K installed. Solar is similar in pricing but it begins paying back from the minute you install it.
On the roof removal. Well If my roof is gone I am really no longer concerned about powering my microwave.
Is not impressing me with his energy policy. So far, he hasn't been able to achieve most of the goals we should be achieving. He's increasinly not impressing me with his Iraq policy. And he's certainly not impressing me with his fiscal policy. A couple of days ago I wondered whether Pat Buchanan was a Freak, but I'm beginning to wonder who is the person we should be doubting. I'm listening more and more to Buckley and I'm starting to think that this White House is disappointing. So you can tell me to chill, but I'm not interested in hearing that word any more. This President is seriously disappointing me right now, in a lot of areas. His policies seem haphazard and ill-construed. I'd like to hear a much better explanation of why I should continue to support him.
It's mostly a combination of ignorance about what is available out there and dishonesty of a great many major construction companies.
Basically, people buy a place that looks good and seems to be in a good neighbourhood.
They don't care about how it's built.
If you stick with the companies that build "custom" homes rather than Prefab assembly, you'll get most of that great insulation and newer technologies.
At least its FPL and not Con Edison.
The NYC blackout has been going on so long even the NY Post isn't even running it on their web site any longer :-)
This President's legacy as "indecipherable" and I think right now he's right. The Administration has created such a soup for itself that frankly nobody knows what is going to happen in the next two years. And the more I realize how little some of these people have taken seriously their obligation to refute the Clinton years, the angrier I get. I'm on the verge of a serious "Dump The President" campaign, and I think I'd be in good company unless this Administration gets its stuff together. I'm tired of watching people carry the water for their mistakes. I'm beginning to think the whole thing was a mistake, and I mean that very seriously.
and I'll admit I skim read part of it. But you seem to be advocating nuclear energy, to which I (who considers herself an environmentalist) say hurrah!
Nuclear is clean, cheap, and yes, it can be safely disposed of, in exactly the manner you suggest-- just ask France (I know, we don't like talking to them very much, but they know as much about this and are, from what I understand, as good at it as they are at surrendering to the Germans).
I'd feel much happier about running my car off of electricity generated by a nuclear reactor than I would 1) gas 2) natural gas and/or 3) electricity generated through the use of newly constructed dams. That's because 1) I'm an environmentalist at heart and I don't want to contribute to global warming, which I do believe in, or salmon depletion which is a side effect of hydroelectric power 2) I'm a cheap Scot at heart, so I don't like paying high gas prices and 3) while I don't consider myself in the least bit isolationist, I have zero interest in dealing with Hugo Chavez, the Saudi regime, or any of the other unpalatable individuals that seem to be in control where oil can be plentifully found.
That being said, I'd also be much happier powering my home, to the extent possible, through solar power or-- get this-- geothermal power (something that I gather is used quite a bit in Utah these days).
And I'm glad to say that there are a number of prominent Republicans who are working to bolster industries like these, instead of trying to solve an energy crisis by either 1) just drilling for more oil (admittedly advocated as a solution in itself by relatively few, but still) or 2) introducing a nationwide 55 mile per hour speed limit (thanks, Hillary).
I am not a nuclear physicist, but I'm pretty confident that beta radiation, being a radioactive decay, is best spoken of as a nuclear reaction. The "weak force" was originally described by Fermi in the 1930s as an attempt to explain beta radiation (or, "why the heck do electrons fly out of certain nuclei?")
Certain radioactivities really are useful for power generation. Alpha radiation from plutonium, for example, powers many spacecraft. It's a compact, exceptionally reliable system with decent energy density. Not a way to get 10^20 joules per year, but interesting for niche applications.
I don't have much to add to the meat of this discussion, but it was striking to note the relative energetics of nuclear vs non-nuclear reactions. I didn't realize that a solar photon only has 0.6 eV. The 8-day activity from iodine-131 (used to treat thyroid disorders) consists of a 0.19 million eV beta, and a gamma that's twice as energetic as the beta. Maybe that's a clue to why nuclear reactions are so much more energy-dense that those involving heat-transfer or electrons.
All Sh...
Bull sh...
More Sh...
Piled higher and Deeper...
Anyway, I didn't stick with physics long enough to get into Why the "weak force" part doesn't actually count as Nuclear. But I weigh in with Tracer on that it really isn't and that Beta decay is part of it.
I tried to convince my kids that it would kill them but they just looked at me weird.
Don't know the specifics but it's just a release of gas when whatever it is in them touches saliva. I think it releases CO2 just like soda. Hence the soda/pop rock myth.
Rest assured as long as your cardiac sphincter is working properly there is nothing to worry about.
Re: And the more I realize how little some of these people have taken seriously their obligation to refute the Clinton years, the angrier I get.
What do you mean by "refute"? One of Bush's first major initiatives was his tax cuts, effectively repealing (and then some) the Clinton tax increases. What else needs to be refuted? Whatever his personal sins, Clinton was not some wild-eyed KOS leftist who imposed all sorts of radical changes on the country, and the 90s were a pretty good decade in this country. Moreover why bog down in arguments about the past? The future is what matters.
Go read Rand Simberg's last several posts and come back. Bob Bigelow's starting to build his own space station and plans to found an astronaut corps in four years, and SpaceX is working on launchers to replace the retooled SS-18s he uses now. Good things are happening.
You make a very strong statement that I think is contradicted by credible sources. I am referring to this statement:
it's the generation of power through the fission induced heating of water that then goes as steam turbines. The fuel is either U 235 or Pu 239, and these fuels can in turn be made from U 238 and Th 232. We have so much of these fuels that we will never, ever run out, ever. They are found in the soil, like Iron, and cannot be used up before our sun explodes.
A very good article on this topic from Physics Today a few years back would appear to contradict your assertion:
Nuclear energy. Uranium fission plants in the US are presently supplying less than 8% of our total energy demand. Were the current nuclear technology expanded to provide the electricity now supplied by coal (about 23 Q), the estimated US uranium resources2 would be exhausted in about 35−58 years--less than a human lifespan.
However, the article goes on to say that advances in fission technology could probably extend reserves of fissile materials from 'a lifetime' to 'many hundred years'. Granted, the article is mostly talking about domestic reserves of fissile materials, but I don't think we want a put ourselves in the position of being dependant on Russia, for example, for our supplies of Uranium and Thorium. Regardless, our stores of fissile materials is a limited resource that will be exhausted at some point in the future in the same manner that our fossil fuel reserves will be.
Fusion is the holy grail.
Of course, phycisists, unfortunately, have been put in the positon of always passing the hat, as we as a nation appear to be more interested in applied physics (defense science, weapons R&D, etc), rather than basic research, which is the place that the fusion problem will be solved. Developing fusion will take an enormous commitment of resources and will likely not show viable results for several decades. Given this, would we have the patience to invest what is necessary?
I am skeptical that we would be...
See the article here.
It's because we've been in this war for as long as we have and frankly, although I've read Sharansky's book about freedom, I'm beginning to think that the Iraqi people themselves really are too scared and shell-shocked to want it, or to know how to fight for it. We cetainly don't see tens of thousands of Iraqi men lining up to push their country in this new, Democratic direction -- instead, we see them being forced by circumstance to begrudgingly show up.
I'm really beginning to think the Iraqis don't want it, can't do it, and if that is true, we should get the hell out of it.
Also, as long as it is exoatmospheric. Meaning that we have to construct fairly large solar arrays in Earth orbit. We are within a few years of having the technology to do this, if more people would realize it.
The thing is that any energy source needs to be able to produce at least say, 10% of our needs before it's worth mentioning as part of the big picture. And all those small-time things (biofuels, rooftop solar panels, etc.) combined probably can't add up to that 10%.
The only thing with any real potential in the short run (less than 30 years from now) is nuclear fission. Space-based solar (the tech here is understood, it's just that launch costs are very high) and nuclear fusion (always seems to be 30 years away) might work, but there's no telling if/when they'll be practical.
that fail to take in to account breeder reactors.
Simple explanation:
Start with a U235/U238 mix. U235 is fissile, it is your fuel. Some of the neutrons released get absorbed by the U238 to form U239. U239 quickly beta decays to Np239 which quickly beta decays to Pu239, which is fissile. At the end of a run on a standard nuke plant, the fuel is about 50% U235 and 50% Pu239.
Take waste to reprocessing plant, pull out the Pu239 (and the U235 if you can), add some depleted U238 back in. Run it thru again.
With the proper design, you will actually end up with more fuel than you started with. Even with conventional designs, you have a lot of fuel left over waiting to be reprocessed.
So here's the deal on that.
U 235 is less than .7% of all natural uranium. If we ONLY used U 235, it will be used up in about 100 years, yes. BUT, that's only if you disregard the other 99.3% that can be "bred" into Pu 239, which we know how to do. Many people, even technical ones, who don't have much nuclear engineering background, do not realize the bounty of fuel we have. Thorium, which is so abundant as to be almost boring, can be bred into U233, another fission fuel. Breeder reactors will happen, no doubt about it.
Or put another way, imagine that you were eating a lobster, and you didn't have one of those metal "crackers" one uses to crack through to the tail, elbows, and arms (which are heavily armored). You'd have to settle for probably eating the claw tips. You'd have to eat 100 lobsters just to feel full. But the minute you have the right tools, you can better exploit each lobster to the fullest, and now you only need one. In the same way, we barely exploit uranium currently, by using the easy to access 1% of u235, while tossing the rest of the u238. Heck, we fire the stuff out of planes as depleted rounds. But by breeding the stuff (using crackers) we could get it all, and make it go 100 times farther.
I started driving about a week before the Arab oil embargo in the 70's, and back then we were on the verge of fusion power. No more than 30 years, they said. A couple of years later, wind and solar came along. The fact that they were so expensive that they would wear out before they could earn thier keep would be addressed as the technology got better. Another ten years or so...
Well, it's 2006, and fusion power is STILL 30 years away, and cost-effective solar and wind is still 10 years away. The only difference is that today we have Hydrogen on the horizon. And it's only 10 years away!
What was it the Who said about getting fooled again?
For anyone who knows anything about the "foam problem" on the Space Shuttle system, you know why the foam won't adhere to the tank and is requiring so much engineering to stop it from flaking off so terribly...
Solar is very good for me because my big electrical use is cooling. So when its hot out its also my big electrical demand time. If we have another hurricane situation like last year I may have to bite the bullet and get solar for my home and satelite for internet access.
My point hasn't been that solar is a be all end all energy tech. It has been that the argument against it and other alternatives has been made incorrectly by the diarist. The conclusion that nuclear is desirable and usefull is correct. The way that the conclusion is arrived at doesn't survive cursory scrutiny.
I've read that by the end of WWII the Germans had developed a technique for making synthetic fuel, but it didn't help them because by then they didn't have enough electrical capacity to run a plant. As I understand it, it's actually a negative energy source; like hydrogen, it takes more energy to produce than you can get by burning it. It only makes sense if you have an abundant, cheap supply of electricity.
Seems to me that synthetic gas has a lot of advantages over hydrogen; we've got about a century of experience in storing, transporting, and delivering gasoline in commercial quantities, and we have about a gazillion engines out there that already run on gas. Hydrogen, on the other hand, has to be cryogenic to carry it in any large quantities (which means some wicked engineering problems), it will leak through certain metals, and it's almost impossible to weld a seam the hydrogen molecule can't get through. The one major advantage of hydrogen as a fuel is that in a crash I'd much rather have a tank of hydrogen behind me than a tank of gasoline.
So does anyone know anything about the production of synthetic gasoline?
"It is fundamentally a chemical reaction because wind is driven by rising air masses, and air masses rise becaus they absorb the sun's photons and heat up - a chemical reaction."
-not a chemical reaction. This is a physical change. It could be argued that it is nuclear because the sun provides the heat but not chemical.
For the same reason solar is really nuclear.
Hydrogen can also be created by passing a current through water as you stated. Therefore it can be produced by nuclear power. This would be an excellent way of using excess capacity at nuclear plants during low load periods.
Please don't forget bio-based fuels. I think bio-diesel has some definite possibilities for the future. I am less enthusiastic about ethanol but it is not impossible if we can come up with better technology for its separation from water.
I like your analysis of nuclear power. It is important to remember that it isn't the fissile material that is expensive but the regulations and safety requirements as well as the disposal of waste.
Also you cite 3 mile island but don't forget Russia's Chernobyl. The area has still not recovered and it will be along time till it does.
That said I agree that nuclear power is an important player in any independence from oil.
Wouldn't we all like to collect checks from the government for DECADES without having to show progress...
I think your problem might be that you consider phase changes to be a chemical reaction.
When you put water in a ice tray and stick it in your freezer, you make ice, thereby changing the phase of the H<sub>2</sub>0. But if you take it out and leave it, chances are you'll end up with water again. That's not a chemical change; it's a physical one.
$3.50/w x 35kw generation capacity = $122,500 in panels
$15,000 (figuring install costs something) / $3.50/w = 4.2kw in generation capacity
I'm glad I got caught on this now before I take my spiel to "the people." Physics majors put down chemists all the time, and this is all my sins coming home to roost I suppose. Good job.
I would be more concerned about my expensive solar array being destroyed in the next hurricane. I would rather have a generator for emergency usage. It could be protected from the weather.
I heard somewhere that if we had massive solar arrays in the desert it would make the area hotter since the heat would not be reflected by the desert but captured by the arrays.
Any truth to that?
Sure, start up requirements for motors are significantly higher than run requirements, but you don't have to start up every motor in the place at the exact same time, either. And there are loads in the house that don't have any kind of additional startup requirement (such as resistive loads).
According to that guy's numbers he figures it would take $12,500 worth of solar panels to generate 12kwh of electricity per day. That 35kw generator will generate 840kwh of electricity per day, or 70 times as much. Now even if you double or triple the size of the solar array (cheaper cells and more money to spend), you aren't in the same ballpark as that generator. Either one of those systems is far too big or the other is far too small... even taking into account any kind of storage system.
Further, a storage system will also be severely limited in how much power you can draw, how fast, over what period of time. I would be surprised if you could get anywhere near 35kw out of it at any single point in time, especially if it isn't sunny out when you are trying to start all those motors relying totally on batteries.
And it looks like I was too optimistic on my math earlier... I guess you have to multiple the watt ratings of the cells by around 20% to get the actual output for average southern US weather conditions. Now that 4.2kw of cells looks like less than 1kw per hour average (24x7). A cheapo $300 gas generator gets you 4x that much average power (24x7).
All by itself passed the 13,000 Megawatt threshold back in 2005. Lots of land, lots of solar chimneys...and where are they going to put them?
The people who think they're going to use terrestrial solar power to solve central power station demand problems are -- and I say this with some trepidation -- screwballs.
convert that into 5 year old speak = "This won't kill you because a guy that went to school said so. This is why you go to school and do your homework."
Same difference. The main impediments to making it from algae would be making it in sufficient quantity. It would (presumably) be at a low pressure, so you'd have to burn some of the product as a fuel to compress & process the remainder.
Same deal with landfills; methane production can be done economically, it just requires some level of sophistication.
they actually produce energy from their landfills. Pretty cool if you ask me. I don't know what the cost per kW is to produce though.
This is a really interesting video I hope gets more airtime
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-570288889128950913&q=Ethanol
While converting our entire power production to one alternative method is ridiculous, adding alternative sources of energy to existing networks to decrease demand of fossil fuels is definitely a feasible option. Solar panels on roofs. Corn fields with wind turbines. More nuclear power plants. E85; the car companies admit that a flex fuel vehicle only add at most $100 to the cost of the vehicle.
I'd highly suggest people watch This video which is a pitch by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla about the benefits of ethanol. It's long, but it's definitely a great presentation. It's an Inconvenient Truth(tm) I can live with.
makes pop rocks work.
Come on, now. This is duly important and extremely fascinating stuff. Well, at least it is to the 5 year old that I scared to death with them about 2 months ago and now I have to explain that they are not lethal candy to.
You are not well versed in what can be done with solar energy. Solar thermal energy has been generating 350 megawatts of electricity in the California desert for over 20 years in a mode which is integrated with fossil and can thus be used for baseload.
You are reasonable correct that we can make all of the energy we use in the U.S. on a small portion of our land area; my estimate is about 2% or about 60,000 square miles. Your assumption of photovoltaic is one I object to, since solar thermal is about 1/2 or less than the cost of pv and uses conventional materials. For anyone interested in this subject, google SEGS to learn about the California facility and just look at solar thermal; 64 mw being built in Nevada now and great activity in Spain and elsewhere.
And my objection to nuclear is that it is too close to the world of weapons.
Sol Shapiro
in China. Last I read the manufacturer could not keep up with demand for solar energy products.
Come on! Think outside of the box. There is more out there. Tie pulleys to things so as they fall down we'll harness these Gravitational reactions. Such as...
Trees. Harvest lumber and create energy at the same time! This is eco-thrifty lumber production. It could be sold as green energy.
Old People and Kids. They fall down all the time... and most of the time they get right back up. Lets harness this renewable energy!
Cats and Kangaroos. Up down up down... they live for it. Cat 'Collectors' would be honored citizens. Australia could be a pioneer in this field.
Sinks and Sewers We spend a lot effort moving this water and in the latter case 'water' up high so we can get water pressure so it flows down. Why aren't we generating hydro-electric power when it flows down? What about storm sewers when it rains. That's a man-made waterfall right there.
One-Way Elevators Stairs are for up. Elevators... now called Lowerers are for down. The fatter you are the more energy you crank out. Fat is in baby! "Get your fat ass up there" will be a nice thing to say.
The secret is eating Chinese food made with Peanut Oil for every meal. We'd increase production in the country. So let's have at it people... lets hit those $5.99 All You Can Eat Buffets!
Energy Independence... here we come.
$22,000 is a really expensive generator. You can run a house on a whole lot less ($10,000). They provide power 24x7 instead of when the sun is out. They are easily protected from damage. If I was going to spend $22,000 I would buy a 40hp diesel tractor and a PTO mounted generator. Then I would have a machine to clear debris with... and to do landscaping and whatever else I wanted to do when there was no storm.
Alternative energy means almost nothing to our dependence on terrorist supporting regimes in the middle east (and nuts like Chavez). What we need is to solve our gasoline reliance and that comes from plug-in hybrids. These are the only proven tech out there that could have a significant impact once economies of scale are deployed. The hydrogen fuel cell is too far off to be of any use. Plug ins could eliminate our need for foreign oil within a decade or so. Once we solve our oil problem we can turn to energy production sources (such as more nuclear and every new home with solar panelled roofs).
you happen to live in florida and are worried about your power being out for 2 weeks. I am very envious of my neighbors solar array.
My dad always jokes that fusion power is 30 years away, and always will be. Sort of the same joke with solar and wind that are cost effective - they're always just around the corner. Good joke with the hydrogen too.
That's why I put my faith in nuclear fission. It's been proven to work, and to cost less in general than oil.
a physical change can be a chemical reaction. In this case, a nuclear reaction at the Sun produces radiation which is absorbed by electrons of air at earth's surface, making them warmer and causing wind. Since electrons were involved, that's a chemical reaction. I guess it depends on how you want to look at it - local or global.
I totally agree with using nuclear power to electrolize water: it's the future, and anyone who says otherwise is typically chasing rainbows.
Bio-fuels is another way of using solar, but even less efficiently, since we've already eaten it. I guess there could be a couple niche markets for such things.
Yah, good point on regulations, I should have included that. People think nukes are more expensive, but anything is expensive with enough red tape. Yankee Atomic Energy Company rakes in the dough with their existing plants.
Russian reactors were built to a much less stringent code than the U.S's. In particular, I understand that the reactivity of their plants is allowed to reach .008 or higher under certain operating conditions, which ours can't - a recipe for runaway fission. I wouldn't trust french guns, but that's no reason why United states weapons should be considered less safe.
Last, Beta decay is the weak force at work. I'm not quite sure if that makes it a nuclear reaction or not, in the strictest sense. It doesn't originate with nuclear forces, but it involves the nucleus, so go figure. Ask a doctorate in particle physics, maybe they'd know.
...Keep in mind that I am not a physicist, only a person with a knowledge of Practical pysics...
I would imagine that it would actually cool, substantially. Now, I wouldn't want to stand on those panels, talk about cooking eggs.
But the panels can't lay on the sand, they'd have to be raised somehow, just for maintenance purposes, if no other reason. This would put the desert proper into the shade, Immediately dropping the temperature by as much as 20 degrees fahrenheit or more (low humidity makes for real difference between sun and shade). Then you have the fact that the greater part of the heat in the desert is caused by the sun reflecting off the sand and the heat from it being captured by the sand. Take that away, and the temperature plummets (e.g. the temp drop at night).
Above the panels, you have an Enormous, solar operated Hot-plate.
Below the panels, you suddenly have a sunless tundra...
reactors. They are inherently safer but require more processing for the fuel before hand and it is harder to vary its output energy.
made from turkey parts.
I had talked about this before but cant find my posts. It seems like CWT is selling their oil at about $80/barrel as they still have to buy the turkey offal since it can be used elsewhere. Of course you will not hear that from their own site.
This has a lot of info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
so, apparently the process works and they claim they can use the process for a lot of other waste as well. I have also heard a few people skeptical of the possibility.
When this was last brought up CWT hadnt had a new press release since 2004. They do have one new one from May, 2006. The Wikipedia article says that they were runnig at a loss for 2005 and I read somewhere else that they did get some x million dollar grant from the govt to keep them going.
Here are the companies sites:
http://www.res-energy.com/index.asp
http://www.changingworldtech.com/
I would say that I am both intrigued by the idea and somewhat skeptical. If they can turn all of our garbage to oil profitably, GREAT! But somehow I am not sure it is as easy as that. Also, if you go to thier own site, do it with a grain of salt. Keep in mind the sites sole purpose is probably to obtain investors (private and government) so it will be nothing but candy and magic there.
Since this is not an "alternative" I consider this just answering a specific question but will end this threadjack with that.
ok stop laughing at the subject line...
that they should fund the capital costs but an occasional grant to further the research, I don't find completely objectionable. I also don't think they should subsidize production either.
I agree that electric could be a very viable and even be used in most short range transportation. Heck I can even see instead of filling up at a fuel station trading batteries. (though battery technology needs some improvement too)
I also don't think we need to close our eyes to other avenues till we have a long term solution.
In only partial explanation of my view of what humanity has to do, but it will have to make it for now:
The problem isn't that we need to use less energy. The problem is that we need to use more energy, with more people, in better ways. The conservationists have several thousand pages from the Jimmy Carter playbook they can wield, but the real truth is that we are not, and should not, tell the Chinese that they cannot electrify their poor people, and we cannot and should not tell the same thing to people in Central and South America. Most importantly of all, we cannot and should not tell the American people that nuclear power is too dangerous for them to deploy seriously throughout the country. What we really need to do, and if we had a forward-looking energy policy, would be to educate more Americans to produce the best, safest, highest-capacity and most forward-looking power plants in the world, and then use that investment to help our allies around the world. We are doing this, in a small way.
There was one thing positive that happened at the G8 Summit that hasn't been noted anywhere in the MSM, but I think it's important to mention it here:
From Sam Nunn:
MEMO
TO: Safer World Action Network
FROM: Sam Nunn, Co-Chairman, Nuclear Threat Initiative
RE: Significant step in fight to prevent nuclear terrorism
At the recent G8 meeting in Russia, U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a new joint effort - the "Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism." Read today's New York Times editorial about the announcement.
While the critical events in the Middle East may have overshadowed their announcement, this is a significant step. I commend both Presidents for this initiative, which shows a strong personal commitment to preventing nuclear terrorism -- the greatest threat we face.
The hardest step for terrorists to take to detonate a nuclear weapon is getting their hands on nuclear material. This is the easiest step for us to stop. Every subsequent step in the process -- making a bomb, smuggling it into the country -- gets easier for the terrorists and harder for us. That's why the chain of nuclear security is only as strong as its weakest link. With nuclear weapons materials in more than 40 countries, global cooperation is critical.
All the right words are in the official statement, and this announcement is very encouraging to those of us who have been in this arena for a long time. As we have seen in the past, however, there can be a big gap between words and deeds, a big gap between pledges and programs, and a big gap between goals and accomplishments.
Toward the end of the Presidents' joint statement, they emphasize the need "to mobilize the largest possible number of nations to improve national capabilities to combat nuclear terrorism" and that outreach to "the public is necessary to effect the full implementation of the Initiative."
The Presidents are right. Each of us must do more to raise awareness about the threat and tell our leaders that we agree we must continue to spread the word and build support for cooperative efforts to secure nuclear weapons materials around the world. As a member of the Safer World Action Network, you are already doing your part to stay informed about these important issues.
At NTI, we have long been advocating for this sort of global initiative and cooperation. We recently highlighted the need for urgent action when we released "Securing the Bomb 2006," an annual assessment prepared by Harvard University researchers Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier of the Managing the Atom Project on the progress being made to secure nuclear weapons and materials around the world. This report again showed that a significant gap remains between the nuclear terrorism threat and efforts to keep materials out of terrorist hands.
We cannot simultaneously promote nuclear power without getting a grip on proliferation risks. And this development at the G8, while barely even mentioned in the Big Media, was a sincere step in the right direction.
So your criticisms of my piece are "for the cause." I accept this, and thank you for them. I will be more careful in the future about how I toss words around, so as not to leave myself open, or discredit the cause. Next time, kiss me before you slap me and I'll be more civil too.
If you scroll down teh article linked to, the author says that the company's math is off by a factor of 100, and that 10,000 square miles would be more like it. That's not as viable. If SEGS has a 30%, long term, viable, cheap as free cell, then God bless them, but in the end, the numbers I keep citing govern the whole deal. My 10^20 joules I keep yacking on about come from the DOE too, and it represents the total energy use in by the USA per year. I won't say that your 20% number is wrong, simply that budget is a word that can be manipulated. I'll double check my 10^20 next chance I get, and push to correct my argument if it's wrong. I respect the effort you've put into this disagreement.
I guess In the end, I'd rather not remove 10^20 joules of energy from "nature" when I can get it from fissile materials. And we both support nuclear, so let's focus on making that dream reality. It burns me up that the French and the Japanese have this in place, whereas we the rightful creators of it do not.
Thank you for your patience in straightening this out.
I was able to price out panels at about $3.50 per watt when I did the evaluation.
I just installed a system, with underground propane fuel system, for a lot under $10K in a new house.
beta radiation is actually caused by a different type of nuclear reaction.
Should we have continued with WWI and WWII as long as we did? Should we have continued with the War for Independence as long as we did?
You're right. They ARE too shell-shocked and scared to really stand up for their freedom. But that is changing. And you should know that from being around here as much as you are. Look at the changes in Iraq.
I have it on good authority that God first made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made knit-pickers.
Definitions as always rely on context. My diary simply is trying to show that by doing some math, some types of power generation are feasible give American energy consumption, and some are not.
To be unnecessarily anal, I have loosely grouped all power generation methods that terrestrially originate with the manipulation of electrons into "chemical," and power generation methods that involve the rearrangement of nucleons into "nuclear and weak" power generation.
This arrangement, while not what you would find in many freshman textbooks, is extremely convenient in my context, because it makes an excellent contrast: my "chemical" processes all produce too little power per reaction to serve as an alternate energy source, while "nuclear" produces plenty. Wind, solar, biofuel, and fossil fuels are in fact "chemical" in the sense that the terrestrial reactions that gave birth to them were 10 eV or less apiece. Whether photons struck air, heating it up and causing wind, or they struck a solar cell, or I combusted a hydrocarbon, I got less than 10 eV per reaction with my finagled but very convenient "chemical" designation. Nuclear gets MeV. The M stands for million.
There are many circumstances under which your definitions are either wrong or irrelevant. That does not make them bad, just unsuitable for the subject at hand, namely, which power generation method should we use?
Wind power IS in fact chemical power, namely that of a photon exciting the molecules that make up air into a higher energy state, causing physical motion. That same photon can not be used on a solar cell now - so sun and wind power ARE in fact mutually exclusive in this way. If you put up solar pannels over the entire country west of mississippi, I guarantee you there would be less wind in the east. Notice how the wind blows a different way in the morning than it does at sunset near the ocean?
It's only baseless if you don't consider facts. The fact is, it's possible to create things under very special circumstances in the laboratory that can never or rarely be reproduced in practice en masse. Go find me a 30% efficiency panel in large scale circulation.
So we'll use roofs, huh. Great idea. Why didn't I realize that a car, which has a 1 meter square roof, can supply up to 56 watts on average. That's what, .08 horsepower? That's one light bulb. And we'll use house roofs too. That's about 200 square meters in the suburbs, for about 1000 watts. Multiply that by maybe what, 60 million houses, times the conversion for seconds to a year, and you get about 10^18 joules...less than one part in 100 of our nation's requirements, and less with each passing year. The average consumer will not fork over the thousands necessary for panels which need constant maintainencing (esp. in new england's winters) for less than one part in 100. Solar power is DOA.
But at least we agree about the relevant thing: nuclear.
translation. Don't worry this is the reason God made burps.
He's shy about that kind of thing, though. I'm working on making him more proud of them.
since I got my degree (1965), but even after this much time I can assure you that
"one-half the product of a body's mass and the square of its speed"
is exactly the same formula as
"momentum squared over twice the mass."
Momentum is defined as (m)ass times (v)elocity, which for the purposes here is the same as 'speed.'
Mathematically, m*v*v/2 is identical to (m*v)*(m*v)/(2*m).
The fact that you didn't notice that yourself raises some questions. Also, that definition is perfectly applicable to the "context" of the problem at hand, and your reference to "relativistic corrections" is irrelevant.
I have to agree with the spirit of joliphant's original post. By basing your analysis on a foundation of questionable definitions, you've set your own argument back among anybody who knows a bit about the technical, definitional, details of "energy." I'd like to believe, for instance, that there really isn't a problem with storage of nuclear waste, but you haven't convinced me that your calculations are accurate. (Also, living out here among those "deserted, sandy places", I don't look upon the storage of nuclear waste nearby quite as cavalierly as your comment suggests.)
That's too bad, because your primary argument needs to be made. Too many people overlook the practical limitations of "alternative" energy sources, and it seems to be pretty clear that nuclear energy is the single best solution to the problem of US energy dependence on FOREIGN PETROLEUM. But there's no reason that other alternatives can't be used as well, to supplement nuclear.
You have never met me and seem well intentioned.
These are not nits to be picked. And what you have stated will get you laughed at by anyone who actually works in the field.
Those definitions would not be found in freshman textbooks nor any textbooks. They are wrong and they are yours alonge because no one else uses them. If you call physical processes chemical, or you call thermal processes chemical or you call quantum mechanical processes chemical you can't expect to be taken seriously by anyone who knows the difference. Even using terms like low energy and high energy reactions would be questionable.
Wind power is not chemical anymore than hydro. It is a purely mechanical phenomena. There is no chemical change or reaction used to generate wind, unless you were planning on putting your turbines near forest fires. In which case you could say your wind was chemically generated.
And no the same photon can't be used to generate photovoltaic power as the one that generates wind. But in case you havent noticed you still have wind in forests and grasslands both of which are using those same photons to make sugar. The answers are spectrum and heat. Not all the spectrum is used by any particular process and what isnt mostly emerges as heat. Wind is mostly generated through thermal processes, presure differentials and coriolis forces. So that heat from unused solar energy goes to heat things up. This powers the global wind engine.
30 percent solar efficiency in general circulation ? Hmm ?
http://www.sprol.com/?p=265 or http://www.eet.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=53700939
As for solar yes the roof is enough for most people. If you live in an area where you might require backup power its quite preferable. The cost is comparable to putting in a whole house backup generator and it paysback from the minute its installed. Also if you need it in backup mode you won't have to be worried about finding gas or propane to run it.
Lets just run your mathematics for the rooftops. lets not use 200 square meters but 20 square meters of converter on the roof. Assume an average period of illumination of 12 hours a day.at 750 watts average power and 20 percent engergy efficiency. 12 hours*20 meters*.75 Kw*20%=36 KWH per day. 36 Killowatt hours a day is more than I use and more than my electric company bills me for. Oh and 80 percent energy inneficiency goes to heat for wind.
Wish I had seen this two days ago. There was a huge MIT link on energy (gone now, maybe you can find it). This is the best MIT link I can find now--browse this and have fun. Don't be turned off by the title, please.
http://www.technologyreview.com/special/oil/index.aspx
Plus, Department of Energy (http://www.doe.gov/), and DOE Science (http://www.doe.gov/sciencetech/index.htm) have a wealth of info.
I know, better is always coming down the pike. In this case, it's really, really true.
I don't buy it. I wouldn't mind seeing an estimate of what percentage of the land mass of the US would have to be committed to creating enough ethanol and biodiesel to replace our oil consumption. I'm sure it would be as unreal as the wind and solar figures. Not to mention the price we would pay for both is a lot higher than we are paying for either gasoline or diesel fuel right now.
If we solve the electrical problem (nuclear), everything else solves itself. We could heat homes with electricity instead of natural gas and diesel fuel and use natural gas for transportation purposes instead.
and I can tell you what happened to a solar water heater in hurricane Wilma. There used to be one on a house in our neighborhood --- its now in the Bahamas somewhere, along with much of the roof it was attached to :-)
It really depends on the feed stock. If soybeans were used it would not be very effective.
"Production of diesel from algae could be done for far less than the current cost of diesel. Algae can also be used to make other products like methane. All of the U.S. diesel needs can be met using only 1-3 million acres of land (about 2-5% of the currently fallow cropland in the U.S. and less than the size of the state of Connecticut)."
"If rapeseed were grown on every acre of cropland available in the United States in 2002, an estimated 36.3 billion gallons of oil could be produced--very close to current national demand."
This is not a silver bullet but should not be dismissed just because the green nuts like it.
enough to know you don't pull 35Kw and if you're familiar with your house you know that, too.
The capital costs need to be factored in. Even if the capital costs were prohibitive but the ongoing costs were dirt cheap, that is not an argument for government to step in and fund the capital costs and make it viable. That is an argument to look elsewhere until the capital costs are reasonable.
We should be using a lot more diesel here, but with the constant meddling with diesel powerplants, fuel, and emissions by the EPA, it isn't much of a surprise that we don't. We also burn a lot of diesel to heat homes... if we could build out cheap electricity generation so it's half the cost that it is today, it would make sense to convert homes to electric heat. If you just solve the electric problem, you can solve the entire problem.
...the four fundamental forces of nature: electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Electromagnetism and the weak forces have since been successfully unified as the "electroweak" force, and IIRC the strong force has also been integrated into the same framework. Gravity is described by general relativity (which is a "classical" theory) and remains unintegrated with the other theories to this day.
Now you've really got me thinking. I buy that my definition of chemcial reaction is wrong somehow, cause you make a good point with steel. Then again, if I cool down tin to low enough, it crumbles into powder because of a phase change. I consider that to be a chemical reaction of some kind. I guess we'd need a certified chemist at this point, but I yield that my definition could use work.
The Weak force is the 4th force (after gravity, E&M, and Nuclear aka "strong" force), and is responsible for beta decay. I don't know why or how. Van der Waals forces are the electromagnetic manifestation of stochastic fluctuations in outer shell electron positions (say that 10x fast).
As for biofuels, you are right that powering a car is a specific challenge, since we shouldn't put a nuclear engine in each one (although that'd make road rage pretty frickin awesome). What practically will wind up happening is that nuclear power will be used to either make hydrocarbons out of C02 and H20, or it will be used to split water. Since both of these are as easy or easier than biofuels, they'll probably win out in terms of cost too. My guess is that the first one would dominate, since I don't want to drive around on top of a hydrogen fuel explosive.
Efficiency is the elephant in the corner that people always forget about. There are very simple technologies available now that will cut by a huge percentage the amount of energy used to heat homes, heat water, drive cars, drive manufacturing etc... and they are often ignored while consumers and industry simply cry for more energy production.
I don't get it. If you can get more benefit from a small investment in better insulation, newer equipment, passive-solar water heaters (this is not photovoltaics), and basic green-architectural princpals, what's stopping people from doing it? Is it fear of the outlay cost or lack of education or some kind of combo?
Just my two cents.
I have few joys in life. Let me nit pick at a few definitions ;)
Seems like you would get the same heat island effect you get from cities, only much worse because of the density and the absorption rate of the material being used. If nothing else it seems that massive solar arrays would fall under the category of habitat destruction. There are probably all kinds of endangered rats, snakes, and bugs that would be unhappy with the new situation.
- What would be the capital cost to under go such a venture? The profits would have to make up for capital spent plus the obligatory 8% return at min.
- The U.S does not drive diesel vehicles on the whole and there would have to be a transition to it. If you read the source there were some assumptions made and I of course used the most promising part of the quote. First it assumes a free CO2 source (i.e. power plant exhaust) So it might be limited to the amount of power plants it could piggy back off of. It also said it would cost double the price of 1998 diesel (.59 cents at the time) to produce. This should still be fairly accurate since the increase cost of diesel has been primarily due to the increase in a barrel of crude.
This is untried technology. If it works well great if not back to the drawing board. As you say though the market should decide and if the government nudges a little here or there to be more beneficial to the United States (i.e. not oil). All the better.
I try to stay away from the dung. ;)
Actually I presented a science project related to biodiesel at one of the Engineering Open Houses they have there. I meet the pig dung people but I have to admit I had no desire to go see their project so I really can't speak to it. They have been doing that at the UofI for at least 4 or 5 years now and presenting it. If it was very viable I'd think we'd be hearing more about it by now.
guys at U of IL making crude oil out of Pig dung? Corben aren't you around that area?
I'm going to put PV on my house in Anchorage, AK, when I finally get it built...
Just think of the energy production in the summer.
On the other hand, I hope they have better energy storage capabilities then than they do now. Or I'd lose most of that energy before my high-energy-use time of year came around...
Rotational energy...
The uses of dogs, opening doors and knee jittering is forthcoming.
Thats why its important not to give them openings. If you give them something to work with they will use it. The greens are the worst of the lot. You are making a valid point about the desirability of nuclear power but the nature of your argument encourages attack.
The kinetic energy definition I used is accurate down to the limits of measurement for any power generation situation on earth. You can use it to calculate the energy of a stream, a breeze or a hurricane.
I should have include this link which describes 2 deployments of the stirling energy system http://www.stirlingenergy.com/solar_projects.htm. Theres also the SEGS system operating in california. So yes they are deployed and their costs are within the ballpark. As you point out that their hidden energy costs in products so there are hidden costs in oil itself. What has been the cost for our millitary presence in the middle east per barrel of oil ? My point is that this technology is in the ballpark.
For what its worth the company uses an estimate that a hundred square miles of collectors could provide the entirety of U.S. Electrical demand. I am not advocating this but it is viable.
I don't know where the numbers you are using for energy use are coming from. This from the DOE http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/efficiency/2005_IAEE.pdf shows that household energy use runs 20% or so of the total us budget. When you consider the fact rooftop solar photovoltaic can be combined with passive solar heating you are talking about better than 15% of our net energy budget being replaced. This is not chump change and if we could do it now for oil you would see gas below a buck a gallon.
Nuclear is perfectly fine. I am a long time believer in nuclear power. Given the current world situation every oil fired power plant in the country should be replaced with a nuclear reactor. The argument for it needs to be made correctly or it will not make any headway.
Is that about the Water and Sewers, I think you might just have something...
But you forgot Swings and Merry-Go-Rounds and all the other ways that children run around and give off all that other energy...
is the big barrier on most energy efficiency gimmicks.
The only one that I can write down to ignorance is our propensity to not insulate hot water lines and heating/cooling ducts.
I'm builidng a new house and have looked into a lot of these technologies but the payback period is daunting, often 20+ years.
I had heard of this, but I'm ignorant on the subject. My limited knowledge tells me that the chemicals involved are horribly corrosive, and would need to be used in large quantities to make solar a reality. But I had enough fights on my plate to pick that one. If you have numbers for this, by all means hit me up with them, I've always been curious. Thanks for bringing this up.
Just backing you off a little.
Look, I feel this argument about my definitions has degenerated into extreme pettiness. If you read my last post, I make it expressly clear that I wanted definitions that fit my diary and its purpose. They are just that: my definitions. If I were interfacing with fellow physicists, I would adhere to the standard, different ones. But I'm not, so why be needlessly pedantic? I'm just trying to get the information across to the average viewer as concisely as possible, and one necessarily loses some standardization of terminology doing so.
You seem unable to accept that definitions can be relative. But watch how easy it is to distort other's work! I'll choose yours:
Kinetic Energy
Energy that a body has as a result of its motion. Mathematically, it is defined as one-half the product of a body's mass and the square of its speed
Is this correct? The same as with mine, the answer is "depends on the context." In fact, the more precise definition, and the one that quantum mechanics uses, is momentum squared over twice the mass. Not only that, but you forgot to account for relativistic corrections. Your formula is not strictly correct, because it does not account for discrepancies between rest and relativistic mass, now does it? But why on earth would I knit pick this, since in the context of terrestrial velocities, it's "good enough"?
Let's just agree to disagree and drop it, so we can focus on the policy stuff where we can do some good rather than quibble.
Our wind vs solar argument has degenerated from its original heights, which weren't that lofty (har har) to begin with. Basically, as long as you agree, which you do, that you can't "double count" wind and solar from the same solar photons, then we basically agree.
As for your link, I read it. Exactly like I forecast, it's a laboratory sponsored prototype with no up and running units in industry, only promises for the future, and promises are worth little. There have been promises of super efficient solar panels for 50 years now. Until it's built and running and being sold, it's a fairy tale. They also refuse to release operating costs, not exactly inspiring. They have a contract to build a 300-900 MW plant out west, which amounts to slightly less than 10^15 joules per year, or less than one in 10,000 our need. For 1.5 x as expensive as current costs. Swell.
I think your response to my roof calculations is extremely misleading, if not downright weak. Yes, it is possible to run solar paneling on your roof and take care of the energy costs of that house. (Ignoring the ridiculous costs, but whatever). But that's missing the entire point that your house is not the source of the majority of your energy usage.
Like I said last time, even if every house self powered, that would still be only 10^18 joules per year. We use 10^20. The missing 99% go to things like the energy it took to make the wood that makes your furniture, and the energy it takes your car to move to get the groceries at the store. Those groceries took energy to transport and bottle. And so on. If you can't give me 10^20 joules, then you haven't solved the problem. Great, you have a house. But you can't buy anything for it since those things didn't get made, you can't have an army to defend it cause you have no fuel, and you have no car to get to work, which also has no lights, since you work in an office building too tall to power with solar.
Isn't nuclear just easier than all of this?
Have you (or anyone else) heard anything about CWT's thermal depolymerization process? Last thing I heard was that the pilot plant in Carthage was having financial problems because the feedstock price hadn't dropped the way they were expecting, and that they'd closed the plant due to odors.
We have a lot of "hog feed lots" in the upper midwest. That's basically a PC way of describing an industrial pig farm. Two things that come from pigs are (a) yummy bacon, and (b) manure. In point of fact, pigs produce a lot more manure than bacon, and the "lagoons" of the stuff are getting to be a problem. I can envision a TDP operation in the upper midwest killing two mighty big birds with one stone, and it's hard for me to beleive that a TDP plant can give off worse odors than a lagoon of liquid pig manure.
Lots of people run their houses on 5kw generators in the case of emergency. That's not enough to run everything but good enough for the important stuff. 10kw is pretty comfortable. Unless you have a lot of industrial equipment or a cryogenics lab that you are need to keep running in your living room, you don't need 35kw. Do the solar cells generate anywhere near that much power?
my bad... i guess I'm a little slow.
Do you smash doors often? Does it hurt? How many cookies do you have to eat to get the energy to do that?
Given the apparent level of education in the relevant fields that no one has mentioned the 2nd Most Important Reason Solar Power is so expensive and unwieldy (and, coincidentally, the reason even the Greenies are only lukewarm in Solar Power's favour):
The byproducts of the creation of Solar Panels are Toxic Waste.
When Solar Panels break down and are disposed of, they must be treated as Toxic Waste because of the effects they have on the environment.
So my first objection is that 350 megawatts amounts to 1 part in 100,000 of our energy usage. Unless you can find 100,000 California deserts, which are some of the prime real estate for solar, we're out of luck. Try that business in Toledo, Ohio, or Fairbanks Alaska and see how far you get.
Also, your objection that nuclear power is too close to weapons strikes me as very hypocritical. Let's look at the score card:
Fuel for Nuclear plants: Uranium
People killed by Uranium weapons: ~ 100,000
Fuel for chemical plants: oil and other combustibles
People killed by oil and other combustibles : 100 million and counting, hard to say since there aren't accurate body counts for every war fought since the invention of gunpowder and other incendiaries.
So if your criteria for power generation is the blood on the hands of its fuel, then your outrage is very selective.
Hell, I bet more than 100,000 people have died of skin cancer from solar exposure. The ultimate killer: solar power.
Terrestrial solar is a niche product, and it will always be a niche product. Have you ever seen the EnviroMission solar chimney?
As you can see it is a very large assumption of 12 hrs of sunlight a day. In Illinois the winter is almost completely overcast. Solar panels would be a waste for me. Wind power is also localized in its usefulness. This again would be a waste for me.
I'd like to point out to all those knocking 30% efficiency with solar that nuclear power plants are some where between 30-40% efficient. See all that steam coming out the top? See Carnot efficiency formulas.
That's the best physics I've ever seen. You only forgot one thing:
Bob Taft's approval rating.
Awesome job
had chosen to purchase a generator designed for a small business or industrial facility then, I, too, could have spend an exorbitant amount of money. As I am familiar with the amount of electrical current that my house uses, it doesn't need 35Kw and neither does your, BTW, your info is pretty irrelevant
Either of these will more than service your home for any period of time you local utility is down:
http://www.guardiangenerators.com/Products/Residential/GUARDIAN/GUARDIAN13k
W.aspx
http://www.guardiangenerators.com/Products/Residential/QuietSource/QuietSou
rce16kW.aspx
Both of these do include the tie-in, though the installation is not included. Your gas company will provide the underground tank as part of their service arrangement if you don't want to buy it. My gas company will provide the tank, fill it, install 40-ft of high pressure line and the regulator at the house for $1300. Total price for 16Kw and tank, installed: $5200.
So if you want to set as a standard buying a product you don't need, then you are right. If you want to set as a standard rationality, then you are wrong.
I think those ought to be supplying the electricity to each & every state & metro area...
The generator would have to supply my peak needs or I would have to add in an energy storage system in addition to the generator. The solar by its nature factors in with a storage system that can provide peak power. The other problem is if you use a battery storage system with a motor generator combo is you have to convert the power output from the generator to the batterys level and back again whereas solar can be setup to deliver energy in a manner that will either directly charge batteries or be very near ideal.
I'd have to get the word from my father about it (and he's in Nome this week). He's the Environmental Engineer.
Is a little Passe (sp?). I smash cars now. And I moved on from cookies (even Girl Scout Cookies) to the much higher-energy Tootsie-Rolls...
...because the structure of GR is so different from the quantum theories that are used to describe the other three forces in a unified way. This of course may simply reflect the state of our mathematics, but it just may reflect reality ;-).
Hadn't done it since last year
http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?BV_SessionID
=@@@@0917699546.1153830926@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdcaddiglekkdecgelceffdfgid
gln.0&CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=misc/searchResults.jsp&MID=9876&
amp;N=2984+3004&pos=n04
The Home Depot: Guardian QuietSource 5259T 35,000 Watt (LP) / 35,000 Watt (NG) Liquid Cooled Standby Generator
This doesnt include installation which I had priced out at 2 grand not including tie in switch and rewiring. The burried propane tanks run another 2 to 3 grand
I was only expecting to pull 20kw peak rms and thats because I would have to move parts of my business into my house and have employees come in. Wilma really hurt last year not just because I was down but my customers were down as well.
Outages of less than 3 days are just cheaper and better to endure. If you are well prepared and healthy its not a hardship and the quiet and peace is a nice contrast to the modern world. As to the heat if you don't like it don't live in florida.
The best generator that fit on home depots page was the 35kw. My own guestimation is that with motor surge currents I would need to have that level of safety factor unless I didnt mind having problems with our equipment. In either the solar or the gas case I would also need a means to provide surge power.
The nice thing about solar was that I could expect a hefty cut on my electric bill from day one. Wereas with a generator it would still have to maintained test fired every so often and if I ever did need it the electricity is horrendously expensive. Here is what I used http://www.homepower.htmlplanet.com/solar-vs-diesel-generators.html
Solar Energy vs a Diesel Generator for Home Power to cost them out.
I must admit I was really surprised you could get the installation so cheap and without paying for the gas tanks. Last year when I was looking the deals were much worse.
The latest international fusion reactor is being built in France (The US and Japan tried to get it put in Japan, but we lost), but a bunch of countries including us are in it.
So yes, we'd have it immediately if the project succeeded.
is a nuclear force and is called that (or "weak nuclear force") in physics. But it's actually related to elctromagnetism though.
They are messy, messy, messy and not so good longterm...
IIRC.
...There was some talk of them on RS a littl while back...
But really, it's all just words. Alternative is a relational word: petroleum is an alternative fuel to whale oil; the automobile is an alternative mode of transportation vis-à-vis the horse.
You never make energy. You only harness (a fraction of) its flow.
And arguing over first causes has kept LOTS of college kids up nights. For my money, if you want to boil down energy sources, it's all GRAVITY. Gravity pulled in elemental hydrogen, crushed it, baked it into larger atoms in the hearts of stars, and ultimately causes every form of radiation we see today, except for the faint hiss of the Big Bang itself. And every chemical reaction, every nuclear reaction, every wave on the beach today.
Energy for the Big Bang? Either the Ultimate Free Lunch, or another problem for theologians and philosophers and those college freshmen, awake in their dorms.
As for the critique of solar and the land mass needed, it's not a separate land mass. Distributed energy systems could include road surfaces, big-box stores, your roof, the paint on your car. Nanotech PV is gonna be the new thing; bigger than Electric Banana.
Oh, yeah and wind. I'd WAY rather have wind turbines off Martha's Vineyard than drills in the arctic. I'm not SAYING that I like skeeters and caribou better than I like Kennedys, though. Honest.
We need to be working on a whole portfolio of sources, as lots of writers have suggested.
Don't forget energy, fresh water, and food from cold, deep ocean currents.
Joe
U in sea water. It's just more expensive to obtain then mining the stuff in the ground. The cost still is not prohibitive when taken into consideration that most nuclear power costs come from the initial capital spent not on the fuel.
That said yes there would be some finite amount we could obtain and we would all love fusion to work.
The beauty is that France is working on fusion and if they figure it out do think it would be long before we had it?
As a whole the diary is great. Just wanted to get that praise out there in the midst of all the ChemEs trying to make points picking apart your article. Enough about the trees, let's talk about the forest! (Although I loved the poprocks dialog!)
The solar/wind alternatives are point solutions, not general ones. They may make sense in specific instances but really shouldn't be addressed when discussing the problem as a whole. Also, environmentalists aren't crazy about wind since it kills off birds like crazy. And with solar you have some really large ugly apparati in your formally wide-open beautiful spaces. So you have to wonder about environmentalists...what is their solution, other than obstruction and pie-in-the-sky technologies which aren't practical? Do they seek to regress our nation?
As for the nuke comments...I thought I read somewhere on RedState that we elect to create nuclear waste because we choose not to produce plutonium. If we were to make that change, most waste would be gone. Can't remember where I saw that, maybe some of the doctorates who are picking apart this diary can opine on that one.
certified chemist right here ;)
of course it really is just a very very expensive piece of paper that they hand out to almost anyone now days. (BS Chemical Engineering)
I grant that you may be right on your last one. I still don't know enough about the second. (not a nuclear physicist) Though it is technically nuclear reaction, I don't know if can be classified as the "weak force" as well.
The first one though I can assure you on. There is still no "chemical" change in phase changes.
The problem with this is the equipment is far too expensive and the payback is far too long. If they had a 5 year payback, people would be very interested in them. With a 20+ year payback, you aren't going to see much interest, except from those who want them for emotional or public relations reasons.
the so-called GUT-theories ("Grand unified theory") remained unproven. In fact the evidence required (spontaneous proton decay) was lacking, indicating that the model was amiss in some way. HoweverI have not kept up with these things as much as I used to and it is possible that new evidence has shown up, or the theories have been modified to acount for the non-decay of protons.
Its called the Fischer-Tropsch process. Its a catalytic process that the converts coal to a liquid hydrocarbon mix similar to oil. At current oil prices its economical.
but what you say about the sun and shade could make sense. I wonder if it is hotter over the panels and cooler under them, with no walls (as in a house) from panel to ground, if there would be some convection going on.
Thanks for the info. I'll have to look more into it.