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Post by Grant on Nov 22, 2013 22:50:19 GMT 9.5
Jeremy Rifkin as I understand it is held in high esteem by a lot of folks in government and business as a futurist in energy. He likes solar and hydrogen fuel cells but not nuclear or fossil fuel. Here he weighs in on why he thinks nuclear is a no go. I'd appreciate hearing a point by point rebuttal. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwIvGJJ_dtU
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Post by Grant on Nov 22, 2013 23:03:56 GMT 9.5
Just to give you a little more to chew on, Rifkin goes over the same territory but in addition expands into his distributive alternative solution. He does it here in France which I guess is a little cheeky. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgFyYkXbHyg
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Post by Ed Leaver on Nov 23, 2013 0:37:01 GMT 9.5
Thanks for your interest, Grant. Not that they don't have their time and place, but in interest of generating discussion based upon something more concrete (but alas not more quotable) than YouTubes, may I suggest Jeremy Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution? (If you can find an interview that actually allows copying from the source, that would be even better...) Without going into specifics, whenever I see anything on the scale of Rifkin's vision I am always mindful of the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: In general, I have few qualms with the next guy choosing his own way in this world, but am troubled with the conflation of "futurism" per se with some sort of cure for global warming. Rifkin's Great Green Dream of globally distributed unreliable energy sources linked by vast glittering spiderweb of HVDC transmission and backed by local hydrogen stores may appear wonderful, and in the ideal world he strives for no doubt would be. But what has that to do with averting climate catastrophe? Its a matter of time, cost, and scalability. All low-carbon energy sources can contribute to a hypothetical solution. But any real solution will fall short --- and fail -- if it does not incorporate them all. As just one example, consider the pride with which Mr. Rifkin takes credit for EU's "20% renewables by 2020" mandate. Which superficially may seem wonderful but 20% is woefully insufficient so -- and this is not just a rhetorical question -- what has that goal in itself to do with averting climate catastrophe? Now, Rifkin himself acknowledges the going gets rocky beyond about that point. So given that 90 or 95+% emissions reduction is what's required, just what is the plan? How do we get from here to there this half century without breaking the bank? Because if we break the bank we won't get there. Neither will we if we dawdle. And here's the impressive progress made since the program to displace nuclear with unreliables: Share of clean energy from total primary energy supply 1965-2012 Source: The Stagnation of Clean Energy with More Detail
Again, I've no beef with Mr. Rifkin and his followers pursuing their Third Industrial Revolution. But whatever it is, it will take time. Will exclusive fixation upon its dream leave us forever mired here in the Second? Which way the exit?
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Post by Grant on Nov 23, 2013 1:55:05 GMT 9.5
I agree ed that we have to address the energy question in terms of time, cost, and scalability but all the alternatives seem to fall short there. Rifkin particularly brings up nuclear's cost future, not to mention a host of other concerns like water heating and waste sequestration.
One matter I would be interested in is the viability of hydrogen cell technology. It's clearly critical to Rifkin's vision. Do you have any thoughts on them as workable local energy storage units? From my reading a lot folks seem to have doubts.
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Post by trag on Nov 23, 2013 2:18:34 GMT 9.5
Jeremy Rifkin as I understand it is held in high esteem by a lot of folks in government and business as a futurist in energy. In my opinion, Jeremy Rifkin has always been a blatant charlatan who cons the gullible. For a while he worked the anti-recombinant DNA research angle, and his justification was "Because man just shouldn't fool with some things." The correct way to react to Rifkin is to develop contempt or pity, depending on the circumstances, for anyone who listens to him.
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Post by Ed Leaver on Nov 23, 2013 7:58:43 GMT 9.5
I agree ed that we have to address the energy question in terms of time, cost, and scalability but all the alternatives seem to fall short there. Rifkin particularly brings up nuclear's cost future, not to mention a host of other concerns like water heating and waste sequestration. One matter I would be interested in is the viability of hydrogen cell technology. It's clearly critical to Rifkin's vision. Do you have any thoughts on them as workable local energy storage units? From my reading a lot folks seem to have doubts. All alternatives by themselves do fall short there. At this point integrated solutions are required. Such was not necessarily the case twenty years ago. But here we are today. US having not built a new nuclear plant in thirty years, Southern Co has contracted two 1.17 GW AP1000 at Vogtle for $15 billion. This is pricey, but Southern thinks they will start making return about 2030, actual recoup of initial cost maybe not until 2050. After that -- profit! A non-facetious point for plant with design life of 60 years and reasonably probable service life of 80 or 100. Likewise, South Carolina Gas & Electric is contracting two AP1000 for $10 billion, and thinks so far they are under-budget. We'll see. Point is, these four are essentially FOAK (first of a kind) for this country. EIA estimates $5.5 billion/GW for new nuclear construction. If SCG&E actually pulls these in for $10 billion, that would be $4.27 billion/GW, making them less capital-costly than any coal technology with CCS. (But not capital-cheaper than fracked gas.) See EIA: Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants page 6. While you're at it also see EIA: Levelized Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2013, because there is a lot more to the price of electricity than just the capital investment on plant. (I think you knew that). A third source you may fins useful when evaluating nuclear LCOE is Economics of Nuclear Power. Yellowcake spot prices are posted here. Also see The Hidden Cost of Wind Energy -- because there is no free lunch, or energy either. On a MWh basis, the water cooling requirements of nuclear are exactly that of coal. There were a few inland nuclear plants built before 1972 without cooling towers (and quite a few coal) that have recently found themselves in hot water, but not because their cooling requirements or river-flows have changed the past forty years. Combined-cycle gas turbines require cooling water as well, though on a MWh bases not as much as nuclear or coal. For brief explanation of how cooling towers work for all thermal generation sources, see The Nuclear Cooling Tower. "Nuclear thermal pollution" is a red herring. The waste sequestation problem has been brought to you by the very same folks who, twenty years ago, did their very best to ensure it would never be solved. Sorry if I sound harsh, but that's the way I've come to see it. But even in the absence of fast neutron reactors and their closed fuel cycles, our present once-through cycle creates spent nuclear fuel that is hazardous for only about two hundred thousand years. This may seem lengthy by hysterical standards, but is no more than the slow bllnk of the geologic eye -- at least an order of magnitude shorter than the climate change that refusal to sequester will assuredly bring. Please put this in context: over fifty years the U.S. has generated 70 kt spent nuclear fuel. After final cool-down in spent-fuel pools, the SNF is kept securely in dry cask storage where it is danger to no person, or the environment, or the climate. U.S. CO2 emissions, otoh, amounted to 2.16 billion tonnes in 2009 alone. Just from electric generation. Into the atmosphere, where it is an irretrievable and absolutely devastating pollution, not readily manageable solid waste. But CO2 is invisible, cannot be detected with a geiger counter, and is necessary for life -- clearly the preferred alternative by any rational metric. Hydrogen fuel cells certainly have their place. Otherwise Honda, Hyundai, and GM wouldn't be investing so many billions. But that's automotive. The question is whether fuel cell storage can scale to the level required to balance grid-level unreliable generation, how fast, and at what cost. At this point they are an unproven technology even for automotive applications. I think it unwise to bet the farm on their economic competitiveness in the time frame required. But they will certainly find application somewhere. Closed nuclear fuel cycles will reduce the waste volume by factors of ten (at least) and required sequestration time to 300 - 500 years, well within the historical time frame. But (having deliberately shot ourselves through the foot) we are painfully slow out of the blocks on that one, and fast neutron reactors are so painfully efficient that it will take at least a century for them to burn through the spent fuel we have on hand, let alone what we will generate in the interim. So some form of short-term storage will be required in addition to long-term sequestration. If you are a U.S. citizen do please see S1240 NWAA: Senators Release Discussion Draft of Comprehensive Nuclear Waste Legislation. This is critically important regardless of US commitment to future commercial nuclear power.
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Post by edireland on Nov 23, 2013 11:13:43 GMT 9.5
It is worth noting that the open cycle we use today is potentially sustainable for many centuries thanks to developments in seawater extraction which even now would only add $15/MWh to the price of produced electricity. The price is still falling.
Reprocessing gets easier the longer you wait, you could quite easily store the waste in dry casks for 300 years and then reprocess it once the only significant rad sources left are the actinides, which would permit the reprocessing to occur in a far lower radiation field than otherwise (5kCi/t of which 60% is 241Am, as opposed to 470kCi at 10 years)
Fast neutron reactors no longer appear neccessary.
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Post by Grant on Nov 23, 2013 11:29:36 GMT 9.5
Thanks for the informative links Ed. One thing that is clear is that on a total cost basis the business of expanding energy sources for utilities clearly, for now, favors natural gas. Interesting how expensive solar is and offshore wind. I don't thing we can ignore that normative nuclear costs don't seem to include accidents like Chernobyl or Fukushima. That's a singularly big negative. When nuclear power plants have a major accident it's a doozie with costs that continue and continue. And of course we know we have the same on site storage of fuel rods that the Japanese had. The post disaster advantages of nuclear then get cancelled as the politics require shut downs or at least pull backs from future investments. I'm not here to put down nuclear but when its best feature, it's ability to substitute for fossil fuel, can suddenly turn around and again spike fossil fuel upward then you've got yourself a double edged sword. Maybe the closed fuel cycle is a ticket out, I sure hope so. One problem I have is the inability to find any credible projection that has us phasing out or even seriously lowering fossil fuel energy by mid century. Forget Rifkin's 30 year phase out. Nobody is working harder putting in alternative energies than China and yet their 2050 projection leaves fossil fuel as a major player, in fact I think THE major player. Check this out. eaei.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/LBL_4472E_Energy_2050.April_.2011_1.pdfMaybe they think they will have a lot of CCS in their program. Right now it appears an angry Mother Nature is going to be a big part of our future.
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Post by Ed Leaver on Nov 23, 2013 12:55:52 GMT 9.5
Thanks for the informative links Ed. One thing that is clear is that on a total cost basis the business of expanding energy sources for utilities clearly, for now, favors natural gas. Interesting how expensive solar is and offshore wind. I don't thing we can ignore that normative nuclear costs don't seem to include accidents like Chernobyl or Fukushima. That's a singularly big negative. When nuclear power plants have a major accident it's a doozie with costs that continue and continue. And of course we know we have the same on site storage of fuel rods that the Japanese had. The post disaster advantages of nuclear then get cancelled as the politics require shut downs or at least pull backs from future investments. I'm not here to put down nuclear but when its best feature, it's ability to substitute for fossil fuel, can suddenly turn around and again spike fossil fuel upward then you've got yourself a double edged sword. Maybe the closed fuel cycle is a ticket out, I sure hope so. One problem I have is the inability to find any credible projection that has us phasing out or even seriously lowering fossil fuel energy by mid century. Forget Rifkin's 30 year phase out. Nobody is working harder putting in alternative energies than China and yet their 2050 projection leaves fossil fuel as a major player, in fact I think THE major player. Check this out. eaei.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/LBL_4472E_Energy_2050.April_.2011_1.pdfMaybe they think they will have a lot of CCS in their program. Right now it appears an angry Mother Nature is going to be a big part of our future. Yeah, does kinda look that way. Nature can be a real mother. France and U.K. are the only countries with credible carbon reductions by 2050, and even France is having second thoughts. It might be observed that major hydro and coal accidents have costs that continue and continue as well. With coal they continue on an on-going basis and far exceed that of nuclear. But coal is the devil we know (or ignore). Another aspect is our tendency to wildly inflate the cost of major nuclear accidents. No one died as result of Fukishima nuclear accident. No one was injured by radiation. At this point its not even clear evacuation was ever necessary, much less on the scale and for the duration actually effected. But I will allow for "fog of war" in the immediate aftermath of ah horrific tsunami. And it appears Japan's resulting carbon spike is a purely political decision. (And note you allow as much as well.) How long does it take to check the remaining power plants for damage? How long to build higher seawalls where necessary? Its been two and a half years. Are they going to keep them closed in perpetuity? On what justification? Oh, I acknowledge they have plenty. Japan has plenty of carbon emissions as well (says the pot...) Some 59 people have died as direct result of Chernobyl. IF Linear-No-Threshold hypothesis is valid (for which I've yet to find evidence, though I understand where it came from), then some 4,000 additional cancer deaths might be expected to accrue over the forty years after the accident. Aside from less than two-dozen initial thyroid cancers, there has been no detectable cancer increase in the affected population attributable to Chernobyl. Given the size of population and prevalence of cancer, a few such might occur and not be detected. But for perspective, some 9,000 persons succumb to skin cancer in the US each year. Talk about radiation-induced malignancies. But do we what, turn off the sun? Do we ban solar power? Do we even forego sunbathing? No. But prudent people do take precautions. No one builds RMBK-1000 graphite-moderated commercial power reactors anymore. No one builds the early Gen II LWR plants common in the early 70's anymore either, although to be fair and FD notwithstanding they have proved extraordinarily safe. But we don't minimize Fukishima Daiichi either -- public reaction may ring the death knell on life as we know it. New passively-safe Gen III+ designs such as AP1000 and ESBWR were undertaken in the wake of TMI. (Although they may have happened anyway.) The industry likes to tout these designs as "evolutionary", but much of that's a sop to their very conservative utility customers. Browse over to Westinghouse and GE-Hitachi propaganda pages on these reactors, and look for their passive-safety videos -- Gen III+ are "evolutionary" only compared with un-pressurized Gen IV fast neutron and molten-salt designs. Thanks for the LBL China link!
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Post by Ed Leaver on Nov 23, 2013 13:01:06 GMT 9.5
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Post by Grant on Nov 26, 2013 21:18:22 GMT 9.5
Getting back to hydrogen fuel cells and their potential for distributive storage-power, here is something from Toyota that looks hopeful. www.toyota-global.com/innovation/environmental_technology/fuelcell_vehicle/These two items particularly struck me. The Toyota FCV Concept is a practical concept of the fuel cell vehicle Toyota plans to launch around 2015 as a pioneer in the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles. The vehicle has a driving range of at least 500 km and refueling times as low as three minutes, roughly the same time as for a gasoline vehicle.
Fully fueled, the vehicle can provide enough electricity to meet the daily needs of an average Japanese home (10 kWh) for more than one week.
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Post by Nuclear on Nov 28, 2013 13:00:03 GMT 9.5
IMO hydrogen is a non-starter because it would require a whole new distribution and supply infrastructure to be set up. It makes more sense to combine hydrogen with carbon dioxide to produce methane and pump it into the gas grid. That way, you don't have to spend additional capital to set up an entirely new distribution and conversion infrastructure. Synthetic methane can be fed through the same gas pipes and burnt in the same gas engines as natural gas. The downside of producing synthetic methane is the reduced conversion efficiency (60% as opposed to 70% or more for pure hydrogen) and the need to find a source of raw carbon dioxide. Currently, the preferred (renewable) solution is to obtain the carbon dioxide from biogas plants (biogas is usually around 40%-50% carbon dioxide by volume).
A typical fuel cell has an electrical efficiency of 60%, which is about the same as a state-of-the-art CCGT. Of course CCGT are not the sort of small-scale distributed power generation many Greens want, but they are much less expensive to build than stacks of fuel cells of equivalent capacity. Germany is actively pushing power-to-gas as a long-term grid-scale electricity storage solution. The overall conversion efficiency electricity-syfuel-electricity is around 35% for synthetic methane and 40% for hydrogen.
And with further advances in battery technology (which is not an unrealistic expectation), fuel cell vehicles will start to look hopelessly uneconomical compared to their all-electric cousins. That's why I don't think pushing hydrogen is a good option. Governments should incentivise the use of plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles to push innovation in this more promising field. Another short-term measure to reduce emissions from the transportation sector would be to encourage people to buy CNG vehicles or convert old cars to CNG. In case of the US, this would also reduce the reliance on oil imports and increase energy security, since natural gas is a plentiful domestic resource.
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Post by Grant on Nov 29, 2013 2:33:24 GMT 9.5
IMO hydrogen is a non-starter because it would require a whole new distribution and supply infrastructure to be set up. It makes more sense to combine hydrogen with carbon dioxide to produce methane and pump it into the gas grid. Carbon dioxide from where? If it is from fossil fuel then haven't you pretty much obviated the value of the methane conversion? Then of course directly plugging in natural gas to autos has to factor in the degree of methane use vs. AGW accelerating methane escape. Capturing methane from waste of various kinds would seem to be one neutral source but not enough to drive a major fleet of cars.
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Post by Nuclear . on Nov 29, 2013 12:22:28 GMT 9.5
IMO hydrogen is a non-starter because it would require a whole new distribution and supply infrastructure to be set up. It makes more sense to combine hydrogen with carbon dioxide to produce methane and pump it into the gas grid. Carbon dioxide from where? If it is from fossil fuel then haven't you pretty much obviated the value of the methane conversion? Then of course directly plugging in natural gas to autos has to factor in the degree of methane use vs. AGW accelerating methane escape. Capturing methane from waste of various kinds would seem to be one neutral source but not enough to drive a major fleet of cars. Currently, the preferred source of carbon dioxide is biogas from the fermentation of agricultural waste or energy crops. In the future, it may be possible to directly draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since synfuels will be much more expensive than electricity, they will not be the main source of energy in the transportation sector. What can be electrified will be electrified. This includes most vehicles. The main demand for synfuels will come from aviation and shipping, not road transportation. Here too, methane has advantages over hydrogen. liquid methane, while cryogenic, does not need to kept at temperatures near absolute zero. It is also far denser. Shipping is already starting to switch to LNG to reduce fuel costs and comply to stricter particulate emission standards. In theory, planes could also run on LNG. Using synthetic methane instead of LNG would be a straightforward substitution requiring no new technology.
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Post by edireland on Nov 30, 2013 21:05:49 GMT 9.5
If you are doing atmospheric or other carbon dioxide capture methane has no advantage really.
You either run the SMDS process (a Shell development of Classic Fischer-Tropsch) or you make Methanol and run the Mobil MTG (Methanol to 'Gasoline') process to produce hydrocarbon fuels which we use today.
No need for any change to the vehicle fleet.
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Post by Nuclear . on Dec 1, 2013 2:27:46 GMT 9.5
If you are doing atmospheric or other carbon dioxide capture methane has no advantage really. You either run the SMDS process (a Shell development of Classic Fischer-Tropsch) or you make Methanol and run the Mobil MTG (Methanol to 'Gasoline') process to produce hydrocarbon fuels which we use today. No need for any change to the vehicle fleet. Biogas already contains large amounts of methane. In addition to that, there is a huge gas grid in many countries, which can act as seasonal storage for intermittent renewables. Converting cars to run on CNG is pretty simple. If you still need liquid fuels, go for GTL using methane.
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Post by edireland on Dec 1, 2013 10:39:39 GMT 9.5
You do realise that the first step in pretty much every GTL process (including the Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis [SMDS] used at the huge 'Pearl GTL' plant) starts by cracking methane to syngas.
Since all practical methane syntheses from carbon dioxide and hydrogen or direct electrolysis go through syngas, wasting energy making methane and then cracking it into syngas again seems to be rather pointless.
And I hope you are assigning the costs of maintaining that titanic gas grid (in the UK alone several billion pounds) to the electricity systems it will support since it would otherwise cease to exist as heat pumps and induction cookers crush it. There is also a huge liquid fuel distribution infrastructure which is just as valuable as the gas one.
Also, biogas might be 'huge' in terms of renewable resources but it is a rounding error compared to current consumption of liquid fuels and plastics precursors such as ethylene.
I can also (far more space and capital efficiently) convert waste direct to syngas using an arc gassifier, which also melts down all the nasties into a nice glasslike form for disposal which can be used as construction material. It also doesn't care if you feed it waste contaminated with antibiotics or bacteriophages or all sorts of things. It destroys biohazard materials almost by definition.
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Post by jagdish on Dec 1, 2013 10:49:05 GMT 9.5
Carbon dioxide is carbon with all the energy taken out of it. Similarly, water is the hydrogen 'waste' as far as energy is concerned. Converting them back to fuel would be a net energy loss. However, once they collect some solar energy and become the bio-mass, they could be used as energy carriers. Nuclear heat, directly converted to chemical energy, could provide convenient gas or liquid fuels from biomass and farm, forest or municipal wastes via the synfuel-Fischer Tropsch route. We could use the greenhouse technology to 'farm' the excess greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to biomass.
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Post by edireland on Dec 1, 2013 13:11:12 GMT 9.5
There is nowhere enough biomass available.
Also it being a net energy loss is not really a problem when we have essentially unlimited energy available.
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Post by Nuclear . on Dec 1, 2013 13:16:37 GMT 9.5
You do realise that the first step in pretty much every GTL process (including the Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis [SMDS] used at the huge 'Pearl GTL' plant) starts by cracking methane to syngas. Since all practical methane syntheses from carbon dioxide and hydrogen or direct electrolysis go through syngas, wasting energy making methane and then cracking it into syngas again seems to be rather pointless. And I hope you are assigning the costs of maintaining that titanic gas grid (in the UK alone several billion pounds) to the electricity systems it will support since it would otherwise cease to exist as heat pumps and induction cookers crush it. There is also a huge liquid fuel distribution infrastructure which is just as valuable as the gas one. Also, biogas might be 'huge' in terms of renewable resources but it is a rounding error compared to current consumption of liquid fuels and plastics precursors such as ethylene. I can also (far more space and capital efficiently) convert waste direct to syngas using an arc gassifier, which also melts down all the nasties into a nice glasslike form for disposal which can be used as construction material. It also doesn't care if you feed it waste contaminated with antibiotics or bacteriophages or all sorts of things. It destroys biohazard materials almost by definition. You are right that converting electricity (hydrogen) and carbon dioxide into methane is stupid, but when the main carbon source is biogas, you'll be producing large amounts of methane anyway. Perhaps feeding the methane directly into the gas grid and using the carbon dioxide to synthesize either more methane or liquid fuels will be how its done. In any case, I expect methane to continue to play a large role in a future energy system, most importantly because the use of natural gas will greatly increase in the coming decades, in every sector except aviation. For the more distant future, I expect most of the liquid fuels used in road transport to be substituted directly by electricity. This leaves shipping and air transport. For large, ocean-going vessels, LNG is an increasingly viable alternative today, since natural gas is cheaper than oil and burns more cleanly. In a hundred years or so, the main demand for liquid fuels will in all likelihood come from aviation, although here too LNG is a possible substitute fuel. From what I understand, after hydrogen, producing methane is the most energy efficient way to store electricity in chemical bonds (not sure about ammonia). Please enligthen me if this is not the case.
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Post by edireland on Dec 1, 2013 13:41:12 GMT 9.5
While methane isn't the insanely deep cryanogen that hydrogen is, it is far from 'easy' to store on a large scale. Biogas also simply can't hope to keep pace, I tried to run the numbers on that myself but you end up as a few percent of demand, even if you drastically reduce road transport fuel demand it won't make that much difference.
And arc gassification is a more efficient way of producing gas from waste anyway.
Natural Gas use is actually decreasing in maritime applications, traditionally LNG carriers were the last of the steamers using natural gas that boiled off of the main dewars to power the turbine propulsion plant, this being cheaper than installing enormous refrigeration systems and then carrying diesel fuel around.
However the massive expansion in the market for shipped LNG overwhelmed the relatively small remaining production base for marine steam turbines (since now even warships have primarily abandoned them leaving only nucs which require different turbine designs to fossil plants) and forced ships to be built using diesel engines.
Use of diesel engines forced the development of large scale refrigeration plants suitable for shipboard use, which has now removed the advantage of simply using natural gas in the ships propulsion plant because bunker fuel is still cheaper when diesel engines are available. (Using a diesel engine purely on natural gas is impractical for a variety of reasons).
Bunker C is $690/t, which is quite cheap considering a low speed marine diesel can top 50% efficient these days and can burn fuels that are 2.5% sulphur by weight OR MORE.
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Post by Mark on Nov 15, 2015 4:13:13 GMT 9.5
Back in the 1980's,you couldn't pick up a newspaper or magazine without reading about Rifkin attacking Biotechnology.He filed numerous lawsuits against it.His main objection was that scientists and biotech companies were rushing to use this technology without all the facts.His raised concerns and issues and warned about unforeseen consequences.But now,with his Third Industrial Revolution,Rifkin's doing the exact opposite.He's getting people all riled and excited about renewable energy.He's getting them all anxious to jump on the Third Industrial Revolution bandwagon and make the switch to renewable energy.The problem here is that Rifkin's not raising concerns and issues with renewable energy like he did with Biotechnology.He's not questioning the cost and safety of hydrogen storage and the reliability of solar panels and wind generators and their impact on both society and the enviorment.The problem here is that Rifkin's playing favorites.Unlike his opposition to biotechnology,Rifkin's in favor of renewable energy.He's not going to listen to any problems or complaints about it.He doesn't care if people get stuck with defective solar panels or expensive hydrogen storage systems.All he cares about is putting solar panels on every roof in the country so that his Third Industrial Revolution becomes a reality at our expense. By the way,that war of Rifkin's against Biotechnology was a farce.His real beef was with the Nuclear and Petrochemical(OIL)industries.Rifkin was angry that he couldn't file lawsuits against them because people depend on these industries for power and fuel,so he took his frustrations out on the Biotechnology industry instead.
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