Joules for Fools

Clean Coal.  Everyone’s talking about it.  Well, every politician in America is talking about it, at least.  And I can’t blame them.  Being able to clean up and fully utilize North America’s most abundant energy resource is very enticing.  But is it possible?

You may have seen commercials recently for ThisIsReality.org that poke fun at the coal industry for being in ‘denial’ about coal.  “There’s no such thing as clean coal”.

Listen, I’m as liberal as they come.  ThisIsReality.org has the planet’s best interests at heart, but have really lowered themselves by bending facts and making generalizations. They have a page devoted to the “Facts” of clean coal; little one-liners from various groups that make coal seem awful.

I was originally planning to write about PurGen, a new CCS power plant being proposed for Linden, NJ.  After visiting ThisIsReality.org, however, I feel compelled to respond to their “facts” about clean coal.

http://action.thisisreality.org/facts

Burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution.

Coal is a leading source of global warming pollution, but also generates over half of the electricity in the US.   It is also consumed more than any other energy source internationally. (www.eia.doe.gov)

Burning coal is the dirtiest way we produce electricity.

This is true.  Everyone knows that coal is dirty now.  Coal contains more carbon per unit energy than any other fuel.  When energy is released from coal, CO2 is formed.  This is unavoidable.  Clean coal, in concept, takes this CO2, captures it, and stores it somewhere.  CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) is completely novel at the scale necessary to make a dent into coal CO2 emissions.

There are no homes in America powered by “clean” coal.

This is the equivalent of saying that NASA should never have developed a space program because “not a single human being has ever been to the moon”.  As I just mentioned, CCS and clean coal technologies are new and have not been implemented in the United States yet.  Several projects do exist internationally, however.

CO₂ emissions from U.S. coal-based electricity are greater than emissions from all the cars and trucks in America.

I really hate baseless comparisons like this.  Cow farts release more greenhouse gasses than all the cars and trucks in America.

The coal industry is spending millions advertising “clean” coal, but not a single “clean” coal power plant exists in the U.S. today.

In no small part due to close-minded organizations like ThisIsReality.org.

While you might have heard the phrase ‘clean’ coal during the presidential campaign, it’s actually an oxymoron.

This is a quote from Brian Williams on NBC news.  Oh! Well if Brian Williams says so…. it must be true!

There are roughly 600 coal plants producing electricity in the U.S. Not one of them captures and stores its global warming pollution.

You already said this.

‘Clean’ coal is like a healthy cigarette.

Nice analogy, but the quote is from an environmental law attorney from South Carolina.  He’s probably won a lot of lawsuits saying things like this.

There is not a single large-scale demonstration “clean” coal plant in the U.S. today.

Third time saying this.

Virtually all the new coal plants that have been proposed will, just like their predecessors, release 100 percent of the CO₂ they produce into the atmosphere, where it will linger—and contribute to global warming.

This one might be the worst.  Its taken from a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists about coal power and it’s future.  The exact quote is taken from the section of the report discussing NON-CCS plants.  The report actually RECOMMENDS that CCS demonstration projects be implemented throughout the United States.

Although carbon sequestration has been the subject of considerable research and analysis, it has yet to be demonstrated in the form of commercial-scale, fully integrated projects at coal-fired power plants.

Same source as the last “fact”.  This is not a defeatist statement.  This is a hopeful statement.  They want these projects to be demonstrated.  In fact, several CCS projects already exist internationally (although admittedly not at the scale we need).

An investment in wind power produces nearly four times as many jobs as the same investment in coal power. And an investment in solar PV power produces almost twice as many jobs, and building retrofits, more than seven times as many jobs as coal power.

The first “fact” to actually show some merit!  This is arguable, but I’m willing to concede this fact to them.

We don’t have a plant here in the United States today that has commercially installed carbon capture technology.

Sigh.

Without the price on greenhouse gas emissions that is delivered by cap-and-trade mechanisms, CO₂ capture and storage will remain a daydream.

Agreed.  CCS is not economically viable unless a dollar value is added to carbon emissions.  This in no way demerits CCS’ potential.

I’m not trying to say that CCS is the end-all be-all miracle cure for all of our energy problems.  In fact, I really don’t think CCS will make a huge impact at scale.  Coal is still and will always be our dirtiest fuel source.  The point is that I’m being open-minded and willing to look at the facts, the science, the past experience of CCS projects.  I’m willing to look at the fact that China is putting up a new coal-fired plant every 2 weeks.  The coal’s going to get burnt.  Why not use it as efficiently and cleanly as we possibly can?

Anyone who blindly rejects coal as the ‘cigarette’ of energy sources simply does not know that much about energy.  Period.

Next post will be more engineer-y.  I promise.

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The idea for wireless electricity has been around for a while, but the nuts and bolts of it have been difficult to hash out.  A company, inspired by work at MIT, WiTricity has made an adapter of sorts that plugs into a wall, acts as a wireless transmitter and sends electricity to devices such as TVs and phones. The great part of the video is he shows it works.

Considering the obvious market barriers such as high costs and public scrutiny over safety, do you guys see this a game changing technology? Plugging things in is annoying and batteries are bad for the environment (and very expensive).

Perhaps the more interesting question is – do you guys see this as being something that can be scaled up to transmit power directly from the plant to cities and homes? The advantages of wireless transmission on grid congestion would be immense. Questions to think about would be, how far can the electricity be transmitted? What would be the limiting factors? Would this make our grid more or less susceptible to attack (we probably would be much safer from the grid crippling squirrels)?

Losses in transmission would be interesting to look at. What sort of currents would be induced in motors or anything with windings caught in the path of the field? Lot of questions…would love to hear what everyone thinks

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Get out your cook-meters folks, we got a live one.

A new engine design patented by Turbine Truck Engines, Inc. (TTE) takes the best aspects of turbines and engines and attempts to synergize them.  Currently in the 5th generation of design, the “Eng-bine” (maybe “Tur-gine”?) boasts:

• no pistons or valves, and uses no lube oil, filters or pumps
• uses over 30% less fuel than current engine technologies
• significantly reduces nitrogen oxide (NO, NO₂, N₂O₂) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions
• operates on all fuels: hydrocarbon, hydrogen and synthetic
• has flex-fuel and mixed fuels capability
• has few moving parts, requiring less maintenance
• has a high power-to-weight ratio
• is lightweight (less than 2 lbs. per hp)
• is air cooled
• has cold start capability

Now we’ve seen cooky engine designs before, but a couple things stand out about the DC-GT.

First, Turbine Truck Engines, Inc is a publicly traded company (TTEG) that just formed an alliance with a premier Chinese manufacturing company, Tianjin Outsky Technology, Inc.

Secondly, the upside is tremendous.  The flex fuel capability combined with the potential increases in fuel efficiency make this engine a revolutionary product.  It also holds promise as a low-maintenance alternative to traditional engines.  I could also see this product with applications in electricity production; the quick start-up time and high efficiency make it an ideal candidate for hybrid-renewable power systems.

So how does it work?

Instead of using pistons, a turbine that looks almost like a Pelton wheel is spun by carefully timed combustion in the “EIC” chambers.  Air is supplied by a single blower, fuel is supplied by separate fuels lines for each chamber.  They claim that the timing is a result of the different lengths of fuel lines as shown below.   The chamber at the end of the blue arrows will detonate first, since the line is shorter (Not sure if I buy this).

Once combustion occurs, the backpressure through the air line causes the second combustion chamber to recieve the next ‘dose’ of air-fuel.  The second chamber then detonates, sending the air-fuel back to the first chamber.  Rinse, repeat.

There are a couple of things that worry me about the system (especially since i just bought a bunch of their stock).

1. Why is it running at 16,000 RPMs?  It seems like they’re testing the product unloaded.  It would be interesting to see the engine run with a load on the system.
2. The engine sounds absurdly loud.
3. The CEO was formerly a real estate developer.

Any thoughts?

-jk

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A report was released recently from Mckinsey & Company, one of the (if not the) most prestigous management consulting firms worldwide, regarding the potential cost savings of energy efficiency projects in the United States.  This incredibly in-depth study has been refined over the past few years and provides hard evidence that there’s plenty of work out there for people in the energy industry.

I’ll give you the meat & potatoes :  Mckinsey projects that an investment of $520 billion over the next 10 years will yield a gross savings of $1.2 trillion by 2020.  That an NPV of $680 billion.

Here’s an idea of the scale we’re talking about.  For a better idea, lets talk about what one could do with $680 billion dollars.

1. Pay for the ENTIRE Iraq war, from day one to today.  You’d have an extra $7.5 billion to buy yourself a few gumballs.
2. Pay for all of the US’s social security for a year, with $100 billion left over.
3. Host 3,700 “My super sweet 16” parties.

So why haven’t these savings been realized yet?  A lot of reasons… structural, financial, and cultural.

Structural:  Our economy is set up in a way that demeans the true cost of energy use.

Financial: There’s simply not enough capital to invest in non-growth projects.

Cultural: People just don’t care.

There is no sex appeal in efficiency.   The current ‘green’ movement in the United States is so much more about glitz and exposure than real, definitive environmental impact.  Let’s illustrate this with an example.   Which is better for the environment… a Prius or a Programmable Thermostat?

A Prius saves about 6,000 lbs/year of carbon emissions over a traditional mid-sized sedan.  A programmable thermostat will save about 1,700 lbs/year over a traditional thermostat.  In general a hybrid costs about $8,000 more than a traditional mid-sized sedan.  A programmable thermostat costs about $20 more than a traditional one.  In other words, you can pay $1.30 per pound of carbon reduced by buying a prius.  Or you can pay $0.01 per pound for the thermostat.

Unfortunately, you can’t drive your programmable thermostat around town to show everyone how ‘green’ you are.

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why can some things that work on the lab bench (fuel cells, for example) have difficulty scaling up in size?   Topic for a long post.  For fuel cells, it is about cost… piling stacks upon stacks does not allow for economies of scale.   What interests me today is downsizing things that work on big scales – what problems do we get when we try to make them small?    Case in point are gasifiers. Successfully built at grand scale (IGCC power plants), there are frightfully few examples that work economically on the small scale.  why???  I will throw out two – first, small scale systems will startup and shutdown frequently which is a problem with gasifiers that need perfect temperatures.  Second, and along the same lines, small gasifiers will behave more three dimensionally because of their limited size.   There will necessarily be horizontal gradients in temperature, for example, which can be ignored in monster sized vessels.   Others???

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Carbon Capture Plant Opens in Germany Amid Reservations

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The plant in eastern Germany, near the Polish border is the only one of its kind in the world

Energy giant Vattenfall has launched an emissions-free coal-fired test plant near Berlin using a technology touted as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against global warming. But critics aren’t convinced.

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This is an article from NYtimes.com 4/23/08

Very interesting article about how the pluses of coal outweigh the fears of climate change in Europe.  The picture is also very dramatic!!!  The entire article would have taken up 3 pages, so I just gave a teaser and the rest in online at this link

CIVITAVECCHIA, Italy — At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, generally the dirtiest fuel on earth.

Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.

And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades.

In the United States, fewer new coal plants are likely to begin operations, in part because it is becoming harder to get regulatory permits and in part because nuclear power remains an alternative. Of 151 proposals in early 2007, more than 60 had been dropped by the year’s end, many blocked by state governments. Dozens of other are stuck in court challenges.

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With Professor Jaluria’s upcoming lecture on solar thermal power, i figured it would be nice to have some background and context. While photovoltaic systems are what most people associate with solar-derived electrical power, thermal systems are, at this point, the most efficient method for generating electricity from solar energy.

Solar thermal power generation was first looked at in the 1970’s during the oil crisis. This research resulted in the SEGS (solar energy generating systems) commercial project, which consisted of 9 different solar plant’s in California’s Mojave Desert (constructed between 1984-1989). Total capacity of the plants, which are still in operation today, is 354 MW. By comparison, the largest PV system currently operational in the world is a 20 MW facility in Spain. This, however, was the only real solar thermal electrical generation facility in the US until 2005.

2005 saw a revival of solar thermal. A company by the name of Stirling Energy Systems emerged with economically sound proposals for new solar thermal facilities. Named Top 25 Breakout Companies of 2005 by Fortune magazine, they signed contracts with Southern California Edison to develop more solar thermal facilities (500MW) in the Mojave Desert.

Most recently, California Utility PG&E signed a contract to develop 900 MW of solar thermal power over the next couple of years from Brightsource Energy.

These are not the only companies trying to get set up in the Mojave.

It seems like solar thermal is really making a splash. Some questions to think about going into Professor Jaluria’s lecture on 4/21 (for those of you in Professor Muller’s Energy Seminar):

How far can electricity be transmitted from desert areas without significant tranmission losses? Can superconductivity be viable in such a hot environment?

Stirling Energy Systems is using Stirling Engine technology (hence the name) to generate electricity from a thermal gradient. How do these engines work? Why do they have higher efficiency than, say, a steam engine?

Thermal energy storage is a key component to any solar thermal installation. I believe they are using molten salts to store their energy. How efficient can an energy storage system like this be?

-jk

More links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy

http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2004/renew-energy-batt/Stirling.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_Energy_Systems

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I just came back from Bombay where they have a huge electrical congestion problem. They are trying to build new plants, but the companies that the government has commissioned for the new plants have yet to meet any of their deadlines.

The current solution is scheduled load shedding. Every morning from 9 to 10:30 and then again from 3 – 4:30 the power would go out for our neighborhood. To be blunt, it was terrible. The midday temperatures were well over 90 and without a fan, it stunk in more ways than one. Also, good luck if you were caught in an elevator at these times.

I can’t imagine this being good for anyone, particularly the local economy. I know I would not be out during these times and the shops would be very dead at these times.

One solution would be generators for the buildings. However, with all the existing vehicular pollution, adding a generator every 50 feet would considerably worsen the already poor air quality problem. Plus, generators are not cheap.
I was wondering what people thought of regulating the amount of electricity each user throughout the city gets rather than blacking out neighborhoods. At any given time, each user would not be able to draw more than a certain wattage. All that would be needed would be a fuse on the users incoming electricity that would blow if a certain draw were exceeded. This way, the store owners could at least turn on the fan, or someone could at least operate an elevator in an emergency situation, etc. I could also only turn on what is most important to me. While I understand that this would not save energy, it would make day to day living better.

While thinking about this, I really realized that energy problems and their solutions are closely tied to social habits. For example, I do not think that regulating electricity would work in America. Going from all the electricity we want to regulation would be far too difficult as it would be moving backwards. But going from 3 hours of blackouts to constant electricity would be an upgrade and welcomed (I would imagine). What works in one country will not work in another. Perhaps this point is obvious, but I really grew to understand it at around 3 pm every day for the past three weeks.

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