| Author | Message | ||
     Fahren |
As alternate sources come increasingly on line to produce electricity, challenges are created for "traditional" thermal generating plants. It's harder to make any money on a traditional plant when it isn't needed, and can't be run, as often as it was made for. Hopeful news for solar, wind and other alternate energy production methods, but not without challenges for the still-needed "backup" thermal plants. Interesting stuff. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/utilities -giving-away-power-as-wind-sun-flood-european-grid .html | ||
| Chauly |
The best solution for this situation is pumped-storage: the excess base load power is used to pump water up to a lake at the top of a hill, then used for hydro generation at a later cloudy/dark/cold/warm time. One of the factoids that was missing is the heavy government subsidies to build the renewable capacity to satisfy a political goal. This distortion in the market keeps investors from truly appreciating the risks in investing in generation capacity of any kind. This results in people building a windmill, knowing that the government will pay something to the investors even if the wind doesn't blow. Of course, that doesn't keep the lights on on calm days, only base load thermal or hydro plants can do that. Another solution to the excess power is to offer advantageous rates to final customers to produce or process more during the peak times, e.g. electrolytic aluminum plants, or refineries (to refer to other discussions about gasoline prices!). This "stores" the energy in processed goods, but it has to be in industry that can buffer larger-or-smaller quantities of intermediate product. | ||
| Johnnylunchbox |
Why not hook up generators to all the exercise bikes, treadmills, eliptical machines so as people exercise they produce juice? | ||
| Fahren |
As an architect who has worked on a couple of fitness places and has generated who-knows-how-many watts on those torture machines, believe me, I have wondered about that. Set up lights to run off machine-generated power, in the area of the machine(s) that are being used. I love stuff like that - it keeps my mind from encrustulatifying. LOL | ||
| Fahren |
And yeah, the subsidy issue is an important twist to the story, back to Chauly's point. | ||
| Doerman |
This plays well into Electric cars. Two things are needed. A substantial population of electric vehicles. "Smarts" in the charging system such that charging occurs when there is a surplus of electricity on the grid. This is not my idea, this is an idea that are being bantered about in Germany. The way it would work is that the eCar owner would identify next day's driving demands (i.e, I would like to go 100KM - city driving - starting at 7AM. The smarts in the charging system would deliver a full charge rapidly if there is a surplus in the grid (overage would stay in the battery for subsequent day's driving needs. If it is a lean grid night, the system would only deliver (at trickle rates) what's needed for the next day. The system would also discharge cars that have battery charge in the event the grid is starved and the car owner has not indicated any driving needs. This way, a large population of electric vehicles acts as the storage mechanism for surplus electric energy. | ||
| Aesquire |
With the coming need for possibly doubling electric generation for electric cars, perhaps a quick replace battery module would ease the problem of base & weather dependent electrical power. Charge 'em at the "filling station" off peak & load them in cars as needed. Already there is the ability to change the price of power based on demand, ( sucks to be us ) better yet to encourage the use of power off peak for charging batteries, Industrial production, and certain domestic chores. ( dish and clothes washing ) Pumped storage needs certain terrain, or very expensive multiple water towers. ( What works in the Catskills, where I have flown over pumped storage, won't work in N. Dakota. ) I have very little faith in pumped storage using compressed gas & caves or mines. Stuff leaks. ( see issues with attempts at CO2 sequestration by pumping it into the ground. You want your yard to fizz and lakes to become carbolic acid? ) Other storage techniques, like flywheels or eventually, antimatter, may help, but building a terawatt of storage capacity ( acres of superconducting capacitor loops? ) is going to take more money than a rational investor is going to want to deal with. So, the law of unintended consequences ( good intentions pave a hell of a road ) seems to show that after they raise your taxes, raise the price of fuel, etc. to fund and encourage alt. energy, even more will be needed to make it all actually work. I'm skeptical on how fast a high percentage of our power needs can be from wind and solar, partly because of the environmental problems. ( and they are NOT trivial. Dead birds are just a hint of problems to come. ) And... I'm aware that a lot of the electrical infrastructure in the US has been encouraged by tax & land use breaks & outright subsidy. ( see rural electrification ) During a Progressive/Socialist meltdown where massive debt has been accumulated in an effort to gain & maintain political power is hitting the limits of affordabillity...... we may not be able to sustain the pace of subsidy to create a Green Tomorrow according to the current plan. ( my issues with the current plan are many.... just look at the problems the Army Corp of Engineers has created. ) I'm not even sure it's not going to be a major disaster as supposedly planned. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Top Gear had an interesting road test of a couple of electric cars on this week's show. They actually were fairly impressed with everything about them except for the re-charge time: ~13 hours for one from a completely discharged state. It would require a major shift in driving practice for a lot of people to go to that from taking ~5 minutes to fill up a gas tank. In that regard, hydrogen is a much better solution. You still need a power plant to produce it practically, and there's a significant efficiency reduction compared to a straight electric car, but at least fill ups can be accomplished reasonably quickly. | ||
| Aesquire |
Doerman, that may actually be a way for some to afford a Cadillac/Mercedes class electric car. Buy one, ( with incentives from the power company ) hook to the grid, and declare it not immediate use most of the time, while you commute with the bike. You have to jump on these new ideas. Already the used cooking oil to diesel thing is progressing past the point where many can do it on their own on the cheap. If it's profitable, it usually can be done cheaper by a well financed big company. Even the car battery distributed storage scheme would work better with fleet cars than private ones, if you think about it. | ||
| Hootowl |
There's been some recent developments in material science that show great promise in hydrogen generation, storage, and conversion to electricity. Fascinating stuff. Artificial leaf carbon nano storage non rare earth fuel cells Put those together and we might just be able to make a hydrogen powered electric car that got its initial energy from the sun without having to store high pressure hydrogen on board. | ||
| Fahren |
Best. Idea. Ever.  | ||
| Buellkowski |
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| Boogiman1981 |
Interesting thing. I am not fully aware of the history however id be willing to bet the original grid wasn't privately funded either. Honestly why should this be different? | ||
| Blake |
>>> id be willing to bet the original grid wasn't privately funded either. You'd be wrong. Edison wasn't in business for his health. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Edison was an SOB. He used to go from city to city and pay kids to bring in stray dogs which he would then electrocute using AC current to show how "dangerous" AC was compared to DC. Thank goodness Tesla and Westinghouse won that argument. | ||
| Iamike |
This is one that I was involved in that has some promise. http://www.mwatoday.com/facilities/mrf.aspx The drawback for many communities is that newer landfills were designed to prevent lechation of the garbage and makes it much harder to collect the methane. | ||
| Fahren |
Iamike, That's awesome. That technology should be used for treatment of livestock poop. Methane harnessed, with rich fertilizer by-product = win/win. But can they be small-scale to keep from having to transport the poop too far, and still stay viable? Hmm. | ||
| Iamike |
I have been reading where they are using similar technology on farms and city's waste. The economies of it are tough due to the smaller amount of methane produced. The offset advantage is that it deals with the methane gas pollution issue. In my town they are trying to use the methane to at least produce electricity for the waste treatment center. I'll have to see if I can find information on how it is working. | ||
| Aesquire |
A lot of farmers ( mostly Dairy and Hog ) are starting Methane recovery systems to process the enormous amounts of poo they have to deal with. Usually feeding into the grid and/or to power the barns & milking gear. It's a great idea. Going to take time to get the optimax solution. But...hey! worked for Tina Turner in Beyond ThunderDome. Human applications are being researched. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr4uF_zeT_4&feature =related |
