Powering the World With Alternative Energy

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by TruthSeeker, Jun 12, 2007.

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Billy T,

    What kind of energy efficiency? Conversion efficiency, depending on the process it between 150% and 600% verse input.
     
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  3. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Nobody is going to get poetic you idiot.
    Versus will suffice.
     
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  5. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Innacurate statement - feel free to prove me wrong. Show some solid data, please. I doubt you can come close to supporting your ambitious claim.

    We sell back to the grid here, also. But there's still NO way a single home can even meet it's 24-hour power needs, let alone supply others.
     
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  7. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Give me a day, finding links is not what I do but I will go close or better.
    Have more faith.
    Most of the world still does not have power needs outside the light of the sun and the heat of a burning coconut husk or cowpat.
     
  8. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    I'll be looking forward to it - or to a retraction of your claim.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    That last sentence has no place in this discussion. My question has to do solely with Oz. Tossing out red herrings gains you nothing.
     
  9. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Not red herrings, the real thing but I'll find something to brighten the day.
    We are nowhere near as far from sustainable energy as you might think.
    Australia is heading in the right direction, the usual players will be there too, Sweden, Canada and believe it or not China!
    The area I'm in is pushing hard for 50/50 by 2020..meaning 50% alternative energy by 2020 and the next few years will seem daunting then the floodgates will open and the reality be easy. Sorry to be coming across like an evangelical christian at this point. There's only one thing for me to do, show some facts. Like I said, a day or two.
     
  10. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Is there reference for this?

    I liked Henry Gibson's comments on your link article, which in part were:
    "Growing some of the enzymes for fermenting the cellulose in the {leaves and stalk of} crop is an cunning approach. {he now quotes from article:}

    "Integrating high-efficiency endoplant enzyme crops with biofuel production and distribution systems is projected to double per-acre ethanol yields, reduce the cost of cellulosic ethanol by 20%, increase farm income per acre by 25%, and relax pressures on farmland availability and water use." {It needs more than a 50% reduction in cost to fairly compete (without subsides.)}
    ...
    Now that the plant breeders are turning their attention to the fuel potential of the non-crop biomass, it is very likely that they will be able to substantially increase the fuel co-product yield.

    The article mentions applying the technique to sugar cane. Sugar cane combined heat and power plants already generate all of their process heat and electricity by burning some of the bagasse, and even generate a surplus of electricity for export to the grid. {yes, as I recal about 10% of the lectric power in Brazil} According to wikipedia, not all of the bagasse is currently used in Brazil because Brazil has cheaper Hydro Electric Power available. If the excess bagasse could be fermented into biofuel instead, it would increase the potential for large quantities of biofuel to be exported to the USA to supplement US ethanol supply and displace imports from OPEC. Congress needs to make a deal with Brazil on a tariff structure which facilitates clean biofuels from both the USA and Brazil while taxing fossil fuels to fund their external costs such as military expenditure in the Persian Gulf. ..."

    I agree 90% with Henry, but US should not grow any bio-fuels, IMHO, if can import them cheaper. Why add to the US debt (with subsidies) and taxes of Joe American just to make the cost of his driving higher than it needs to be? Tropical sugar cane alcohol is NOT like oil, available only from a few producers who support the terrorists financially. There is not much danger and much to be gained by trading with ~50 different nations that can grow tropical sugar cane on tiny fraction of their land* (less than 2% of Brazil's farm land used for sugar cane. If the bagasse also became alcohol less than 1% would supply 100% of Brazil's liquid fuel need and leave plenty for export.)* to earn the funds to buy US made high value added products.***
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    *Brazil is making 3 million of world's most advanced cars this year. Sells the best most efficient and SAFESTcorporate jets (One collided with large Boeing, killing about 300 people in it as it broke into two pieces high in the air, but Embraer's tiny jet flew on for 30 minutes more to land safely with no one even injured and only missing part of one wing and part of the tail. - Not surprizingly, the order book is now full for next three years of production capacity. If you have a used one you can sell it for 20% more than a new one delivered more than three years from now.) Embraer** also has best 80 to 120 seat jets on the market and world's only alcohol powered crop dusters etc. - Reason for mentioning this is to show that Brazil is not just a backward agricultural society with little need for liquid fuels, but many that could grow tropical sugar cane (like Cuba) are. If they put even 0.1% of their land into sugar cane production they could escape form big oil's grip on their economies, and 1% of all such tropical land would easily supply ALL US's needs if US drivers used smaller cars like Europeans and Brazilians do instead of gas hogs.

    **In interest of full disclosure, I own a lot of Embraer's ADRs

    ***US’s number one problem is NOT energy, or even liquid fuel, it is the stupidity of its poorly educated masses, who vote. That is why GWB and years of Republican control of government has been able to send US into deep depression, but I am getting off thread so will stop.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 23, 2008
  11. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Add Brazil to the Swedens , Canadas and Australias as a "smallish" economy making profound headway.
     
  12. OilIsMastery Banned Banned

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    The only alternative to hydrocarbon energy is human stupidity.

    "Carbon fuels will dominate the 21st century's global energy economy." -- Peter R. Odell, 2004

    "Neither we, nor our grandchildren, nor their grandchildren will live to see the end of the oil era." -- Karl-Heinz Schult-Bornemann, 1997
     
  13. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Oh! Oil!* Spud kowtows and points his not insignificant arse ( you know, the one the sun shines out of) towards Mecca or Oilismastery.
    Oil will dominate the first tenth of the 21st century and will henceforth be cringingly regarded as the greatest mindfuckingly obvious mistake since overfishing.
    OIM, I hate myself for giving you oxygen. I hope this makes you happy!
     
  14. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    10,296
    Wrong as usual.:bugeye:

    The solution is for the world to get serious about building the newer nuclear plants (fission) which could completely break the dependence on oil in 20 years. And it would still carry us through to the point that fusion becomes a practical reality.

    I was accused of living in the Dark Ages but that (dis)honor belongs to YOU more than anyone else!
     
  15. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    3,899
    Read-Only, you are a clever guy, Nuclear is far preferential to oil based energy but is nowhere near as clean and sustainable as solar/wind/tidal.
    The fact that the we can put men on the moon and survey Mars, yet still not have a balanced energy system is more about our machismo than our intelligence.
    Tidal power alone can power our planet( regular, massive and reliable), let alone the daily smacking we get from the sun.
     
  16. OilIsMastery Banned Banned

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    3,288
    Obviously you have no clue how much oil is required to construct and maintain a nuclear power plant and to mine the uranium.
     
  17. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    ohh! Unranium!

    Dickhead!!
     
  18. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    10,296
    Go for it! All the solar/wind/tidal combined will never be enough to meet the energy needs of the entire world. And, in case you haven't noticed, those needs are growing by leaps and bounds.

    Energy is what makes technology work - alternative sources are nice, I like them myself - but they will never ptovide enough by themselves alone.

    There are also some pretty serious concerns about what harvesting tidal energy might do to the ecosystem. Similar but evem more profound than what hydroelectric dams have done to hamper fish migration and reproduction.
     
  19. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    10,296
    Obviously YOU have no idea that energy is energy. You can do all those things with electricity replacing the oil. Silly, silly boy!!!
     
  20. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Both tidal and wind power have a serious problem related to the fact that the power level they must work in goes a the cube of the wind speed or wave hight. For wind power there are at least two economical solutions to this problem, I know of, but none* known for direct tidal power.

    You can design a tidal system to withstand the greatest wave expected in say 35 years but not pay back the capital cost of that design in that time unless selling the energy at very much higher cost than current cost. This is because to numerically illustrate with "guestimates":

    If the average wave height is 2 meters and the one "rogue wave" in 35 year is 40 meters and the peak power designed for is 10,000W the power from the typical wave is ~10^4 / (20)^3 = 10/8 = 1.25W It is not that bad on the average as some of the time the waves are 6 meters tall and then you get (6/2)^3 or 27 times more power (~33W). At best I think you might be get 40W average output power from the generator designed for 250 times greater power level! Very hard to make money with that 24/7 capital cost eating you alive by selling average of 40 W on 24/7 basis.
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    *I have thought about this problems some. I think it might be possible to solve it, by making an automatic sinking when waves are rough system. Or better still forget about direct use of the waves. Instead let high tide and waves fill a shoreline lake and drain it at constant power level back to the sea thru water turbines for 1/3 of the time. Then the capital cost 24/7 is only 3 times more than you are using 1/3 of the time, not a couple of hundred times greater.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 23, 2008
  21. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    18,523
    Billy T,

    There are many references for that: keep reading from the link I provided. honestly I would give you the references if I could remember which articles from there they were.

    As for wave power I would think the best possible design put forward is the "anaconda" a giant rubber tube, considering it simplicity it could make wave power very cheap, but wave power is where wind was 20 years ago.
     
  22. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    23,198
    Great name for it as it swallows the water, but I do not see how it produces anything but very low quality heat in the rubber. There is a similar attempt with long chain of rigid segments that flex as the waves go by the chain of them. Pistons linking adjacent segments then capture useful power.

    I like best the bi-directional turbine (spins same way in bi-directional flow). It just sits in the air stream thru tube at top of otherwise top-sealed, anchored, hollow, float with large diameter. (As peak of wave lift the water level slowly inside the huge hollow cylinder inside the hollow of the float, the air escapes thru the turbine with high speed (hydraulic piston multiplier) and keeps spinning the same rotation sense as the falling wave surface "sucks” the air back down thru turbine into the hollow interior of the anchored float. - Very simple, cheap, and hard to destroy.

    I, as once out of sight of land sailor, however, have great respect for the power of sea. If this system is to be there, at anchor, for 30+ years, my money is on the sea to win the struggle.
     
  23. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    two-way turbines are also very inefficient.

    You did not read the link? waves convert to bulge waves in the giant rubber tube and salt water inside, these bulge waves travel down (or up) the tube were the tube is divided into two zones, a high pressure and low pressure zone, one-way valves (also made of nothing but giant ruber flaps and a plastic ring) lets in the peak of the bulge waves into the high pressure zone, and the trough of the bulge waves into the low pressure zone, as a result water is pumped into the high pressure zone and out of the low pressure zone, a one-way turbine runs continuously to equalize the two zones... heat lost in the rubber is minimal, energy is converted to electricity, and the design is much cheaper and less-maintenance demanding than Pelamis Sea Dragon.

    I would bet on solar energy, fingers crossed on printable solar cells.
     

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