A scary strategic problem - no oil

[Kirkhill]

An artificial creation this shortage.

People need food before fuel.  Trading acreage to create fuel rather than food is jus' plain dumb. 
Likewise it is dumb to divert liquid fuels like diesel to stationary uses.  Liquid fuels are still the best option for mobile gear like tractors and trucks.

For all other applications - electricity from large plants like that one that Dalton McGuinty just demolished at Lakeshore or those other ones at Pickering and Darlington.  He could have created a nice greenhouse complex and district heating system with that plant at Lakeshore - producing food in Toronto - close to the market - with all that useful CO2 that plant produced.

Bransom, Harper, Suzuki, Bush and Gore along with the UN will be creating a 3rd World Famine long before they CURE Global Warming or make the Mid-East stable.

The cure to the worlds ills.  Ship carbon from where it exists to where it is needed.  Make CO2 where it is needed to grow food.  CO2 sequestered when the food is eaten.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting introduction to various reformulation schemes. Biofuels usually require work to be burned or otherwise used in everyday industrial processes, and the more work that gets put into transforming fuel, the less energy that is ultimatly available. The reformulation of natural gas to hydrogen is particularly horrible, it not only takes a vast amount of energy, but the resulting hydrogen gas has only a fraction of the energy of the natural gas used in the process.

http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/cho.html

 

[a_majoor]

Solar energy seems attractive since the solar constant is 1400W/m2, but since it dosn't work at night, and has issues when there is weather, dust in the atmosphere, shading from trees, buildings etc. a realistic planning figure would be solar energy can suppliment about 1/3 of your energy needs without getting into things like solar power satellites beaming power from space.

Here is a place made in Canada solutions might be found:

http://www.capds.uwaterloo.ca/

The Center for Advanced Photovoltaic Devices and Systems (CAPDS) is a world-class R&D facility dedicated to all aspects of photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion. Located at the University of Waterloo, right at the heart of Canada's Technology Triangle Area, the CAPDS is a 14000 sq.ft. research facility with dedicated infrastructure for PV research supporting synthesis of electronic base materials, design and fabrication of advanced PV devices & modules, and testing & characterization of PV materials, devices & systems.  Backed by state-of-the-art infrastructure and expertise, the multi-faceted R&D at the CAPDS spans the entire spectrum of PV research, from base materials to modules, making it a unique facility that is capable of making a true impact on the quest for making PV an affordable energy alternative. This initiative is funded by the Canadian Federal Government, the Ontario Provincial Government, Industry, and by the University of Waterloo. The facility is expected to be fully operational by year 2007.

 

[Benny]

Solar energy seems attractive since the solar constant is 1400W/m2, but since it dosn't work at night, and has issues when there is weather, dust in the atmosphere, shading from trees, buildings etc. a realistic planning figure would be solar energy can suppliment about 1/3 of your energy needs without getting into things like solar power satellites beaming power from space.

Which is why you have an interconnecting grid over a few thousand km. Local areas get shrouded in cloud, but whole continents don't. Same for wind power. Transmission losses at 330kV+ are tiny (most losses occur at local level), so moving power great distances isn't a problem. Solar power for Canada needn't be installed there, far better to have it in the desert areas of the US, sited near existing transmission lines.

 

[Benny]

Enron also created artificial shortages in California to inflate the prices.  It is no coincidence that when Enron collapsed the blackouts in California ended.

Generators still do this here. Turbines are often rather conveniently out for maintenance during high demand periods to ensure the price goes up nicely. It isn't illegal either, and not much can be done about it besides limiting the amount of generation any one company can own, and stringent testing for collusion.

 

[a_majoor]

Which is why you have an interconnecting grid over a few thousand km. Local areas get shrouded in cloud, but whole continents don't. Same for wind power. Transmission losses at 330kV+ are tiny (most losses occur at local level), so moving power great distances isn't a problem. Solar power for Canada needn't be installed there, far better to have it in the desert areas of the US, sited near existing transmission lines.

Variable and intermittent power would cause severe voltage fluctuations on the grid. This sort of thing is thought to have led to a grid collapse and blackout in Germany (which is trying to get a large fraction of their energy from wind power), and will be a limiting factor everywhere else. You simply cannot dial a mutli megawatt base station up and dowm like a dimmer switch to account for voltage fluctuations elsewhere on the grid (and especially not with nuclear generators).

Long distance transmission is also inefficient since @ 33% of the generated power goes to waste heat generated in the wires and transformers.

You can't evade the Laws of Physics. Remember, they are watching!

 

[Benny]

Variable and intermittent power would cause severe voltage fluctuations on the grid. This sort of thing is thought to have led to a grid collapse and blackout in Germany (which is trying to get a large fraction of their energy from wind power), and will be a limiting factor everywhere else. You simply cannot dial a mutli megawatt base station up and dowm like a dimmer switch to account for voltage fluctuations elsewhere on the grid (and especially not with nuclear generators).

Long distance transmission is also inefficient since @ 33% of the generated power goes to waste heat generated in the wires and transformers.

No it won't. The fluctuations due to wind power, though large, are slow, and can be forecast. Generators other than base load, will turn on and off in a matter of minutes. There should always be at least one turbine on any grid spinning synchronously, without actually generating. This can be quickly brought into generation if needed. Voltage fluctuations are also compensated for by ohmic load. Those evil incandescent bulbs are great for this. If the voltage dips, they use less power.
33% is a huge figure for transmission losses. Where did you get it from? A normal transmission loss figure is 3-5% The highest losses I've ever heard of is 50%, which is on sub-transmission at peak load, on an overloaded line, but that's an extreme case where it was either take the losses, or load shed. And the 3-5% figure includes transformer losses, which are going to be there regardless of where your generation is. So sending it from a different source far away just isn't a problem as long as the transmission lines are there. Having various sources also protects from a spike in resource prices. There is an oil based generator near my work which has never operated because of the price spike shortly after construction, it now runs on natural gas. Wind always stays free.

 

[a_majoor]

Re: voltage fluctuations taking out the grid: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/37017/post-483867.html#msg483867
Full story: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=7235a029-e0cb-479d-aeb6-ef19c4fc32f5

WRT energy losses through the electrical system, see the chart: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/37017/post-422007.html#msg422007, from
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/images/2006/U.S.EnergyFlowTrends-2002-InExajoules-USEnFlow02-exaj.gif

Electrical system energy losses are given at 68%, (27.8 Exojoules of system losses divided by 40.3 Exojoules of input)

Overall, thermodynamic losses consumes 57% of the input, so it will be very important to find ways and means of reducing these losses. Since you can't evade the laws of physics, this needs to be done carefully. It is no good switching to some system to gain downstream efficiencies if you are using more energy and resources in manufacturing upstream. This is the real secret of hybrid cars as they are produced today, they are energy hogs when it comes to production. I suspect a Prius without its heavy and expensive battery pack, electric motor and complex transmission would be faster, cheaper and just as fuel efficient since there would be huge weight savings. Current PV cells have the same drawbacks of upstream expense to downstream savings.

edit to fix math

 

[Benny]

For the purpose of debating long distance transmission, that diagram is not exactly useful. It counts losses after customer delivery, during low voltage distribution, during generation, all of which are common losses regardless of which technology you use. Worst of all, a third of the 'losses' have nothing to do with electricity at all. The only valid figure for long distance transmission comparison would be losses at 132kV+, which is not included in that diagram. As long as you don't overload the lines, at 500kV you can push energy about 2000km at under 10% loss.
And 500kV lines are rarely overloaded as the conductor area is necessarily large due to corona effect.

 

[Trooper Hale]

Just for a tiny bit of background, Benny there works with all these power currents and electricity stuff. He doesnt wear glasses three inches thick, nor does he fill his pockets with colour coded pens, so i cant vouch for his overall nerdiness, but he does know what he's on about.
And its really quite interesting. I heard the same thing about wind farms losing heaps of the electrify that they create, your saying that its not as much as Coal plant owners and people who believe in Nuclear power would like us to think?

 

[Benny]

Just for a tiny bit of background, Benny there works with all these power currents and electricity stuff.

Aaarrggghh, I've been outed!  (runs and hides in shadow)

nor does he fill his pockets with colour coded pens,

Fine, you won the pen stealing contest on saturday. Stop rubbing it in.

And its really quite interesting. I heard the same thing about wind farms losing heaps of the electrify that they create, your saying that its not as much as Coal plant owners and people who believe in Nuclear power would like us to think?

It's just not true. They 'lose' some by not generating it in the first place due to not harnessing all of the power that the wind has to offer, but as far as actual transformation and transmission losses they are exactly the same as everything else.

 

[a_majoor]

I must bow to your superior knowledge (and many pens!); but I must admit some of what you say does seem to be at varience to the other things I have read; and I am not a frequent follower of green or anti-technology writers either. Experience trumps second hand knowledge

 

[Benny]

It is all too common to see more than a little political input masqerading as environmental/engineering concerns. It can lead to some pretty stupid outcomes when the facts behind a project become distorted. This happens to some extent here, though there has only been one real example of political interference causing a stuff up. This was where a wind farm was stopped because someone calculated that every 20 years an endangered parrot might be killed by the thing. Mostly our engineers here are just left to do engineering, and the politicians stay out of it. Sounds like this is not the case where you are.

 

[retiredgrunt45]

The bottom line is this. Most of us here will probably all be dead and buried before the oil is supposed to run out. If that's the case at all. Large oil companies keep a very tight leash on their geologists and their findings, so no one except for the few privy in the oil companies really knows how much oil is actually out there.

Speculation make a few very wealthy people even wealthier everyday and the rest of us are just along for the ride, happily handing our money to them at the pumps at the prices they dictate.

Like sheep to a wolves den. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

On a more serious note, the internal combustion engine as we know it today, has been around in some form or other since 1885 by Gottlieb Daimler, what is often recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine. I think it has been perfected as far as it can possibly go. Even with newer and better electronic engine management systems being the only way to make and already obsolete piece of engineering any more efficient is likened to placing a Cray supercomputer into a 1960 Chevrolet and expecting it to run more efficiently. Never going to happen. The principal remains the same, the engine. The electronics's may be cutting edge, but can only do so much to take it past that 30% threshold that the most efficient I/C engine already runs at.  It's like squeezing a stone and expecting water.

It's time we moved on to another much more efficient form of propulsion and put the grossly inefficient internal combustion engine were it belongs, in a museum. Problem is we have been so busy trying to get more out of this engine that better systems have been placed on the backburner for years, most likely, because of a lack of economic incentive to do anything that involved taking money away from big oil producers. We all seen what happended to other "new ideas" that came along in the past, gobbled up and shelved.

 

[Trooper Hale]

+1 Retired Grunt, really well said and very true in my head.

 

[adaminc]

The future is going to be electric with battery or ultra-capacitor storage systems. I would prefer ultra-capacitors because of all the advantages over batteries, faster charge/discharge rates, better thermal stability, less weight.

I think there needs to be even more money dumped into both areas of storage research (batteries and capacitors), this is really the only big stigma in electronics, storage, its easy to generate large amounts of energy, but storing large amounts, and especially making it portable or mobile, is quite difficult, even large power generating facilities have troubles, usually they pump large amounts of water uphill for a later release to turn turbines, or more recently they are delving into the idea of pumping compressed air into underground caverns for later release to turn turbines.

I have heard of a very theoretical power system that uses a principle called the Beta Voltaic Effect to generate electricity using radioactive materials, no fusion or fission, the material is housed inside the "device", and using the natural breakdown of the radioactive material it captures the energy from the alpha and beta particles (and possibly gamma rays), that are shooting out from the radioactive material, in theory it would work very well, but it could just be another cold fusion kind of pipe dream, I'm no nuclear physicist so I couldn't really understand the technicalities of it, but this could be another area to look into.

As for electric motors, the future will probably be wheel hub motors for most vehicles, like PML's Hi-PA Drives, unless you get into very heavy vehicles like tanks, then well, I dont know what they would use.

 

[a_majoor]

There is actually a very easy to use, high density means of storing and transporting energy. The energy is available at all temperature ranges, is reasonably easy to access with many technologies, relatively non toxic and can be used by literally everyone (as daily experience has shown world wide for more than a century).

The secret: the chemical energy stored in the bonds between hydrogen and carbon, particularly long chains like C18 and above........the generic trade name for such magical substances is "hydrocarbons", but a related substance has almost the same material and energetic properties: coal.

Face it, the laws of physics has us in a pretty tight corner, and in order to be practical, usable and widely accepted, any competing development must at least match the conveinience and energy density of hydrocarbon fuels in thermal (internal combustion) engines. Ultracapacitors sound promising, although a car with electric engines in the wheels would have a very harsh ride (look up "unsprung weight" and see why engineers try to reduce it as much as possible). Trucks and utility vehicles coud benefit from the increased room, though.

The best way that I know of to combine the energy density of hydrocarbons with the "conveinience" of an electric vehicle would be using hydrocarbon fuels in a "Solid Oxide Fuel Cell", which can convert a much higher portion of the chemical energy into electricity. Mind you, waiting for the SOFC to warm up to 10000 C to achieve operating temperatures might not make it perform the way you are used to......

Sorry folks, no easy answers yet.

 

[adaminc]

There is already a BMW Mini with these wheel hub motors, its a P.O.C. (proof of concept), and I supposedly it rides almost the same, this is by the same company PML, and uses their Hi-PA drives, the highend ones which put out 550lb-ft of torque only weigh 25kg, not that heavy, although inorder to use them now the vehicle would probably get heavy from all the batteries you would need, i think the stigma is still in storage and not in drive systems.

 

[a_majoor]

Some more background on electricity generation in Canada. Note the high proportion of nuclear and thermal energy used:

http://greycanada.blogspot.com/2007/08/great-canadian-debate-nuclear-power

Great Canadian Debate: Nuclear Power

Instead of figuring out yet another forum right now, I am putting my reply here.

Sorry Frank, but you missed a lot. Nuclear power supplied 50% of Ontario's electricity needs in 2006. In Ontario, when the power went out on August 14, 2003, it was days until the nuclear plants could be slowly taken out of "safe mode." Increasing the number of reactors to 78% like France would make the recovery from another large blackout even worse.

Your assumption on the use of oil and gas is wrong. Over a quarter of all electricity generation in Canada comes from thermal power plants. Of that quarter, natural gas, diesel, Light Fuel Oil, and Heavy Fuel Oil amount to (20+0.5+8.2)=28.7%. So oil products are used to generate around 7 % of Canada's electricity. The other categories like Wood and Coal make up around 18% of the total both of which are plentiful outside of the middle east. In fact they have very little coal reserves.

The only argument you have left is green house gases and micro stations are being tested now that have zero emissions.

I am assuming "micro" in this context means micro hydro, which is OK for small scale and local needs.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Now here is this crazy machine, sent to me via email:

March 19, 2007 Many respected engineers have been trying for years to bring a compressed air car to market, believing strongly that compressed air can power a viable "zero pollution" car. Now the first commercial compressed air car is on the verge of production and beginning to attract a lot of attention, and with a recently signed partnership with Tata, India’s largest automotive manufacturer, the prospects of very cost-effective mass production are now a distinct possibility. The MiniC.A.T is a simple, light urban car, with a tubular chassis that is glued not welded and a body of fiberglass. The heart of the electronic and communication system on the car is a computer offering an array of information reports that extends well beyond the speed of the vehicle, and is built to integrate with external systems and almost anything you could dream of, starting with voice recognition, Internet connectivity, GSM telephone connectivity, a GPS guidance system, fleet management systems, emergency systems, and of course every form of digital entertainment. The engine is fascinating, as is and the revolutionary electrical system that uses just one cable and so is the vehicle’s wireless control system. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators etc

There are no keys, just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket.

Most importantly, it is incredibly cost-efficient to run according to the designers, it costs less than one Euro per 100Km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or 10 hours of driving), a factor which makes a perfect choice in cities where the 80% of motorists drive at less than 60Km. The car has a top speed of 68 mph.

Refilling the car will, once the market develops, take place at adapted petrol stations to administer compressed air. In two or three minutes, and at a cost of approximately 1.5 Euros, the car will be ready to go another 200-300 kilometres.

As a viable alternative, the car carries a small compressor which can be connected to the mains (220V or 380V) and refill the tank in 3-4 hours.

Due to the absence of combustion and, consequently, of residues, changing the oil (1 litre of vegetable oil) is necessary only every 50,000 Km.

The temperature of the clean air expelled by the exhaust pipe is between 0 - 15 degrees below zero, which makes it suitable for use by the internal air conditioning system with no need for gases or loss of power.

How does it work?

90m3 of compressed air is stored in fibre tanks. The expansion of this air pushes the pistons and creates movement. The atmospheric temperature is used to re-heat the engine and increase the road coverage. The air conditioning system makes use of the expelled cold air. Due to the absence of combustion and the fact there is no pollution, the oil change is only necessary every 31.000 miles.

At the moment, four models have been made: a car, a taxi (5 passengers), a Pick-Up truck and a van. The final selling price will be approximately 5.500 pounds.

The Company

"Moteur Development International" (MDI) is a company founded in Luxembourg, based in the south of France and with its Commercial Office in Barcelona. MDI has researched and developed the Air Car over 10 years and the technology is protected by more than 30 International patents and MDI is actively seeking licensees, with according to the company, 50 factories in Europe, America and Asiasigned already.

The Factory

It is predicted that the factory will produce 3.000 cars each year, with 70 staff working only one 8-hour shift a day. If there were 3 shifts some 9.000 cars could be produced a year.

The Tata Agreement

Tata Motors is India's largest automobile company, with revenues of US$ 5.5 billion in 2005-06. With over 4 million Tata vehicles on Indian roads, it is the leader in commercial vehicles and the second largest in passenger vehicles. It is also the world's fifth largest medium and heavy truck manufacturer and the second largest heavy bus manufacturer.

Tata has signed an agreement with MDI for application in India of MDI’s engine technology, and believes the engine is viable; its press statement described it as an efficient, cost-effective, scalable, and capable of other applications such as power generation.

The agreement between Tata Motors and MDI envisages Tata supporting further development and refinement of the technology, and its application and licensing for India.

MDI is a small, family-controlled company located at Carros, near Nice (Southern France) where Guy and Cyril Negre and their technical team have developed the engine technology and the technologically advanced car it powers.

Pretty hard to say an air powered car could hurt the enviroment.