This just in: The Obama Deficit Reduction Plan

[skeptic]

Thank you Calico for the info on California roofs. I have thought exactly that for a while now; and it is simply common sense. Then, again, we cannot forget the "common sense" seems to be very uncommon. But, having a house in the desert, I am quite aware of how fragile that environment is; and it is the transmission grid that is the larger issue, as it would require huge grading and other disruptive processes in the corridors to the cities.

 

But the people actually living in the desert are beginning to flex their muscles, and have won a number of recent battles in their environmental defense efforts.

 

Interesting thing about wind is that it was the primary source of energy for decades, and still is in parts of the more remote areas. They simply called it a windmill.

[Troop24]

Thanks Gunny for the edit.

[GernBlansten]

Us Americans only consider giant solutions.

Walk down any coastal marina and see little wind generators on nearly every stern rail of the yatchs. About 3 ft in diameter and quietly charging the ships batteries. Now of course, it won't run a blender or microwave, but it is generating juice. They cost under $1000. If every home had one, back feeding the grid (think of the grid as a giant capacitor), it could be a part of the solution.

[packsaddle]

Gern, those wind chargers require, you know, wind. Here in the South, except for the coast, we don't have much of it. The solar technologies would make more sense.

When I was very young my grandfather lived on an island off the west coast of Florida. I had 'my' room on the third floor where the widow's walk was. There was no water supply other than the rainwater cistern. And he had a solar hot water heater, homemade. The hot water was hot enough to scald and we had to be very careful. Needless to say, the 'cold' water wasn't. It also had visible mosquito larvae and zooplankton wiggling in it sometimes. I suppose I have a really good immune system. But going to spend the summer there was the time of my life. And I didn't even know it at the time.

Anyway, I'm a strong advocate for solar hot water, especially in my neck of the woods.

[scoutingagain]

Maybe there is hope for a rational response to the deficit.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Deficitcutting-plan-wins-more-apf-1861666462.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

 

SA

[vol_scouter]

Gern,

 

I am all for folks having ways to decrease their personal energy requirements with wind, solar, and geothermal so I agree with people using such devices. I doubt that the $1,000.00 wind turbine used to charge a yacht's batteries will save enough to pay for itself which is why such things are slow to catch on.

 

However, the grid is not a capacitor nor does it store energy. This is a common misperception. Energy demand must be closely matched by supply. Having a large amount of wind and solar power to suddenly be added to the grid causes enormous problems that can jeopardize the entire grid. It can also endanger power plants. Also, those alternative sources tend to add during the day and cease overnight which is difficult to match with nuclear. Such variation is best matched with gas or coal. The coverage of those variations with fossil fuel plants may result in more total consumption of fossil fuels than not having the wind, solar, and geothermal on the grid (recent publication that I scanned). Heating water and assisting in heating one's domicile with wind, solar, and geothermal makes sense but connecting to the grid seems to me to be fraught with problems.

[GernBlansten]

Nonsense.

Feeding energy back into the grid reduces the requirement for power plants to run at peak capacity. It allows them to throttle back when the multitude of producers are able to generate. It then can pick up the slack when they don't. Like at night.

Sure, the grid isn't a capacitor to store energy, its more of a capacitor to share it and soften the demand spikes. I know, I know. Sharing is a bad word and socialistic. Never mind.

[vol_scouter]

Gern,

 

You obviously have never had basic electrical engineering courses and are reacting emotionally to what you think is the way the grid works. The power grid is in no way a capacitor nor does it store energy. As I have explained before, some power sources can only handle a base load as in nuclear plants. Nuclear plants provide a constant power supply and cannot be adjusted up or done. If wind and solar suddenly provided more power than the difference between the current load and the base load, then the nuclear plant will have to shut down. It is either on or off. After powering a nuclear plant down, the reactor physics shows that the plant will be down for at least 3 days. So what makes up for the rest of the base load? Fossil fuel plants and hydro if available. There is only so much water in a lake so hydro is usually used only to help with peak loads. So for the 3 days the nuclear plant is down, you have to use fossil fuels to supply base load as well as peaks. This will clearly take more fossil fuel than running the nuclear plant continuously. Remember, if something produces electrical energy, it must be balanced with a consumer of the power generated. The energy must go somewhere.

[skeptic]

(recent publication that I scanned).

 

Must be from one of those Texas energy companies like the ones that continue to try to maneuver California to their profit.

[vol_scouter]

No, it was in a peer reviewed journal from an academic center.

[Beavah]

Yah, gotta side with Gern here vol.

 

While you are right that the grid isn't a capacitor, it is a distribution system. Right now in many areas of the country, the output of traditional power plants runs close to 100% with very little reserve in the hot summer months. That's because we haven't built new power plants in decades. So if during those hot summer months there is additional wind and solar added to the grid, it reduces the output of the traditional plants and makes the grid more stable over all.

 

Now, the problem is that our switching equipment is old, eh? The grid in most places is in serious need of a digital upgrade to be able to monitor and control the flows from multiple sources in real time. Mostly, the traditional grid was based on havin' only a couple of power plants locally sited near the demand, all of which could have their output adjusted very quickly to match demand. For solar and wind, especially distributed solar and wind, that is harder to do. So yeh need a major upgrade of the grid monitoring and switching equipment, and yeh need to build long-run transmission lines from the windy and sunny areas to the cities. For the foreseeable future it will be necessary to keep traditional power plants in place to handle load balancing, but they'll be running at less capacity.

 

See http://www.biodieselnow.com/alternative_energy1/f/77/t/22694.aspx

 

One of the tragedies currently occurring is watching da U.S. cede our lead in energy technologies to other nations, especially China. While our fossil fuel lobbyists continue to block alternatives, the level of R&D being done by other nations is staggering. We're settin' up to be dependent on foreign manufacture of energy technology for our needs for the next century.

 

B

 

Beavah

 

[vol_scouter]

Beavah,

 

It is not a matter of taking sides; it is a matter of being correct. Your example is correct. However, the concerns in the EE community is for a fall or spring day (or night) that has a sudden change in local climate - a large change in the wind or solar that would produce power to require the lowering of the base load which requires powering down the nuclear plants. Since the nuclear plants will not be producing power after that for a period of at least 3 days due to the physics of the nuclear reactor. That situation will consume more fossil fuel. That is not a matter of taking sides. Those occurrences may ultimately be rare but one way or the other, managing the power grid with little control over production as well as demand is a difficult problem that many are working upon. It is not a fully solved problem.

 

Now for opinion, biofuels are a bad way to go. The addition of alcohol decreases the lifetime of automobile engines which has an energy cost. Plants like switchgrass are water intensive plants which taxes the water supply. The worst problem is in times of drought, do you want energy or food?

 

There is much being done in energy research in all directions. In order to become the world's leader again, we must replace irrational fears of nuclear power with rational concern for real risks which have already been addressed. We must have a return of heavy industry to this country. The USA cannot build a large scale nuclear plant by itself. The containment vessel must be bought from Japan or China.

 

I have noted that the chemistry and physics Nobel prizes are increasingly being awarded to folks other than Americans. We are losing our lead in all areas of science save medicine (since most of the developed world is socialized, the fund less medical research because it typically increases government costs). The future for America is no longer bright. This can be changed but it does not seem likely.

[Beavah]

Yep, agree with yeh on all that, vol. Our irrational fear of nuclear is a problem, and ethanol is currently absurd (though da corn futures traders have made a fortune on the market as we convert food to fuel). Nuclear in particular is the only viable way of gettin' away from carbon-emitters.

 

Sudden wind loads are easy to control just by feathering the propellers and shuttin' down turbines. Ever drive by a wind farm and note that not all the turbines are runnin'? That's what's goin' on. And solar loads are pretty predictable, eh? The sun rises and sets pretty regularly, and clouds mostly don't evaporate suddenly. Yep, there's a limit to how much steam yeh can let bypass the turbines in a nuke plant before yeh have to shut down reactor cells, but while it's an issue, it's nowhere near as big an issue as you're makin' out.

 

Of course if we build a better grid, then yeh can just send the juice somewhere else that ain't windy. That's the real deal, rather than shuttin' down your wind farm to balance load.

 

I also don't care about gettin' a reactor vessel from somewhere else if it's cheaper that way, eh? That's just a symptom of the other issue: us not havin' the commitment and the tech savvy to make our heavy industry efficient. If yeh can't compete against someone who has to add a whole mess of transport/shipping costs, then yeh deserve to go bust. Our industry has a bad habit of lookin' only at the quarterly report and not re-investing in upgrades or plannin' for the longer term future. When yeh do that as a company, you die. And you should, eh? Not get socialized by a government buyout. It ain't that hard to account for depreciation and plan for upgrades.

 

B

 

 

[sailingpj]

Yeah, if you are driving east from San Francisco you are very likely to see wind farms and cows sharing the land. The thing that bothers me is that in the dozens of times that I have gone by the wind farms most of the windmill are not turning. You will normally see only 2-3 out every 10 windmill spinning. That is definitely not due to a lack of wind. The beautiful golden grass is normally bent over almost to the ground due to the wind, and the windmills that are spinning are going quite rapidly.

 

If you drive around Marin (a county just north of San Francisco) you are very likely to see plenty of solar panels on the roofs of houses and businesses. They really don't look bad.

[vol_scouter]

Beavah,

 

I am trying to make the point that wind, solar, and geothermal cannot just be added to the grid and everything is better. Also, many seem to believe that the energy that is put onto the grid can somehow be saved for later use - not true. There are efforts to make large batteries to do that but each one would be the size of a tractor trailer and has significant environmental costs. As I have said, I think that we should pursue sustainable designs for our domiciles and places of as feasible there. To become more energy independent, the country needs to develop wind, solar, geothermal, and wave action technologies; improve fossil fuels plant efficiencies; and start building nuclear plants NOW (since it takes many years before they produce electricity). We also need to be innovative in using 'waste' energy such as the heat dissipated by nuclear cooling towers might be also used in other ways. At the same time, we must be honest about the entire cost energy wise of different new technologies. People want to forget the energy costs in making and disposing of batteries for the lifetime of hybrid and electric automobiles. We cannot favor technologies just because they seem 'good and clean' but must be honest.

 

Also, you can send electricity to other places (it is done every day by the large utility companies) but there are line losses so you lose energy. Like all things, it is not a panacea.

 

New thread on industrial competitiveness.