National Electricity Predictions

The Energy Information Administration of DOE collects data and makes predictions. Here are some recent results:

Percentage of Electricity Production:

2008, 2030

Coal 49,47
Natural Gas 21, 20
Nulcear 20 18,
Renewables 8, 14

The percentage of renewables breaks down as follows approx.)

Wind 1, 2.5
Biomass 1, 4.5
Hydro 6, 7
Solar tiny, tiny

Basically a slow decline in traditional sources anda rapid rise in renewables. However, they predict that toal usage will rise from 16 to 36 %. In other words, we lose badly to global warming.

The Pickens Plan

This past Tuesday I went to a meeting on the Pickens Plan. The original idea was to use wind to replace the cng now used for electrical generation and to free the cng to power automobiles. The plan seems to have morphed by downplaying wind. Pickens now says that we have enough natural gas to power autos until the next generation is sorted out (probably plug-ins or plug-in hybrids). Right now, the cost of a cng Honda Civic is about $9.5 K greater than a petrol-powered one according to Clean Fuels Ohio. A study by Popular Mechanics about two years ago gave cng-powered cars the equivalent of $1.10/gal., so that the cng-Honda is no bargain. It appears that cng may have an application in fleets of heavy vehicles. Mayor Coleman spoke of ordering cng garbage trucks during the meeting.

The President of AEP was also there. He talked of building high-power transmission lines near energy sources to solve the problem that both wind and sun are most potent away from major population centers.

Wind Turbine Size

Larger wind turbines are more efficient than smaller ones. I took data for small Skytstream systems (02. - 3.0 kW) and found that:

P = kD^1.7

where P is power, D is diameter, and k is a constant.

The implication is that a small home turbine is a poor investment (a letter to the Columbus Dispatch about a month ago stated that one cost him about $1/kWh, whereas we pay about 9 cents). It would appear that it would be better for several people in an area band together and build a big one. However, on Tueaday, the President of AEP said that they were not building a turbine farm on Lake Erie because it would have been 'inefficient and uneconomical.'

I located some data comparing wind to nuclear. For the Wolfe Island Plant in Ontario, the cost was about $2/W, while the expected cost of nuclear construction from Moody's is expected to be $6/W. But wind powers about 375 homes/MW, while nuclear powers 590 homes/MW (Progress Energy FL estimate). Thus the cost per home is $5,300 for wind and $10,200 for nuclear. I would guess that the cost of operation per kW is similar for the two technologies, but need to check this.

Low-Hanging Electrical Fruit

According to DOE, residences in Ohio consume abut 30 percent of all electricity in the state. Residential lights are about 11 percent of that 30 percent or about 3.3 percent of the total. Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) can cut light usage by about 3/4. If all incandescent bulbs in Ohio homes were replaced by CFLs, Ohio’s electricity usage would drop about 21/2 percent. Not much, but a good contribution since the state is looking to drop usage about half of a percent per year

Hybrid Economics

Yesterday (27 April ‘08) the New York Times had two stories about hybrid vehicles.

The first was about Chevy Tahoe SVUVs. The hybrid version cost about $10,000 more than the standard and got 4-5 mpg better mileage. At $3.50/gal this amounted to a gas saving of about $4,300 over 100,000 mi. For this vehicle, buying a hybrid has a net cost of about $5,700. Of course, if you buy an SUV, you’re not serious about saving the planet.

The second story was about New York City cabs, which will be required to get 30 mpg by 2012. Replacing the standard Ford Victoria with a Ford Escape hybrid saves the cabbie $175/week in gas but raises the rent that he has to pay for the cab by $135/week. So the annual savings are about $2,000. Since the Escape is ten percent lighter than the Victoria, the gas savings have two causes.

Fuel Cells

I’m less negative about fuel cells than I was a year ago. The major application seems to be cars, which is a good thing because transportation is one of the two major sources of greenhouse gasses in this country. But producing hydrogen requires large amounts of energy from the other major source - electric power plants. Of course, power plants rely on domestic coal, whereas we get some of our petroleum from countries that we should no be relying on.

We could get hydrogen from natural gas, as the Japanese are doing for fuel-cell-powered home electricity. In fact, powering homes seems to be a more promising application than cars because introducing a new mass-production mass consumption power source should be simpler in a stable vs a moving application.Fuel cells are attractive for homes because they don’t need the sun to shine or the wind to blow.

Overall, I see hydrogen production as a major barrier to wide application of fuel cells. Some research should be devoted to this aspect of the problem.

Chernobyl

I'm amused at the conflicting results of energy analyses (the current one is on how much energy is needed to produce corn ethanol). I have a suspicion that the analyst first decides on the answer and then looks for support - just as Christopher Columbus did 500 years ago (see the bio by Adm. Morrison).

A good example is Chernobyl:

Deaths Resulting from 1986 Chernobyl Reactor Accident

Deaths Source

56 World Nuclear Association
4,000 U. N. Chernobyl Program
16,000 International Agency for Research on Cancer
30,000 - 60,000 European Green Parties
140,000 Greenpeace

Note that the estimated number of deaths depends strongly on the organization's stance on nuclear power.

(I can't get this table to format correctly! but it makes the point)