"Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration’s budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly."
The above quotation from the Times of May 7th demonstrates how misguided and disconnected bureaucrats and elected officials are from the real world of energy. Transporting hydrogen has never been a good idea. Why are they even thinking about it?
On March 9, 2009, only two months ago, the following news was released by the Department of Energy:
"Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Successfully Powers Truck Cab and Sleeper in DOE-Sponsored Test
DOE, Delphi, Peterbilt Join to Test Auxiliary Power Unit for Commercial Trucks"
The fuel cell was constructed by Delphi Corporation and ran on straight-from-the-pump diesel fuel. The release went on to say, "The unit is compact and can be configured to use natural gas, bio-diesel, propane, gasoline, coal-derived fuel, or military logistics fuel."
If Dr. Chu and our government would like to focus on projects that will bear fruit more quickly, they need to start paying attention to their own research apparatus at the DOE and the money tax payers are spending on this really outstanding research.
The current liquid fuels transportation infrastructure can support fuel cells run on methanol and diesel. This is the future of automotive propulsion.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
How Many Windmills Does It Take?
In the last post, we estimated that the U.S. would need to double (more or less) the electric generating capacity, 1,000,000MW, in order to power a fleet of 135,000,000 electric cars. Remember, we left out trucks and buses.
Currently, at the end of 2007 there was about 15,600MW of wind generating capacity. Let's estimate, for argument's sake, that at the end of 2008 there was 20,000MW of wind capacity in the U.S. So how many windmills would it take to charge 135,000,000 automobiles?
Let's orient ourselves with some criteria. There are a number of wind turbine sizes available from manufacturers but for our purposes let's assume that we use the largest size--2.5MW. We also assume that each of these wind turbines is running full tilt (no pun intended) during the six hours we're charging the fleet. The fleet is charged at the same time of day, let's say overnight, and that there is sufficient wind to run the turbines at maximum output. None of this is realistic but we're trying to estimate an order of magnitude.
So, how many? Simplistically: 1,000,000MW divided by 2.5MW per turbine results in 400,000 new wind turbines. If we assume our existing fleet were composed of 2.5MW turbines (which it is not), we would have approximately 8000 wind turbines (20,000 divided by 2.5). There are more wind turbine units in the country because the original sizes were smaller, so it could be 2 or 3 times that number. A truly national study of the number of units required might be significantly larger to account for all of the changing variables.
The point is this: there is no time soon or possibly ever that the U.S. will increase the number of wind turbine units by one or two orders of magnitude. Not feasible.
Of course, one could argue that wind turbines are only one source of renewable energy that could be used, and I concede that. But we could make similar calculations for all of the renewable energy sources combined--and as much as we all would like it to--it's just not going to get us there. Moreover, as I argued in a previous post, electric cars are too inefficient and the infrastructure to support them too capital intensive to pursue this ill advised course. It's not sustainable.
The realistic solution in a future post.
Currently, at the end of 2007 there was about 15,600MW of wind generating capacity. Let's estimate, for argument's sake, that at the end of 2008 there was 20,000MW of wind capacity in the U.S. So how many windmills would it take to charge 135,000,000 automobiles?
Let's orient ourselves with some criteria. There are a number of wind turbine sizes available from manufacturers but for our purposes let's assume that we use the largest size--2.5MW. We also assume that each of these wind turbines is running full tilt (no pun intended) during the six hours we're charging the fleet. The fleet is charged at the same time of day, let's say overnight, and that there is sufficient wind to run the turbines at maximum output. None of this is realistic but we're trying to estimate an order of magnitude.
So, how many? Simplistically: 1,000,000MW divided by 2.5MW per turbine results in 400,000 new wind turbines. If we assume our existing fleet were composed of 2.5MW turbines (which it is not), we would have approximately 8000 wind turbines (20,000 divided by 2.5). There are more wind turbine units in the country because the original sizes were smaller, so it could be 2 or 3 times that number. A truly national study of the number of units required might be significantly larger to account for all of the changing variables.
The point is this: there is no time soon or possibly ever that the U.S. will increase the number of wind turbine units by one or two orders of magnitude. Not feasible.
Of course, one could argue that wind turbines are only one source of renewable energy that could be used, and I concede that. But we could make similar calculations for all of the renewable energy sources combined--and as much as we all would like it to--it's just not going to get us there. Moreover, as I argued in a previous post, electric cars are too inefficient and the infrastructure to support them too capital intensive to pursue this ill advised course. It's not sustainable.
The realistic solution in a future post.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Electric Cars: The Electric Infrastructure Required
My literary agent passes on articles to me (She's really helpful.) from time to time and I like to comment on them here. I do this to illustrate and quantify people's qualitative assessments. Back in February I wrote a post about electric cars and suggested that the electric generating infrastructure required should be examined very carefully. So let's do a little quantitative examination of the infrastructure required.
First, let's establish some facts. There are 17,342 electric generators in the U.S. and they have a nameplate capacity of approximately 1,000,000 Megawatts. A Megawatt equals 1,000,000 Watts or 1000 kilowatts. There are 244 Million motor vehicles in the U.S., 135 Million cars and the rest are trucks and buses.
Let's set some design criteria to size our infrastructure. First, I want my infrastructure to be built in phases. So I'm only going to design and build enough power plants, transmission lines and distribution lines to charge and power 135 Million automobiles. We'll deal with the trucks and buses later. In addition, let's size the electric car's motor and let's be realistic. A Honda Civic has a 140 horsepower engine which amounts to a 104kW electric motor. That's realistic. Phoenix Motorcars of Ontario, California provides its SUT/SUV vehicle specifications that I think are realistic. The top speed is 95 miles per hour; it can travel 100+ miles per charge; in can go 0-60 in less than 10 seconds and it requires 6.6 kilowatts for a five to six hour charge. The motor is 147 horsepower or 110 kW. Torque is 369 ft-lbs.
So how much additional power would the U.S. require to instantaneously power all of these vehicles. The utilities that provide electricity to each of us must design and build enough power stations to supply the peak load plus a reserve or capacity margin. The margin is an amount of oversupply in case power plants have an unanticipated outage and avoids blackouts. It's why power in the country is available virtually continuously.
Let's calculate the instantaneous additional power required:
135,000,000 x 6.6 kilowatts = 891,000,000 kilowatts or 891,000 Megawatts.
When one adds a 15% capacity margin, the figure increases to 1,024,650 Megawatts, doubling existing electric generating capacity in the U.S. I have personal, hands-on experience as an engineer and a banker in the construction of power plants. It is a vastly massive undertaking. The people who do it routinely in this country are unknown and unsung . . . except by me, of course, and I have high respect for them and high regard for their skill.
Of course this is an instantaneous figure. It assumes we're all plugged in at the same time. It does not account for time zones, different driving characteristics, different characteristics of the many utility service territories in the country, different size vehicles, different battery technology, and the current overall utilization rate of existing power plants, etc., but it is in the ballpark. One can argue one way or another that it's three quarters of that figure or 50% greater. But it is huge. It is extremely costly. And I haven't begun a discussion of the transmission lines, and the opposition to building them, that would be required as well.
In the next post, we'll take a look at how many power plants would be required and how much electricity renewable energy would need to generate to power the theoretical electric vehicle fleet of the future.
First, let's establish some facts. There are 17,342 electric generators in the U.S. and they have a nameplate capacity of approximately 1,000,000 Megawatts. A Megawatt equals 1,000,000 Watts or 1000 kilowatts. There are 244 Million motor vehicles in the U.S., 135 Million cars and the rest are trucks and buses.
Let's set some design criteria to size our infrastructure. First, I want my infrastructure to be built in phases. So I'm only going to design and build enough power plants, transmission lines and distribution lines to charge and power 135 Million automobiles. We'll deal with the trucks and buses later. In addition, let's size the electric car's motor and let's be realistic. A Honda Civic has a 140 horsepower engine which amounts to a 104kW electric motor. That's realistic. Phoenix Motorcars of Ontario, California provides its SUT/SUV vehicle specifications that I think are realistic. The top speed is 95 miles per hour; it can travel 100+ miles per charge; in can go 0-60 in less than 10 seconds and it requires 6.6 kilowatts for a five to six hour charge. The motor is 147 horsepower or 110 kW. Torque is 369 ft-lbs.
So how much additional power would the U.S. require to instantaneously power all of these vehicles. The utilities that provide electricity to each of us must design and build enough power stations to supply the peak load plus a reserve or capacity margin. The margin is an amount of oversupply in case power plants have an unanticipated outage and avoids blackouts. It's why power in the country is available virtually continuously.
Let's calculate the instantaneous additional power required:
135,000,000 x 6.6 kilowatts = 891,000,000 kilowatts or 891,000 Megawatts.
When one adds a 15% capacity margin, the figure increases to 1,024,650 Megawatts, doubling existing electric generating capacity in the U.S. I have personal, hands-on experience as an engineer and a banker in the construction of power plants. It is a vastly massive undertaking. The people who do it routinely in this country are unknown and unsung . . . except by me, of course, and I have high respect for them and high regard for their skill.
Of course this is an instantaneous figure. It assumes we're all plugged in at the same time. It does not account for time zones, different driving characteristics, different characteristics of the many utility service territories in the country, different size vehicles, different battery technology, and the current overall utilization rate of existing power plants, etc., but it is in the ballpark. One can argue one way or another that it's three quarters of that figure or 50% greater. But it is huge. It is extremely costly. And I haven't begun a discussion of the transmission lines, and the opposition to building them, that would be required as well.
In the next post, we'll take a look at how many power plants would be required and how much electricity renewable energy would need to generate to power the theoretical electric vehicle fleet of the future.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Fuel Cell Catalysts: The Inexpensive Alternative
My literary agent was kind enough to send me an article on the potential replacement of platinum as a reactive catalyst in fuel cells, replacing it with an iron and carbon-based alternative. Commercialized, this would be an extreme breakthrough in the state of the art of the fuel cell. Since I am currently writing the chapter on fuels cells for my book (Energy: The Primer How to Distinguish a BTU From a BLT), it was apropos.
A fuel cell creates electric energy without combustion. Rather, a chemical reaction breaks apart the fuel, likely hydrogen, although other fuels can be used, and sends the electrons through an electric circuit. This can drive a car motor or any electrical device. The electron then recombines with its hydrogen nucleus and air, forming water out the tail pipe.
Source: http://www.p2sustainabilitylibrary.mil/issues/emergeoct2005/index.html
There are two important points about fuel cells: (1) They create little or no pollution and (2) They are much more efficient than the internal combustion engine. A Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell, like the one pictured above, can achieve efficiencies of up to 45%, nearly twice that of the internal combustion engine. PEM fuel cells operate at low temperatures, 150 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Other types of fuel cells operate at temperatures up to 1800 degrees, making them candidates for combination with a steam cycle (rankine cycle, similar to today's combustion/steam turbine combined cycle power plants) and achieving efficiencies of 60% to 80%.
The fuel cell is not new but it is our future. It is the reason people can travel through and live in space because it provides electricity and water. It's applications are endless from locomotion to distributed generation to stationary power plant applications. It will reduce pollution dramatically and fuel consumption in all applications by 50%. Imagine, a fuel cell propelled car routinely getting 40 to 50 miles per gallon and power plants with twice the efficiencies they average today.
This is where U.S. energy policy should lead us. If I were president . . . .
A fuel cell creates electric energy without combustion. Rather, a chemical reaction breaks apart the fuel, likely hydrogen, although other fuels can be used, and sends the electrons through an electric circuit. This can drive a car motor or any electrical device. The electron then recombines with its hydrogen nucleus and air, forming water out the tail pipe.
Source: http://www.p2sustainabilitylibrary.mil/issues/emergeoct2005/index.html
There are two important points about fuel cells: (1) They create little or no pollution and (2) They are much more efficient than the internal combustion engine. A Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell, like the one pictured above, can achieve efficiencies of up to 45%, nearly twice that of the internal combustion engine. PEM fuel cells operate at low temperatures, 150 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Other types of fuel cells operate at temperatures up to 1800 degrees, making them candidates for combination with a steam cycle (rankine cycle, similar to today's combustion/steam turbine combined cycle power plants) and achieving efficiencies of 60% to 80%.
The fuel cell is not new but it is our future. It is the reason people can travel through and live in space because it provides electricity and water. It's applications are endless from locomotion to distributed generation to stationary power plant applications. It will reduce pollution dramatically and fuel consumption in all applications by 50%. Imagine, a fuel cell propelled car routinely getting 40 to 50 miles per gallon and power plants with twice the efficiencies they average today.
This is where U.S. energy policy should lead us. If I were president . . . .
Monday, March 23, 2009
Smart Grid
A smart grid is more than smart. It can be entertaining too. Utilities look at their wires in the most utilitarian way. You see, Broadband Over Powerlines is a real technology that can give utilities much more information about and control over the grid.
Think of the simplest things. What if the utility stopped burning gasoline, tires and shoe leather to read your meter each month. Wouldn't it be simpler to install a chip in your electric meter that is the same one on your cell phone? All it has to do is call the billing office once per month, report the kilowatt-hours you've used and send you a bill. That's smart. Or . . . just send the data back over the power lines to the billing office.
During blackouts it is sometimes difficult for utilities to pinpoint every home without power. What if the cell phone in the meter had a battery backup and called the utility office to report it was not getting power. Simple.
But there is more that a smart grid can do. It can provide continuous feedback to the utility about power usage throughout the day and night. Possibly avoiding widespread blackouts during peak times by doing rotating load shedding. It can provide you with time of day pricing. You want to run the dishwasher or washing machine after 10:00 p.m.? You can have a discount.
But there's more. Broadband over power lines can provide entertainment. Cable, telephone and internet services can be brought in over power lines. Imagine, every electric plug in your home can be a broadband data port and provide you with many services competitively.
It would be nice to have a little competition for your entertainment dollar, rather than the monopolies that control them now. Wouldn't it?
Think of the simplest things. What if the utility stopped burning gasoline, tires and shoe leather to read your meter each month. Wouldn't it be simpler to install a chip in your electric meter that is the same one on your cell phone? All it has to do is call the billing office once per month, report the kilowatt-hours you've used and send you a bill. That's smart. Or . . . just send the data back over the power lines to the billing office.
During blackouts it is sometimes difficult for utilities to pinpoint every home without power. What if the cell phone in the meter had a battery backup and called the utility office to report it was not getting power. Simple.
But there is more that a smart grid can do. It can provide continuous feedback to the utility about power usage throughout the day and night. Possibly avoiding widespread blackouts during peak times by doing rotating load shedding. It can provide you with time of day pricing. You want to run the dishwasher or washing machine after 10:00 p.m.? You can have a discount.
But there's more. Broadband over power lines can provide entertainment. Cable, telephone and internet services can be brought in over power lines. Imagine, every electric plug in your home can be a broadband data port and provide you with many services competitively.
It would be nice to have a little competition for your entertainment dollar, rather than the monopolies that control them now. Wouldn't it?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
SUSTAINABILITY
We hear this word from time to time, so I thought we would examine it further. Apples, they're sustainable. Oranges too. Crops in general, barring some catastrophic event, are sustainable. It means we can perpetuate something, virtually forever.
However, with respect to energy,we are not currently in sustainable mode. The United States and the rest of the world have vast supplies of fossil fuels. They will last hundreds of years, maybe more. But they're not sustainable. We cannot perpetuate them beyond their finite limits, notwithstanding their abundance.
So, what is sustainable? Certainly, hydroelectric power is sustainable, assuming it continues to rain in some catchment basin forever. Wind power is sustainable, presuming the wind will blow forever. This too is a good assumption. Will the wind blow when you most need it is still up in the air. Solar power is certainly sustainable, at least for the five billion years of sunlight we have left. It presumes we have sufficient materials to continue to build solar collectors and photovoltaic cells. This is also a good assumption for the foreseeable future. But the sun shines on its own terms.
That's supply side sustainability. And at the moment with current technology the sustainability of these wonderful resources will not provide sufficient energy to displace fossil fuels long into the future . . . and maybe never. I'm not any happier than anyone else about that, but realism when it comes to sustainability is no vice. Paraphrased and stolen from, possibly, Cicero.
Unfortunately, we don't have enough demand side sustainability. Maybe I should say that the other way around. We have too much demand side sustainability. As a society, we constantly, almost mindlessly, sustain our demand for energy. Think of it in terms of two statistics: population growth and consumptive growth. Nothing is static.
There are seven billion people on planet earth. In one hundred years, who knows, that could increase by fifty percent. I didn't look up the estimates. Doesn't matter. All of those people will use energy. They're not going to sacrifice. In terms of growth in consumption, just look at yourself and others around you. Be honest. Desktop? Laptop? Blackberry? Cell phone? More than one? Digital camera? LCD or Plasma TV? Shall I go on?
Let's take something simple, like the digital camera. Are you willing to go back to using 35 millimeter film in a single lens reflex camera ? I date myself. The SLR didn't require a charge and only needed a battery for the flash. And a little flat battery for the light meter that lasted for years. Is such a thing even available any more, except on Ebay?
People are not willing to go backwards, no matter how many of us vocalize for sustainability. But there is an energy source that is sustainable and possibly forever, as best one can determine that period of time. I refer to the nuclear fast breeder reactor. This reactor actually creates more fuel than it uses. It can perpetuate the current known stock of uranium by 100 fold. And if we use the vast amounts of uranium that are in the sea, it is as close to sustainability as one can get with the population and consumption growth we experience.
Is this easy? No. Does it require resolve? Indeed. Is it a more plausible goal with the cooperation of the world's governments? Of course. Is there risk of proliferation? There is. But there are risks in everything we do. And when it comes to energy, it's all dirty in one form or another. No matter what technology we use, it creates something to clean up after. The question is do we run after tens of billions of annual tons of pollutants in the atmosphere? Or do we deal with a football field's worth of nuclear spent fuel and reprocessing risk over a long period of time? Let me know?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The Invincible Ignorance of Government Officials
Ian Bowles, the secretary of energy and environmental affairs for the State of Massachusetts contributed an Op-Ed piece to the New York Times yesterday, March 6, 2009. After reading it, I had that sinking feeling in my stomach when I hear yet another government official get it wrong. Let’s tackle some major points one by one.
It’s admirable that President Obama would like to double renewable energy in three years. But it’s not likely. In three years, we’ll see. But let’s be realistic. There is just not enough renewable energy to double renewables (including hydroelectric power) from the current 7% of total energy consumed to 14% in that time period. Currently, coal contributes 22% of all energy consumed, mostly for electric power generation, and that represents 49% of all of the electricity generated in the United States. Are we really going to produce enough renewable energy in three years to essentially displace one third of the billion-plus tons of coal we burn each year? Natural gas represents 23%, petroleum 40% and nuclear power is 8% of all energy consumed. Biomass and hydroelectric power represent 89% of the 7% of renewables that we consume now. Government officials have to start reading their own government’s statistics produced by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) before they spout this blather. In 2030 the EIA estimates that non-hydroelectric renewable energy will account for about 8% of all the energy consumed in the U.S.
There is a lot of hot air coming out of Washington and state capitals about renewables but let’s be factual. Ian Bowles wants offshore wind but it has been no easy task for developers to build a wind project off the coast of Massachusetts in Nantucket Sound. Opposition from Senator Kennedy and others have delayed this project. And the Long Island wind project was buried because Long Islanders just didn’t want to look at wind mills that were 400 feet tall and had a 400 foot wing span. Moreover, Mr. Bowles and others like him promote hydroelectric plants, but try getting one built in this country. There is no more big hydro coming because of objections ranging from fish spawning, recreational use of rivers, water usage fights, silting and huge water impoundments that submerge vast amounts of real estate along with the towns and people displaced by the deluge. There were protests in the states over the Three Gorges project in China. Everyone wants renewable energy until you start using vast amounts of their land near to where they live.
Mr. Bowles doesn’t like large transmission lines. He says that transmission losses “gobbles up an estimated 2 percent to 3 percent of electricity nationally.” First, let’s get this straight: Transmission and Distribution losses gobble up as much as 9% of the electricity generated at the power plant. That’s just a fact and it has not prevented us from building transmission in the past and it will not do so in the future. I commend to Mr. Bowles the EIA’s Annual Energy Review 2007, page 221, footnote “f”. It’s right there in the fine print. We need big transmission for important reasons. People do not want to live near power plants, so they are more often than not in more remote areas. We have to transmit that power to the load center. Moreover, more transmission lines will de-bottleneck the very inadequate electric transmission system in the country and reduce the need for additional generation. That means less fuel burned, less pollutants in the air and less carbon dioxide. I also commend to Mr. Bowles the "National Electric Transmission Congestion Study" produced by the DOE in August 2006.
The final point I’ll address is cap and trade. This is tantamount to a tax on all of us because the extent to which we burn fossil fuels, all of which contain carbon to one extent or another, will not be reduced for decades. And they will only be reduced in any significant way if we have a comprehensive (non-political) energy policy with real teeth. EIA’s statistics for all energy use that I quoted above show us that 85% (coal: 22%, natural gas: 23%, petroleum: 40%) of all energy used comes from carbon-producing fossil fuel. The cap and trade tax is a pretext. It will not reduce carbon any time soon but it will burden all of us, especially the least capable among us of paying it, with more taxes that our central government can waste. It's just taxes gussied up to look like something else.
With respect to an energy policy with teeth, if I were president . . . .
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