The energy flow chart, in linkable form.

[NNadir]

I find this energy flowchart one of the most instructive graphics in elucidating the energy/climate change problem.

Unfortunately in most places, it is not available in a linkable form, but comes as a PDF for various years in various Energy Information Agency reports.

I have found a link for it and now post it here for future reference. It is for the year 2000, but it still gives the general idea.



http://www.swans.com/library/dossiers/energy01.html

[phantom power]

1. That has some implications for...

the "Generate electricity in Nevada and export it" concept.

[NNadir]

2. It does indeed.

The chart is one of the clearest representations I have ever seen.

[phantom power]

6. A strong argument for maximized local generation.

That trades off against efficiencies of scale. I wonder where the optimum lies on the trade-off curve?

[NNadir]

8. The 28.1 quads of electrical loss are mostly thermodyanmic losses.

They represent rejected heat, mostly.

Other versions of this chart are more explicit about transmission losses. I have linked these elsewhere with reference to the PDF's.

[skids]

10. In some cases there's no room for debate...

...In areas where houses require heat, combined heat and power systems are by far better than centralized generation. The generation efficiency on some units is competitive, but that's generally not a concern because these units can easily generate more electricity than can be used for the desired heat output. (The biggie is that instead of venting the waste heat into a pond or something, you vent it into your house where it's much more welcome.)

I like this one because it's a stirling engine, and would be more easily adapted to different fuel/heat sources.





http://www.whispertech.co.nz/main/acwhispergen/

[phantom power]

11. That's pretty interesting. Shame it runs on gas, but...

I bet it would be a cinch to convert it to nuclear :-)

I could have my own Mr. Fission in the garage!

[NNadir]

12. Whether it is "better" depends wholly on external costs.

In the solar case, there is little to debate, for those who can afford it, in grid attached systems. Battery systems have high external costs, and barely beat out kerosene lamps, as I have shown in other threads using extremely detailed studies for references. Grid connected solar systems however have very, very low external costs, almost, but not quite as good as nuclear energy. To the extent they replace natural gas, they are admirable. Ditto for wind, home based and industrial based.

Wood burning and biomass burning actually is the largest killer of people on earth from air pollution, albeit mostly in the third world. Yeah, yeah I know about all the really really really cool catalysts and blah, blah, blah but again, my concerns extend beyond the concerns of rich people. (We will find out more about this as we sink closer to the third world ourselves, as we are almost sure to do.)

If you're thinking about coal furnaces being returned to people's homes, we tried that early last century. People actually dropped dead in the streets in London and elsewhere.

If you're talking natural gas, a distributed system may offer some advantages, again for those who can afford it. The same is true for oil. Of course, if you believe in unlimited supply for these things fuggettaboutit.

I think distributed power is way over sold. I note that the construction of apparatus for these millions of systems involves its own external cost.

I fully expect that we could do far better with central stations, particularly those that generate power and process heat. I note that the one of the best technologies for this has been combined cycle gas plants, although it goes without saying that natural gas, being a fossil fuel, has an unacceptably high external cost under all circumstances, including combined cycles. It's better, but it's nowhere near good enough.

The chart itself shows very clearly, in any case, the opportunity presented for co-generation, the rubric under which the real opportunity for distributed systems presents itself. It also gives a very clear idea of how much energy is recoverable through co-generation and use of waste heat. The 8.7 exajoules of natural gas going to residential/commercial places of business, as well as the 2.4 exajoules of oil going to the same purposes, is probably almost entirely the cost of home/commercial water/air heating. (Here I am referring to the exajoule based chart for 2002 referenced in post #9.) In theory, although perhaps not in practice, this approximately 11 exajoules could be derived in part from the 59.3 exajoules exajoules rejected to the environment. Thus the upper limit from co-generation is about 11 exajoules, or roughly 10% of US energy demand.

[suziedemocrat]

17. I think reduced energy use is the first priority!

And it IS possible. Start building with Structural Insulated panels like Themas panels. Make cool roofs, passive solar design, casement windows, geo-thermal heat pumps, and solar hot water the norm. Hopefully appliances will continue to get more and more efficient with things like LED light bulbs becoming affordable. THEN add solar and wind power generation to your newly built, energy efficient home. When I drive around and see all the new homes being built - just making sure they are built green would make a huge dent! Every new sewage system (and other waste systems) should use a Thermal Conversion Process similar to what Changing World Technologies offers to recycle sewage into oil, minerals, etc. (I know you don't like them because they have had problems with their first plant - but EVERY new technology I can think of has had problems at the start.) Educate and empower the world - especially women - to reduce world population growth. IMO - we CAN pull this off - but I'm not sure we want to!!! (Oh and ARREST people in SUVs!!! - Just kidding - kinda.)

[NNadir]

19. Energy conservation and population control are good things.

Many of the conservation approaches you propose however, are in fact, cases of consumerism. There is an energy investment in designing, manufacturing, transporting thermal panels, brand new windows, etc.

My opinion of the Changing World technology is that it is pure hype. It is spitting into the force of a vast hurricane. I note that the technology is not new although the advertising is new. Fischer-Tropsch chemistry is a century old. Its performance has been mixed. It can be made to work, but the environmental or financial costs have not often proved acceptable.

[suziedemocrat]

20. People will continue to build new homes - I'm saying make them green.

If you only focus on new homes or renovations that would be done anyway - windows and building products will be manufactured and transported anyway - I'm just saying make the materials more green. Not much extra energy used to transport an SIP instead of the lumber and other materials to construct a home.

I am not aware of any plant that was ever up and running using TCP. If you know of one, please provide a link. Right now CWT is not profitable because they have to pay for the animal waste they use. You would think sewage and other waste would be free.

As to your comment below - I must have misunderstood the meaning of energy "waste". But I'd like to know - in layman's terms if you can manage it - why storing energy in batteries is more inefficient than creating more energy than you need so you can always use it directly. For example - if the wind blows at night but I use energy during the day - you say it is bad to store the energy from the wind that is created at night to use the next morning. Or if I have an unusual spike in energy when I'm cleaning house - I should always create enough energy to cover that spike - instead of getting the extra I'd need from energy stored when I didn't use all of the energy I created - like at night. Maybe I'm daft (I only am working on a Master's) - but that does not make sense to me.

IMO - you are so biased toward Nuclear energy it is hard for me to trust your opinions. Here is a great link on a debate over nuclear energy and some say it is not as efficient as people think. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004300.html

I also wonder if you don't throw around your math skills like a magician would to confuse the lay person into thinking they are too dumb to understand how things work. You know - E=MC2 started out as a very complicated formula too - but Einstein said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Maybe your formulas can't be made simpler - but I wonder?

I usually try to stay away from flame throwing like this - but it gets me so mad the way you discount anything besides nuclear energy.

[NNadir]

21. I don't feel flamed at all. On some level I understand your frustration.

On the other hand, you seem to demand that I take seriously things the things you take seriously on the grounds that they sound good to you. I have investigated, understand, and have thought about a great many energy schemes on a fairly detailed level. My conclusions are that all forms of energy have limits and dangers, nuclear energy included, but given reality, we much choose wisely to give us the highest probability of succeeding.

The Changing World Technology involves heating carbon based compounds to high temperatures in water that is supercritical (a temperature so high that the water is neiter steam nor liquid, above 373C) in such a fashion that everything is changed into hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. These are then hydrogenated (using the hydrogen generated from water in the reaction.) Nazi Germany did exactly the same thing in the 1940's with coal, as did South Africa (and still does to a limited extent), also with coal, and Jimmy Carter proposed it here, also with coal. This is the basis of all "anything into oil" schemes. If you don't believe me, it's not my problem.

My "bias" towards nuclear energy involves decades of study of the subject. I'm sorry you don't like the answer I have come up with, but it is nonetheless my conclusion. I note that I started from the anti-nuclear position myself, but once I had developed the understanding of technical and scientific concepts that I now enjoy, I used this training to take a closer look. I changed my mind. I note that this procedure involved hard work on my part.

I note that I would be as happy as anyone if all the renewable business panned out. But looking at history, I am not optimistic that they, in fact, will do so.

Look, energy is a scientific concept, invented by scientists to understand the world. As such it involves math. That isn't my fault. It is good that citizens think about energy, and in that sense, I can see you have tried to educate yourself, and I have no animus towards your efforts. On the contrary I applaud them. However you are not in a position to judge what is "bias" and what is fact. When you say about me "you are so biased toward Nuclear energy it is hard for me to trust your opinions," you are telling me that you are angry because I am not telling you what you want to hear.

I'm sorry. I don't tell people what they want to hear. I tell the truth as I see it. I do this because I'm very concerned with my children's future. I cannot do less than that. As a member of the self-absorbed baby boom generation, I have guilt enough.

[suziedemocrat]

22. I appreciate your reply. I understand more where you are coming from.

[suziedemocrat]

24. On edit however,

- your main theme seems to be "trust me - I've studied this and I've come to the conclusion nuclear is better." It's not that I don't like you answer and want you to tell me what I want to hear - it's that you don't clearly explain why you feel this way. I find it hard to believe it is impossible for mere mortals to comprehend the reasons why nuclear is better. I think that's a cop-out. Plus - why are batteries a bad idea? I am searching to figure out if the TCP is the same as the hydrogenation of coal you describe. Also, isn't it better that the CWT TCP process uses waste and not coal? With CWT's TCP carbon is an end product - not mixed in with the oil.

[NNadir]

25. My entire career at DU, many thousands of posts, have explained

my position. If you look at my journal you will see some of these posts. Some of my more elaborate arguments were in what I regard as my finest - those in the historical "External Costs of Energy" thread. I had the usual hecklers there.

I am explaining myself to the best of my ability and in considerable detail. You may or may not have been coming to the E&E forum long enough to have seen or read all of my posts, or maybe you have not had the time or interest to read all of them.

It happens that not everyone can understand all technology in detail. Many people do not understand how their carburetors work - and still they don't insist that they know everything about cars before they drive one - even though driving a car is a very dangerous activity.

For some reason everyone wants to declare themselves "expert" on the subject of nuclear power. But it is not an easy technology to understand or evaluate. In fact some of the best minds in the twentieth century worked on the subject.

I am a chemist. I am a good chemist, but by no means the smartest chemist on earth. I feel I have a reasonable understanding of the CWT technology that you find so important. You are free to regard my dismissal of it as a "cop out," and I certainly have no problem with you looking further into the technology to get an opinion different than mine.

The CWT technology probably works. Whether it works in an environmentally benign or an economically feasible way is entirely different question. If it does work in these ways than the energy chart referenced here will be different in the future, inasmuch as the line attributable to "biomass" (which always includes the processing of garbage - including some non-biomass things like tires) will thicken. Again, I have no objection to these technologies being tried, and I certainly would not feel horrible if Changing World Technologies became the next best great thing. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of next best great things with big promise that didn't actually pan out. I don't think they're going to solve our environmental and energy problem in the near term, and I see no evidence whatsoever that the world can possibly survive without nuclear power.

On the latter point, I have been speaking clearly and consistently here on this subject for a number of years. I have made my arguments on a number of levels, both from the highly technical level and on the level of what you, and not I, call "mere mortals." Some people have heard what I have said, and others have rejected it. However, in offering what I do, I am merely exercising my rights and responsibilities as a citizen, to bring my talents, understanding and my training with me. I would not be serving myself or anyone else ethically or intellectually if I tried to pull punches.

What is before us is a crisis. I see it as a terrifying time, with vast risks. I am doing what I can. Take it or leave it.

[struggle4progress]

26. Most energy used to generate electricity is simply wasted ..

.. in the act of production. For combustion generation, typically 2/3 - 3/4 of the energy used to produce electricity is lost in the act of production. So conservation is a very good idea.

[SumGuy]

29. I think the US is sliding into the shitter too

I’ve been thinking of at least extricating my self from the slide for awhile. Since, I don’t see how to save the whole country. Specifically I’ve been thinking of starting an independent sustainable community of say 500-5000 people. Is there a feasible solution to the electrical storage problem at that scale? How much would such a system cost, including solar panels to do the generating?
My email is [e-mail]

[EVDebs]

3. I've always thought that methane digesters would be a good way "out"

of our energy problems. Plentiful supplies (your own waste, dairies, landfills, etc ). What is preventing methane digesters from gaining a following so to speak in the US ?

Also, zinc air fuel cells (metal air fuel cells generally), with companies like eVionyx.com seem to me to be another promising solution.

[phantom power]

4. One reason is...

that it would represent something like 1% of our energy usage. So, it would be an R+D effort that left 99% of the problem unsolved.

[jwirr]

5. Thank you. That is an excellent chart. Makes one wonder what

can be done to stop and/or use the wasted electricity.

[NNadir]

7. I'll be doing a lot of analysis of this chart in the future.

Keep your eye on the E&E forum.

[NNadir]

9. The 2002 version, fully visible from the DU editor.

http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php

[Massacure]

13. Thats a nifty little graphic.

Is there a way to reduce the electrical loss on the transmission system independent of say, making everybody produce their own power?

[NNadir]

14. Only a tiny fraction of the losses are transmission losses.

Most of the losses are thermodynamic losses in the electricity.

I found a copy of the chart giving transmission losses explicitly. It is for 1998, but there have been no huge technological improvements in transmission since then, to my knowledge.

That representation is found in this PDF file on page 5:

http://www.llnl.gov/str/pdfs/12_98.1.pdf

Here the transmission losses are represented as 1/12 of the energy produced, or about 8%.

Note that the loss of energy may be higher if everyone built their own power station, simply because this would require huge redundant infrastructure that is far less flexible to use.

[Massacure]

15. I saw electrical system and assumed transmission losses, my bad.

The only way to increase efficiency thermodynamically is to run the plants at a higher temperature or to find a dual use for combined heat and electric. Is combined heat and electricity very common in industry? I know the paper mill my dad works at sells excess electricity to the utility, but I do not know if that is common to other mills.

[NNadir]

23. I am sorry that I didn't get back to you quickly.

You are correct that the only way to increase efficiency is to run plants at higher temperatures, and if one can, find a use for waste heat in processes. The challenge of all electrical energy production, and for that matter many other forms of energy has been to develop materials that can withstand high temperatures without failing too quickly. Fortunately materials science has been a burgeoning science.

Combined heat and electricity is common in some places. Old Soviet nuclear reactors did use the waste heat to heat homes and water. There is a large "co-generation" plant here in New Jersey, in Linden, that can be seen from the New Jersey Turnpike just outside New York City. One hopes and expects that this will become more common. As I noted elsewhere, these sort of schemes can help us to recover some of that waste energy and to put it to work. But we will always have waste energy.

I think that majority of the 1.8 exajoules of energy in the chart that moves from biomass to the industrial sector, as well as the 0.04 exajoules that moves to the electricity sector comes mostly from the wood processing/paper/pulp industry in which your dad works. As wood pellet stoves become more common - and they will - this will further thicken that 0.5 exajoules that goes from biomass to residential/commercial.

Thanks for your comments and questions. As usual they are good ones.

[suziedemocrat]

16. I can't beleive the waste in the system!!!

Thanks - I saved this to my desktop. Isn't this an argument for a more distributed system - like individual home solar/wind power systems with battery storage?

I used to live in Denver and I'd drive or walk under electric lines and hear them crackle!!! That can't be good.

[NNadir]

18. Many people are misinterpreting the "waste." It involves the 2nd law of

thermodynamics.

There is a minimum of energy waste that can be avoided. This has to do with the laws of physics and is inescapable. One may be able to reduce the fraction of energy that is lost - this is called efficiency, and efficiency is always good - but there are clear physical limits on how efficient systems can be. You must reject heat to the surroundings to get usable work. You cannot legislate the laws of thermodyanmics.

Anything that involves energy storage, I note, is by definition more inefficient that energy that is used directly. Wind and solar systems are not without external cost and the use of batteries raises the external cost even higher. It happens that the external cost of wind, and hydro are relatively low, but in the wind case this is only true when the power is used directly at the time of generation and thus displaces natural gas. Batteries always give off heat, and heat is almost always lost energy.

The chart says nothing about forms of energy that are to be preferred, but it does give a sense of scale, and gives a clear idea of what substitutions can be offered, and how they can be directed. It also gives a clear idea of what works and what is hype and wishful thinking.

The task of all of humanity is to stop using coal, oil, and natural gas, in that order. It is critical to our survival that we do these things. This means that when you look at the left side of the chart, you must think of ways, on an emergency basis, to replace the three thickest lines with the three smallest lines. I note that one of the three choices, the blue line, hydroelectric, is tapped out, almost completely. Few rivers on earth are free, and, with the instability of glaciers, there is some question as to whether many important river systems will continue to function as they once did. Thus we may lose the bulk of the blue line.

I have very definite ideas about how this task should be approached, and what the transitional approaches should be. I hope to refer to these charts often in the future.

[Trillo]

27. Miles and thousand of miles of loss? Are power transmission lines

shielded with a grounded shell? Like a coaxial cable?

A few years ago a TV free-energy debunking show showed how a large coil of wire could be placed near high-power transmission lines and the coil would power a small electrical device. It seemed that the power lines had some electromagnetic leakage. Can anything cost-effective be done about that source of energy loss?

[phantom power]

28. Based on my brief research, that kind of loss is fundamental.

In fact, transmission voltages above 2 mega-volts are not used, because loss from effects like corona discharge become too high. Other effects like capacitance and induction will always cause line impedance. The only exception is if a superconductor is used, but the energy required to cool superconductors also represents transmission loss.

If anybody ever invents a room-temp superconductor (that is also cheap, ductile, durable, etc), then this situation will improve. Until then, the current transmission-line impedance is pretty much here to stay. Kind of an interesting scenario. Either what we have now, or zero :-)