Bullshit debunked
Energy
Perverted Capitalism
What have we done? or what have we allowed to happen… Capitalism works, when we let it. In pure capitalism, all the cost would be borne by the users. But in our version the costs our taken care of before the end user. They are borne by everyone. We have price supports and incentives. These are things that are important to new and emerging technologies. But to things like petroleum and coal they set up a false economy. Why should we subsidize risky behavior. The cost of very deep sea drilling, and mountain top removal should be steep, not the cheapest alternative. We have lobbyists that work to keep these breaks for business. As long as we keep these in place, the cost of alternatives is hindered. Right now the price of gas should be between 5 and 15 dollars per gallon. If we had let the prices float, at a level equal to the first fuel embargo, We would we not be using as much petroleum as now. Alternatives would be cost effective. If gas were… Say 10 bucks a gallon. wouldn’t you drive something else? or maybe live closer to work?
Totally crazy/wasteful…. ludicrous!?
Here’s the latest idea…. Build nuclear power plants to produce steam to soften the tar sands in Canada. Once we have produced these nuclear steam plants, the energy would be used to soften the tar sands, so that they can be collected and used to make… Gasoline! Cause cars need gas, they can’t run on electricity…. or can they?
Here’s the skinny on it… The oil companies want to build 20 600MW nuclear power stations to produce the electricity and steam required to develop the tar sands into full production. That is 3 million barrels a day of tar, not oil. This is important, because the tar needs to be “upgraded” to produce fuels from it. It’s a process that requires hydrogen. The hydrogen would come from natural gas. This process produces between 3 and 4 cubic feet of hydrogen for every cubic foot of natural gas. It requires 2200 cubic feet of hydrogen to upgrade one barrel of oil. That’s more than 600 cubic feet of natural gas. On top of that, the resulting oil would have to be distilled into fuels. It takes about 85 cubic feet natural gas to do that.
Let’s look at these numbers. I’ll calculate what is required for one day of production of 3 million barrels of tar to fuel. 3 million barrels would produce almost 60 million gallons of gasoline. It would require 20 nuclear power plants times 600 megawatts, that’s 288,000 megawatt hours per day. Add to that 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas. This does not include any of the energy used to mine the sands, Such as trucks and excavators and so on. Nor the energy or power that is takes to produce the hydrogen. What if we used the natural gas to make electricity instead? 2.1 billion cubic feet of gas is about 60 million kilograms of methane. One kilogram is equal to 14kWh, so with about 75% efficiency, that works out to an additional 630,000 megawatt hours of power. Can that be right? I double checked the numbers. That’s over 900,000 megawatt hours of potential power going into making 60 million gallons of gas. What if that power went to driving a fleet of Nissan Leafs? that would be enough to drive 3.6 billion miles. A fleet of Tesla Roadsters would be closer to 5 billion miles.
Now lets look at the gasoline numbers…. 60 million gallons of gas times the average mileage in the U.S. of 27.5 mpg. works out to 1.65 billion miles!? This is ludicrous. Why, why, why… on top of that, the mining would destroy the Boreal forest and muskeg. The muskeg is sort of like a peat bog and can be 100 feet deep. It is characterized by it’s slow decomposition. If these are disturbed the sudden increase in decompositions rates would mean an increase of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is 19 time more potent that carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. It would mean diverting rivers for the mining process. It would require twice as much as the city of Calgary uses. Every gallon of oil requires 2 to 4.5 gallons of water to produce. The net result is wholesale destruction of huge areas of Canada, for some gasoline… some gasoline that would only take us half as far as the energy used to make it.
Stop the madness
As I read more about this out of control well in the gulf.. we suddenly have another spill in Egypt… A government owned oil company trying to cover up?
As I read more and more about our spill here in the gulf… I keep hearing about methane (like it’s useless) being burned off, They keep talking about how the methane from these wells like is burned off, it’s natural gas! the stuff you cook with. I tried to get a number for how much, but to no avail. This well in the gulf is 40 percent gas. The usual well is closer to 10 percent, by volume or weight, I don’t know… As you have seen from my earlier posts, there is about a Therm of gas (85 cubic feet) to distill every gallon of gas. Where does the other gas come from? and why can’t we use the gas that is burned instead. The petroleum equation has been skewed a bit more. This stuff just spewes from the earth and the wholesale price is based on dollars (single digits) per million BTU’s. Where are we that the cost of this resource is so negligable that 20 percent is just flared off and burned into the atmosphere, because it’s too expensive to pipe or ship. With our current state of affairs why is any hydrocarbon burned without doing useful work?
Sticky situation in the Gulf
We all know that this blowout in the gulf could have been avoided. It was nothing but cost cutting that caused the problem. Between using a known faulty BOP, and removing the drilling mud before finishing the well. This was an accident waiting to happen. I see the trouble capping it as a major disconnect between engineers and fabricators, builders and those with hands on experience. The BOP (blowout preventer) is an apparatus with lots of appendages. How hard would it be to fabricate a frame that attaches to the BOP. This frame would have a big open valve on a slider. The valve would slide over the top of the BOP. The oil would flow right through the valve body. The valve could then be cranked down on top of the BOP. Though there is a rough cut on the pipe coming out of the top. There is a fitting right below it. The manufacturer knows the exact dimensions. This flange could be pressed onto the fitting by this apparatus connected the BOP itself. Not from a mile above. Then just close the valve. It’s common practice to make repairs like this by attaching an open valve to the problem, then closing it.
Ah, but the big problem now is the mess. Let me give you a little insight. As pissed of as I am about this, I have to give BP a little credit here. There is no exact science to fixing a problem like this. Like all engineering, It’s a balancing act. Do you burn it? Add dispersants? Microbes? How much? When? Where? We have no idea how BP decided to do what they did in the spill response. Let’s just look at a couple of different options:
No dispersants. We would have a lot more oil on the coastline. Granted, we would have been happier with less toxic ones. Oil on the surface has been pushed to shore by the winds. What if all of the oil were on the surface? the oil that is underwater is following the currents and keeping it away from shore. They tried burning it, but hurricane season has just begun. With a hurricane all that oil would be everywhere.
Add microbes. Microbes are extremely good at taking oil and converting it into a harmless byproduct that other things, like shrimp can eat. They are also good at using oxygen to do it. With the scope of this spill that would mean huge swaths of Hypoxic (oxygen free) water. Anything that swims into these zones would suffocate. The hypoxic zones would move with the current and effect other areas. If they settle to the bottom, crabs, clams, anything on the bottom would die. Microbes occur naturally in seawater, but at low levels. The oil that is underwater is slowly being consumed by naturally occurring microbes. We can only hope that it happens at a slow enough rate that it doesn’t turn hypoxic. And that the oil is dipersed enough that the sea life will survive till the microbes finish their work.
We will never know what was the best way to handle the mess. But we do know, that it should not have happened at all, and that it was avoidable. This should be a huge wakeup call to get off of oil.
The Cost of Coal
Coal has made the news recently by the number of mishaps in the news. Underground miners trapped and killed in the US and China, and a coal freighter stuck on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Why is this happening? It’s the price of cheap energy. There is such price competition for coal around the world, that the lowest cost producers are the ones who will get the business. without regulation the price just gets pushed lower and lower and the business just gets more dangerous. It’s like what happen with oil tankers. Now we have ships with double hull to make them more resistant to leaks when a mishap occurs. The freight that struck the reef was probably trying to save a bit of fuel by taking a shortcut when it hit the reef.
Underground mining has become more dangerous since it has to compete on price, with surface mining, such as strip mining, area mining, contour mining and mountaintop removal mining. Since the product is basically the same, from one type of mining operation to another. The price has to be competitive. In order for these more expensive mining operations to compete, They either need a technological breakthrough to make mining easier or they have to cut corners. And when you cut corners, safety is what suffers.
The question is, are we willing to put up with the outside costs? Besides the amount of CO2 and methane that is released into the atmosphere, there is also acid rain and mercury emissions that will enter the food chain. There is total ecosystem destruction with surface mining, with sulfuric acid drainage. some of the waste products in the ash are such substances as uranium, thorium and other radioactive heavy metals. Add to that the huge fly ash ponds with there concentrations of heavy metals.
Coal is not a product where you can say “buyer beware”. The end users of the electricity are not the ones making the decision of who’s coal they use to make their electricity. it’s comparable to being able to buy cruelty free tuna. I can see it now… “all coal used to make this power was mined conscientiously and disposed of properly”. That will be the day.
The new Nissan leaf… Actual cost to drive
Nissan has announced the price for the new Leaf .$25,280 after the tax rebate. Still a bit pricey until you look at the details. say you fill up once a week, 50 or so miles a day. at current fuel prices would be about 120 to 150 bucks a month. Your electric car would use about $1.50 per day at regular charging rates, or about 30 bucks a month. But if you live in Los Angeles and you have a dedicated meter for your EV and with nighttime charging rates you would be paying about 1.28 cents per kWh. That works out to about 3 bucks a month. Subtract from that, the average expected cost of maintenance for an internal combustion engine vehicle, of about 800 bucks a year. And it gets even better.
So you’re looking at $349 a month for the car, minus, say $100 a month difference between the gas and electricity, minus the 66 bucks in average maintenance, you are spending less than 200 a month for a brand new car.
And look at this as an added benefit. If you can afford to put Solar panels on your home now, and were to put 3 to 4 kW’s of panels on your roof. You would take care of your transportation and power needs right into your retirement.
Fan of Algae..
Tonight I was watching PBS and watching a spot by Exxon Mobile talking about algae as a fuel solution. Using the lipids in algae is a great idea. Especially great if the algae could feed off of waste products, like sewage or runoff from crops or anything else that is causing problems for the environment. But like most biofuels there is a huge expenditure in energy or resources to make them. But the most egregious of the claims, they were making was, that they were part of the solution since algae absorbs CO2. It does just that while it is growing, but just like any other biofuel it releases it when it burns. So again it’s the truth with a twist. So the truth is, it may be part of the solution if it doesn’t use too much energy to produce it, And as a biofuel it doesn’t release any new CO2 into the atmosphere. But it doesn’t absorb CO2 unless we store it up and don’t use it
trains, planes and fuel.
I would love to see some viable rail solutions for mass transit. If we do a back of the napkin calculation based on rail transport of over 400 miles per gallon per ton of freight. It would go like this. A ton of freight is equal to about 10 passengers and their luggage, more or less. This is s crude calculation, right? that works out to about 4000 miles per gallon per passenger (mpgpp). Now in the real world it would be a lot less, since freight trains are full, and passenger trains are not. But even at 1000 mpgpp it’s a lot better than planes, the best of which get about 70 miles mpgpp. Or buses, a fully loaded greyhound is about 300 mpgpp. Or a fully loaded Hummer limo at 300 mpgpp. The best you could do with 4 people in a Prius is about 200mpgpp. If we could run high speed rail at near capacity, imagine getting around 3000 mpgpp. AND if that same train ran on electricity directly, the efficiency would be around double. Some of the energy wasted going up a hill could be regained going back down the other side, as the electric motors would be used to slow the train and put power back into the grid.
Imagine a fast train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas…. cocktail in hand, strolling the train hanging out, getting your groove on and starting to relax, and all on less than cup of diesel., or even better, less than 30 cents worth of electricity. I wouldn’t feel so bad about traveling. To bad there is no train to Hawaii.
beware the buzz words
I see a lot of green solutions out there. I’ve found if they sound to good to be true they probably are. Especially if they contain all the good high concept buzz words. The idea below contains the following: Hydrogen, Photovoltaic, Maglev, carbon sequestration. To name a few. Look at the site and notice how there are no specifics on how anything works, and why are there technical drawings on notebook paper?
http://www.hydrogensuperhighway.com/
Where do I begin… first the big ones.
Why hydrogen to run the train? maglev runs on electricity. Making hydrogen by breaking down water with electricity is very inefficient.
The solar panels are partially shaded by the tracks, and in most situations there position would be far from ideal. Where does the power go and how is it used? it goes to a substation where the electricity is used to take water and electrolyze it to produce hydrogen, that is used to run a generator to make electricity. or in anther version. The electricity is used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and Oxygen, to put in a fuel cell to make electricity, to capture the water vapor to distill into clean water. Wtf? Water and electricity in and a lot less electricity and some distilled water out. seems like a huge waste of energy to get some distilled water. Reverse osmosis is a lot cheaper and more efficient, than building a million and half dollar energy waster… every 4 miles.
Maglev requires a certain amount of area to create enough lift. Those small sleeves are not enough. If the train is running on a permanent magnet rail, which is what it looks like they are saying. it will not float at low speeds. AND the rail need to be aluminum. a steel tube will cancel out the magnetic forces. So from a physics standpoint the proposal is lacking. It’s hard to beat the price and efficiency of steel wheels on steel track. Another problem is that when one starts to use small trains the size of large buses, one loses the economy of scale that one get’s with a big train. The loss of drag due to maglev is cancelled out by the use of individual cars. Each one has it’s own wind resistance to deal with, there is no slip-streaming of the cars. If the cars are making a lot of stops it may not get into maglev at all, since permanent magnet maglev only works at high speeds.
We have learned that growing plants for carbon sequestration only works for the first season. researchers using the old Biosphere project as a laboratory have found that plant vegetation on bare land only absorbs CO2 the first growing season. After that the absorption of CO2 from new growth balances out with the production of CO2 from fallen leaves and soil processes. There is a slight bit of carbon sequestration from the increase in live vegetation, but once it dies it is cancelled out. That is why the Biosphere project failed. They did not realize that the bulk of the oxygen on the planet is make by the oceans. so although it would be nice to have beautiful landscaped train rights of way, it’s not helping the CO2 problem.
The proposal claims to solve a host of other problems as well. The tracks would deliver water, waste, electricity, and Internet. I wonder if they want to put cable in there as well. Do we need our waste water overhead? how does it effect drought and famine? and claims like “Ultimately, we are creating a massive functional upgrade to the efficiency of the United States public infrastructure as a whole by implementing a nested domain address system for a National Public Transit Network.” what does that mean? isn’t that used to distribute packets of information on the internet. People are not electrons and are not so easily managed.
Then sprinkle the whole thing with highly technical terms that are inappropriately used as well as global problems not solved by this proposal. make sure that you have covered the important minutiae without fleshing out the entire engineering. It’s sort of like designing the tray tables when you haven’t figured out the plane yet.
I wish them luck…..
a bit about Poo, not winnie
Do you know what happens to your poo in your city? in Los Angeles, the waste water is treated, the poo removed, and returned to the Santa Monica Bay. The water is actually quite clean when the system is working properly. The poo is supposed to be composted in an aerobic process to minimize methane production. A process that breaks down the the waste with oxygen, the byproduct is CO2. However not all of this is done properly. Much of it is trucked to the desert where is is pilled up on Indian land. This process is anaerobic, that is without oxygen. This process produces methane and is not controlled. Neither of these is a particularly great solution.
The first process is good, because the CO2 that is produces is the same CO2, that was taken in from the atmosphere in the first place. It’s just recycled CO2. The problem is the Humus, or soil that is left over. It’s a perfectly good soil except for the ‘ick’ factor. Years ago, the city had a product called LA’s best. It was a big bag of poo composted with the green wasted from the green bins. A great idea, but do you want the collective poo from your entire city in your yard? even if’s only a few bags. It’s a perfectly good solution environmentally. You could grow organic crops with this stuff without using fertilizer. The problem is acceptance. My poo in your food…. hard to swallow.
The piling it up is unacceptable, It wastes money, effort, and energy. it has to be dried, loaded, trucked, and piled high. It has the potential to contaminate ground water, and it stinks. However, if the money where spent to build what is called a digester. The waste could be pumped into the system to produce methane, This gas could then be used to make electricity. The leftover material drawn from the anaerobic digester is called sludge, or effluent. It is rich in nutrients (ammonia, phosphorus, potassium, and more than a dozen trace elements) and is an excellent soil conditioner.
Another solution is to build a serpentine pond, kind of like a folded river basically a big shallow tank with zig-zagging partitions, like the ones at an amusement park. The wastewater would flow though this “river”. The “river” would have water hyacinths floating on the surface. The trait that makes the water hyacinth a problem as an invasive species is what makes them great for wastewater treatment. The dangling roots pull everything out of the water leaving it clear. The plants are then harvested. They can be pelletized like rabbit food and burned to make electricity. Burning biofuels does not increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, because it recycles the CO2 it took in while growing. The fibers have been used to make paper, and rope. They have bee used as animal feed. The beauty of the system is the simplicity and low cost. The only byproduct is clean water, and biomass.
There are solutions to the human waste problem, that produce a positive outcome, without lingering time bomb like problems. Funny how the greener, more natural solutions, solve more problems than their industrial counterparts.