Tag Archives: Energy

ELECTRICITY: 100% CLEAN AND GREEN BY 2018

The Gore Energy Challenge– 100% clean, renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years, can be described in 3 words. Reasonable, Achievable, Visionary. Here’s how:

40% Land Based Wind = 150 GW: $300 Billion.
40% Offshore Wind = 150 GW: $450 Billion.
20% Solar = 75 GW: $375 Billion.

100% Clean Energy = 375 GW: $1.125 Trillion.
Save the Earth – Priceless.

The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And the age of fossil fuels is ending not because we are running out of fossil fuel, (altho we are) but because we are figuring out how better technologies. Biofuels, Geothermal, Marine Kinetic, Solar, Wind, and of course, Conservation.

The Popular Logistics Plan for Clean, Renewable, Sustainable Energy for the United States

The Gore Energy Challenge: Clean and Green by 2018.  Visionary, Reasonable, Achievable. Ask T. Boone Pickens at The Pickens Plan, and Peter Mandelstam at Blue Water Wind.

We could meet the electric power requirements of the United States, estimated at 250 Gigawatts, GW, of generating capacity with wind turbines and photovoltaic solar arrays, for about $811 Billion in 10 years.

  • Land Based Wind: 100 GW, or 40%, at $2.0 Billion per GW: $200 Billion.
  • Offshore Wind: 100 GW, or 40%, at $2.86 Billion per GW: $286 Billion.
  • PV Solar: 50 GW, or 20% at $6.5 Billion per GW: $325 Billion.
  • Total Cost: $811 Billion. (less than has been squandered on the war in Iraq.)
  • Saving the earth: Priceless.

Key Benefits:

  • Good Jobs.
  • Healthy Economy.
  • Enhanced Emergency Response Capability.
  • Stronger National Security.
  • Clean Environment.
  • No Toxic Wastes.
  • No Mercury.
  • No Radioactive Wastes.
  • No Coal Mining Disasters.
  • Less Government Regulation.

This plan doesn’t exploit solar thermal, marine kinetic, geothermal, deep geothermal, cogen, biofuels, or conservation, which will be integrated into this plan in the near future. The plan also focuses on current electricity demand. It does not yet forecast increased electricity demand from population growth, transition from fossil fuels for heating or cooking, or increased reliance on plug-in hybrid cars.

Clean and Green By 2018!

Deep Geothermal

Dig 5 km, hit 200º C. Watch out for earthquakes!Actually, it’s a bit more complicated.  You dig two holes, each 5 km (3 miles) deep.  You lay a pipe in each hole, then pump water down into one hole, and up the other. The water heats up, and can turn a turbine. 

Geothermalfor heat is old news. Teams at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkinsare studying atDeep Geothermal

for space heating atCrisfield (click here )and at the Institute of Geophysics ETH, in Zurich, Switzerland(click here).

Deep Geothermal could, theoretically, use the earth’s heat to generate steam for industrial process power. But is this feasible? What is the temperature at the bottom of a coal mine or an empty oil well? How hot is it down there? With what efficiency, if any, can this differential be tapped to boil water to create steam to turn a turbine to generate power? How deep a hole do we need to drill? What are the potentially harmful side effects?

According toNew Energy News, Article

Deep Geothermalis potentially the cheapest and most consistent, predictable form of renewable energy. The geothermal sources being probed are 400 degrees Fahrenheit and 3 miles into the earth’s crust (not the 1000 degree heat of the earth’s core). A scientist compared it to scratching the earth’s “shell.” Geodynamics Limited and Geothermal Basel (English) are racing to be the first to produce electricity in commercial quantities from the deep hot waters. When drilling reaches the deep enough, cold surface water will be pumped down to lift the hot water up where its steam will drive generators.

The Geopower Basel project is being drilled near Basel, Switzerland. Geodynamics Limited, Queensland-based, is drilling near the southern Australian town of Innamincka. Who will finish first?

The Day After Three Mile Island

March 28, 2008 was the 28th Anniversary of the Meltdown at Three Mile Island, which makes March 29 the 28th Anniversary of the Day After Three Mile Island.

Still, it’s hard to say ‘Happy Anniversary.’ The last nuclear power plant to come on line in the United States, the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, took 23 years to complete. And no new nuclear power plants have been ordered or built.

This is in part because of Three Mile Island, and its sister-disaster, Chernobyl. While the American nuclear power industry says ‘We do it better’ the truth of the matter is that American reactors are safer because American anti-nuclear activists have forced the United States government to pay attention and American nuclear plant owners and operators to build in redundant safety systems. Continue reading →

Jad Mouawad – NYT: Wary of Protests, Exxon Plans Natural Gas Terminal in the Atlantic – New York Times

Exxon is going to build a natural-gas processing facility in a large”boatlike structure” 20 miles off the Jersey coast. According to Times reporter Jad Mouawad, this is “a move meant to deflect safety and environmental concerns aboutproximity to populated areas. [photopress:2007_exxon_offshore_NJ_map.jpg,full,alignleft]

Perceptions aside, which is more likely (probability of occurrence) to occur, or a leak/accident/fire n on-shore facility? What’s to preclude a system failure which causes failure both in populated areas and in the Atlantic. From Mouawad’s piece about the pipeline, which will be connectedto the Buckeye NY/NJ pipes. Exxon wants to:

build a $1 billion floating terminal for liquefied natural gas about 20 miles off the coast of New Jersey, a move meant to deflect safety and environmental concerns about proximity to populated areas.

The company plans to anchor a boatlike structure in the Atlantic Ocean to process natural gas imported by cargo ships from faraway suppliers in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

The terminal, if approved, would connect through an underwater pipeline to an existing network that feeds New York and New Jersey, two of the top consumer markets in North America.

Exxon’s project is the latest of several dozen gas terminals that have been proposed in recent years in the United States. Energy specialists say more natural gas supplies will be needed to meet the growth in consumption and to make up for an expected drop in imports from Canada.

In many cases, energy companies have faced stiff opposition in finding sites for large new terminals. This has become one of the thorniest energy issues, especially since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, raised security concerns about cargo ships carrying liquefied gas near big cities.

Still, companies are slowly moving forward with their plans. Since 2002, federal and state authorities have approved 18 new liquefied gas terminals around the country, including 4 offshore, though most analysts do not expect all of them to be built.

While most of the projects are planned along the Gulf Coast, the northeastern corner of the country is attracting attention because of its reliance on natural gas and its large populations. Two terminals to be built off Massachusetts gained approval last year. For Exxon, going so far offshore is an effort to duck the vociferous opposition that has dogged projects on both coasts. Its project, called BlueOcean Energy, would be able to supply 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, about 2 percent of the nation’s gas consumption — and enough to meet the needs of five million residential customers.

Exxon’s project is the third offshore terminal proposed for the greater New York region in recent years.

One proposal, to build a gas terminal in the middle of Long Island Sound, has aroused concern since its announcement in 2004 because of the impact it might have on fishing and boating; it is strongly opposed by shore communities and politicians.

That opposition could intensify in coming months as the project, which is known as Broadwater and is a joint venture by Royal Dutch Shell and TransCanada, is expected to receive notice about federal and state permits.

Another company, the Atlantic Sea Island Group, plans to build a terminal for liquefied natural gas on an artificial island about 14 miles south of Long Island, a project called Safe Harbor Energy.

Opponents of natural gas terminals have cited the potential for leaks, fires, explosions or terrorist bombings. The industry has generally argued that the terminals are secure and accidents are rare, but it has also started looking for ways to build them as far as possible from population centers.

Jad Mouawad, “Wary of Protests, Exxon Plans Natural Gas Terminal in the Atlantic, The New York Times,December 12, 2007.

Archive of Mouawad’s pieces – he’s one of the Times’ in-house experts, I think.

Solar Boats – up to 60 passengers and 11 knots in Europe; NYC ferry service suspended

The Swiss Firm MW Line makes solar boats that are ferrying people around lakes and rivers in Switzerland, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The only backup power, apparently, is on-shore charging from the grid. They’re also the shipbuilder for the PlanetSolar project which plans to have a solar-only craft in the water ready for a two-person, 120-day around-the-world trip in 2009. bateau-vectoriel.png

isoview1.jpgThe New York Times reported on January 4th that New York Water Taxi, the only operator of Queens/Manhattan and Brooklyn/Manhattan ferry service has cancelled service for the winter – largely because of fuel price increases. That notwithstanding a monthly subsidy from the real estate developers who established Schaefer’s Landing, a high-end project in Williamsburgh. A ferry powered by photovoltaic cells wouldn’t be directly affected, if at all, by petroleum price increases. Given the relatively short distances involved, on-board solar panels and batteries could be supplemented with electricity dockside. If that electricity is generated via wind (often best captured on or near water) or solar, ferry operating costs could be insulated from petroleum price fluctuations.

Texas v Massachusetts & NJ. Go Texas.

Texas, with environmentalists like T. Boone Pickens (official site) is building wind turbines. Click Here. In Texas, when they find that they have wind in their backyard, they want to use it to make money. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, when someone finds wind in his backyard his neighbors say ‘Hold on there, Cowboy. What you think you’re doin? You think this is Texas or somethin?’ Just ask Mike Mercurio.

Massachusetts, with Environmentalist Liberals like Ted Kennedy, is not building wind turbines. Cape Wind is swinging like an albatross, like NJ’s Offshore Wind Farm. Maybe they are worried they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa’s body swinging from the nacelle.

I’m glad the Texans are doing something right. And I’m not proud of Kennedy or Jon Corzine.Makes me almost wish I was a Texan.