The Problem
Certain nations of the earth, such as Japan and Indonesia, have a special combination of problems that makes obtaining energy extremely difficult. Specifically:
- They can be subject to extremely large (>7.0) earthquakes and accompanying tsunamis that, as recent events have shown, make nuclear power plants vulnerable to crippling damage and resulting escape of radioactive products.
- The very nature of nuclear plants with its radioactivity danger to the population makes it desirable to place several together in a small zone to limit exposure of the population to radiation. This concentration of power resources in a small area, however, means that a major portion of a nation’s power production capability is vulnerable to a single event that can cripple the operational capability of that nation.
- They have little or no coal or oil reserves, and would prefer not to import fossil fuels for anything other than auto and truck use to limit foreign exchange deficit and dependence on foreign resources. In addition, the carbon dioxide that results in fossil fuel use is believed by most to cause climate warming with a resultant reduction in glaciers and ice caps, an increase in sea level, and a shift in desert zones toward the poles along with a resultant loss of agricultural land, so it is desirable to eliminate its use.
Nuclear power in these countries has problems. How does such a nation provide for its energy needs, and still maintain a margin of safety for its population against radioactivity and also ensure that overall power production is not subject to a single catastrophic failure?
The Solution
We need to look for an energy production source that has the following critical features:
- Is plentiful enough to cover the nation’s base load needs in the long run.
- Energy production sources capable of being dispersed so the nation’s power production capability is invulnerable to a single crippling event.
- Is free from carbon dioxide production and other pollutants.
- Is price competitive with existing sources, so it can start replacing the existing energy sources now and later become a major energy supplier for that nation as more new similar sources are constructed.
- Is able to use the existing energy distribution systems now.
Desirable feature:
- Able eventually to make fuels that can replace fossil fuels for portable power plants (autos, aircraft, etc.).
Several possible energy sources have been proposed, namely:
- Nuclear fission reactors of a different design.
- Land based wind turbines.
- Shore based wave generators.
- Land based solar cells and/or solar thermal generators.
- Fuels to replace fossil fuels such as alcohol and oil from food crops, waste wood, kelp and algae.
- Land based deep thermal wells.
- Ocean based wind turbines, wave generators and solar cells.
Let us investigate these options one at a time.
Nuclear fission. Nuclear fission reactors are currently being used for base load (Load Factor ~0.98. Note that Load Factor is the fraction of time a source can be used to provide energy) and can operate at ~$0.08/KWH or more. There is enough nuclear fuel to last more than 100 years without using breeder reactors. A breeder reactor is one that creates more fuel than it uses. If we use breeders, there is enough fission fuel for several thousand years.
Safety is the big issue. The vulnerable element in the light water reactors currently being used in Japan and elsewhere is the coolant pump. Backup pumps are always provided, but if all electricity is lost inside and outside the facility (as happened in Japan), the backup pumps are useless. The neutron absorbing control rods and emergency shut down systems will deploy without the electricity and shut down the fission reaction, but the residual radioactivity in the fuel rods will continue to heat the rods and melt them down (as apparently happened in Japan). If the coolant pump is offline long enough the rods may melt through the containment vessel and vent radioactive material to the environment.
It appears feasible to design some reactors (for example, pebble bed reactors) with low enough energy density in the fuel elements that the residual radioactivity will not melt them down. This approach appears promising, but it does not solve the problem of what to do with the radioactive spent fuel elements, nor does it help us to disperse the power generators so that one catastrophic event will not cripple a nation’s electric production. It will always be desirable to concentrate radioactive fission reactors in one area to reduce population exposure.
Finally, it does not make non-fossil replacement fuels for autos, trucks and aircraft.
Land based wind turbines. Land based wind turbines are non-polluting but expensive (~$0.10/KWH or more). Also, they require carefully selected windy sites that are not common enough to provide a significant part of the base load. Further, they are not available all the time (Load Factor ~0.5 to 0.7 in good sites, less elsewhere). These generators are not suited for base load generation that must be cost competitive and reliable. They are useful, but appear best suited for operation in high energy cost areas on an as-available basis.
Shore based wave generators. Shore based wave generators are also non-polluting but expensive, however not as expensive as land based wind turbines (~$0.09/KWH or more). Again, they require carefully selected wave sites that are not common enough to provide a significant part of the base load (Load Factor ~0.4 to 0.6 in good sites, less elsewhere). Also, they are not available all the time. These generators are not suited for base load generation that must be competitive and reliable. They are useful, but appear best suited for operation in high energy cost areas on an as available basis.
Land based solar cells and/or solar thermal generators. Land based solar cells and solar thermal systems have serious problems for base load operation. They are the most expensive source (~$0.17/KWH or more). Solar thermal systems require expensive storage systems to operate when the sun is down or obscured (Load Factor ~0.4 to 0.6 in desert zones, less elsewhere) which increases the cost even more. Solar cells cannot operate at all without the sun. Both need huge tracts of carefully selected land for each KW of power generated. (~0.1 KW/sq meter). Furthermore, this land can be used for very few other purposes. In general, solar generators are not suited for nations (such as Japan) near the ocean where clouds and fog are common.
It appears that land-based solar cells and solar thermal systems are not suited for base load generation in nations such as Japan where they must be economically competitive and reliable. Solar cells appear best suited for specialty use where cost and area is less important, such as on top of electric cars to extend their battery range, or on top of houses to cover the day-time peak load, or near desert communities for day time peak load.
Solar thermal appears best suited for use in special isolated desert areas where the climate conditions and load characteristics work together to make these generators more competitive.
Sustainable fuels to replace fossil fuels. Alcohol from corn is currently being produced and used with gasoline to power autos. This option cannot be thought of as a long term solution, however. As population increases, the corn must be used for food. The same is true of oil from soybeans. This is not true of alcohol and oil from waste wood and sea plants such as kelp and algae. These sources provide no pressure on food production capability, so long term production is possible and also desirable. It could help replace fossil fuels for portable applications (autos, trucks and aircraft) in the long run. It should be noted, however, that it cannot replace fossil fuels for base load operations. Energy from plant growth is less efficient than that from solar cells, and it has already been noted that solar cells for base load is not economical and requires far too much land, especially in crowded nations such as Japan. Energy from plants is best suited to supply a portion of the fuel for portable power plants such as cars, trucks and aircraft.
Land based deep thermal wells. Deep thermal wells are non-polluting and may be competitive in cost. The expense is dependent on the cost of drilling a well down to the hot rocks deep within the earth’s crust. New chemical drilling techniques show promise, but cost estimate details are not yet available. A pilot hole is now under way. If the pilot hole is inexpensive enough, these thermal wells can be used to provide base load. The fuel (earth heat) is available near enough to the surface in many areas on the earth, and will last for the foreseeable future. It is non-polluting. It can use existing electrical distribution systems. The hole can even be used to sequester carbon dioxide. The only disadvantages of this generator are that it is vulnerable to earthquake damage, and it is unable to provide fuel for portable power plants, although this last problem may become less important if electric cars take over the automobile market. The vulnerability to earthquake damage may make it undesirable for nations like Japan, however, although it would fail safe, unlike nuclear fission plants.
Ocean based wind turbines, wave generators and solar cells. Ocean based wind turbines, wave generators and solar cells are non-polluting and inexpensive. They can be operated on one platform or vessel to save capital expense. The cost per KWH is estimated at ~$0.03/KWH or more. The solar cells are expensive and consume so much area that they can provide only a tenth of the total generated power, so vessels have only a backup roll for calm weather. The vessel can be moved to find optimum operating conditions (Load Factor ~0.85 to 0.95). The energy can be converted into fertilizer concentrate immediately with easy transport to land, and a ready market. This frees up natural gas (currently used to make fertilizer) for use to generate base load now. It is also possible, with development, to convert the energy harvested on the ocean along with food plant residues into hydrogen, natural gas or oil, so base load and portable applications can be directly covered in the future. Gas turbine generators can be dispersed and thus avoid vulnerability to a single crippling event. The owner can also be the operator, so overhead is saved. Part of the owner’s pay is the living quarters on the vessel, thus a job and shelter is provided as well. All of the critical and desirable characteristics are satisfied. A prototype is almost complete, so implementation is near term. Clearly this is a candidate to replace fossil fuels, and, in special circumstances, nuclear fission.
Conclusions
Clearly, Japan and other similarly situated nations will have to reconsider reliance on nuclear fission reactors as their main base load energy providers. In the near term, they will repair the damaged reactors that can be safely and economically repaired. Some reactors, however, are totally destroyed, and must be replaced with something, and quickly, because there is not enough capacity to cover load. The quickest and cheapest replacements are gas turbines and diesel generators and they will probably be used near term. This means Japan will have to increase their fossil fuel imports in the near term, a highly undesirable situation. So Japan will start to look for alternative options, and here is what the Japanese (and other similarly situated nations) will find.
Fossil fuel liquid and gas production is expensive and peaking out in production—oil first and gas soon after. Besides, it is undesirable because of the greenhouse gasses it generates. Sustainable fuels to replace fossil fuels such as alcohol and oil from waste wood and sea plants are not economical and require far too much land to cover base load. Land based wind turbines and wave generators are expensive, not always available and there are not nearly enough good sites to cover a significant fraction of the base load. Solar cells and solar thermal generators are extremely expensive, not always available and require far too much area that is not common in seacoast nations to cover base load.
Clearly, only three long term base load energy options are open for Japan and similar nations, namely:
- Alternative nuclear fission reactor designs such as pebble bed reactors, fast reactors and highly modified light water reactor designs that are free from escaped radiation problems, although they will always be vulnerable to catastrophic earthquake damage and the spent fuel elimination problem.
- Deep thermal well generators that are free from escaped radiation and spent fuel problems, although they will always be vulnerable to catastrophic earthquake damage.
- Ocean based wind turbines, wave generators and solar cells that are free from escaped radiation and spent fuel problems. In addition, both the ocean based fuel generators and the land based gas turbine powered electric generators necessary are widely enough distributed to be free from large-scale damage by single catastrophic events. Furthermore, as ocean based fuel generators come on-line, they can cover all (even portable power plant) energy needs with sustainable, low-cost energy that does not require foreign exchange.
It would be wise for Japan to start now to investigate all three options now.
It depends on which nuartal energy you get more of. If you live in a windy zone (average 12mph or better winds and long duration)that has consistent winds and you don’t have a lot of trees around ( big open hilly rolling fields are some of the best sites for windmills) , wind power is much better at being able to generate more power with less cost.But if your area is low wind and hampered by lots of buildings houses and trees around, the cost you would have to spend on getting a tower high enough to access the stabler higher winds would make it prohibitive. Windpower is better from a grid standpoint as you can run a AC generator that synchronizes with the electric companies power so you don’t need batteries or inverters and if you generate more power than you consume, you can sell the power back to the utilities (wholesale rates)Solar power is best used for heat production rather than electricity . If you are using 4000 kwh a month it sounds like you are an all electric house. Thats a lot of electricity. So if your dryer, hot water heater are electric then solar is the cheapest option for making hot water for your hot water heater and also solar hot air can store its heat in large underground rocks tanks and then the hot air can be piped to either heat your house in the winter or to be piped thru your dryer for clothes.With 4000 kwh of use , you need some major solar or wind systems. First thing to do is figure out how to conserve some power so you don’t need such big systems. Use ALL compact fluorescent lights or LED lights. They save power two ways, use about 1/6 of the power of regular bulbs , and by producing less heat, saves a lot on your A/C bill. Your air conditioner removes 12,000 BTU’s of heat per ton of air conditioning. There is about 3400 BTU of heat in a Kwh of electricity. So if you are running TV’s , lights, computers, rechargers etc, all those items can produce several thousand BTU’s of heat each day which your A/C has to remove in addition to outside heat.It is probably most economical to study your use pattern and use a combo of both. Wind for electrical needs and solar heaters for hot air or hot water. But first, lower your consumption, it is the cheapest option. I don’t own a single incandescent bulb in my house, inside or out. All lights are LED’s and CFL’s. No TV’s larger than 25 inch and power consumption is less than 100 watts.High efficiency refrigerator with extra thick foam andfreezer on bottom. I dry my clothes on a close line, which saves a lot of power, and never breaks down and makes clothes last longer. I put timers on all power strips. I had a timer on my water heater (before I went solar) that only came on 2 hours a day ( I warned family what time to take showers if they wanted hot water.) I even mounted my refrigerator to an outside wall with louvers in the wall that open in winter to allow cold outside air to cool the refrigerator and in the summer all the heat from compression is blown outside instead of in the house again.. I don’t want to fight the air conditioner. And I use a geothermal heatpump with woodburner backup.I generally get 350 kwh in the summer and maybe 700 kwh in the winter.
What should be a eleativlry straightforward answer, like it will cost you $14/watt for solar and $7/watt for wind power is not so easy in reality. There are two big challenges to understanding your PV and wind power system costs and power?#1. POWER IS HARD TO FIGURE OUT. You buy these systems based on their nameplate value, but you actually care about their total power generation:To explain: Each of these systems, Solar or Wind, will be rated by their power production peak capability. This rating is known as their nameplate value, and when purchasing a 90 watt solar panel, and the 90 watts is the peak power this panel can produce on a sunny day at noon. Similarly, a 1kW (nameplate) wind turbine will be rated for the peak power it can generate in fairly high wind (typically 30 mph sustained). If you are actually using these systems for power generation, the nameplate value is good to know for the total power you will need to handle in the system, but not wholly useful for determining it’s power production. What you actually care about is watts/per year, not watts per BEST CASE SCENARIO. To determine your yearly estimated watts per solar or wind is quite hard and depends on your sun and wind conditions where you live and how you install these. In general, a solar system with nameplate power of 3 kW will produce approximately 4000 kW/hrs per year in good sun (southern U.S.), and a 3kW wind turbine will produce approximately 6000 kW/hrs in good wind (Wind class 3 areas.) A wind class map can be found at AWEA.org.#2. PRICE IS HARD TO FIGURE OUT. Even if you do some math, and figure out your power production for your system, there is not an easy price total for either of these. Solar panels need installation, DC-AC inverters, grid-connection systems and/or battery systems. Wind systems also need installation, including potentially costly foundation and tower work if you want to get the turbine up into stronger winds, inverters, grid-connection and batteries etc. It is not atypical in EITHER solar or wind for the installed costs to double or triple the purchase of the panels or turbines themselves.What you wanted to know was which to buy, the answer is: if it’s really sunny and not windy, use solar, if it’s windy (branches offer flutter on your trees), think about wind.later,jeremy
First of all, the conversion is chiaceml to electricity, as in the chemistry of a car battery which provides an output voltage.To meet your needs, you need to figure how much useful sunlight you will have per day. Such sources as the Weather Channel, or National Climatology office can supply that to you. You need to determine the total load. Just add everything up, and that is the load you need to have sufficient energy to provide power for. If this works out to be, let’s say 200 watts, then you need at least a 200 watt solar panel, provided that you have enough sunlight from the time that you get up in the morning, until you go to bed at night. Count on it, you won’t have enough sunlight for your needs, unless you live up in Alaska. Even then, there is part of the year where there will not be enough light at any time of the day. What you need, for full 24 hour coverage is a battery bank, and unless everything will run on 12 or 24 volts, then you need 1 or more inverters. With inverters, you lose 10% in conversion loss from DC to AC. Batteries should be RV, Trolling motor, or best yet, electric fork lift batteries, or the reasonable equivalent of such as these. I would recomment at least double to quadruple the total energy need for the solar panels, and to multiply the battery capacity by the total load supply that you have figured out, for at least a 24 hour run time. All of that, then multiplied by 90% to know how long the system will provide power, IF you use any DC to AC inverters. Within reason, the larger the battery bank, the better. Do NOT use regular car batteries, they will not last as long as you need them to last, unless you understand the difference between cranking amps, and reserve amps. Another point is that auto batteries are simply not designed for this kind of service.
energy from solar panels can be sterod in batteries for when there is little sun light. its very expensive to install, maybe 8 grand upwards for home systems, hence its usually just used for heating up water etc.. but average *home* system can take on maybe up to 40% of that household’s annual electricity useage.. it is rather expensive per square metre to buy as silicon is not so readily available to make it cheap.. but once its up there it doesnt need much maintenance except to clean it, etc.wind turbines are expensive to install but once up, not much maintanence is needed, checked up maybe every few years.. the energy can be sterod in batteries when there is no wind present.so, i guess its def not answer B and C.edit: wind and sunlight is free so it isnt expensive to *use*
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From what I understand, Bermuda has done a lot of work using new and old todwars sustainability on a resource limited island. You might want to look into what they do and then scratch the surface.Have you ever visited care2.com? It has a lot of info, numerous links, and then links to links. Don’t forget to consider solar-thermal energy assistance and use; you pre-heat water or other materials stragetically placed and/or plumbed to reduce the solar power load. A lot of folks currently reducing thier grid use and/or going off the grid are returning to 12 volt systems or sub-systems. (It is my understanding that back in the day, obviously before my day, that 12 volt electricty arrived at homes long before the current 110/220.) Also, have you ever been to cityfarmer.org? It is out of Vancouver, BC and its goal is to promote city farming in the Vancouver area and world wide. Certainly at one time, it had a board for the posting of urban farming research, papers, and the more. It also had a posting of a guy who did a paper (thesis/thesis related I think) about establishing farming capabilities in poor, urban areas with limited water access and use. His area was some place in Africa. Posted were some dimensions and drawings of some raised beds using found scrap materials for the growing of lettuces and I think it was tomatoes. The beds included different levels and a slucing system that were arrived at. Included in the discussion were alternative material suggestions, critical technical aspects about the bed dimentions and slucing system, yield discussion, and future and alternative design considerations one could/should make. I’m not sure if this board or posting still exist but, the administrator can probably get you information from the archives. Certainly in the past, this was a good site for connecting to others doing urban and other food production exploration under different conditions.
I am considering srnittag a solar/wind energy business. I would like to know how many people would really consider installing solar panels and/or a wind generator on their home or business. If a complete system is too costly, would you consider a battery back-up system to run essential items in you home or business for when the power drops out? This would consist of 4-12 batteries, a couple of solar panels and/or a wind generator. This would operate items such as lights, well pump, refrigerator, radio or TV, telephones, and computers. Would you consider srnittag a small solar array (4-6 panels) and adding panels to it when you have extra money to spend on them?Please give me your feedback on what you think of GREEN energy and if you think it is the future or just a fad.Good answers so far. In response to f100_supersabre, A 4 battery system is not much. It all depends on what you will operate and how long. The more batteries the better. About the telephone, yes they are powered by the telephone line but businesses usually have multiple lines with a switching station that needs electricity to operate. Most homes now only have cordless phones which require electricity. If you keep a corded phone in your home this would be a non factor. When it comes to the size panels and wind generator that is relevant to your power consumption. What might be good for your house may be too big or too small for your neighbor.Keep the answers coming.
A is the strongest anewsr. The sun is not in the sky for half the time, on average, but some locations have extremely reliable wind.B is 99% false. Same thinking as above.C is about 60% true. Solar is not economical for many homes, and wind even less so due to geography.D is 90% true. When heating, cooling, and cooking needs are taken into account, solar does not supply enough power. When heat comes from somewhere else like a wood stove or natural gas, solar can supply a home’s needs. There’s still the economic issue. And the term efficient is subjective.
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