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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As I’ve noted previously, the eminent venture capitalist Vinod Khosla advises “Since one fails often, address markets that make it worthwhile when one does succeed.” 

This, of course, is solid advice.  But unfortunately, not everyone is a position to swing for the fences; some technologies, while not really transformational, are nonetheless worthwhile and need to be brought to market.   Examples would include marginal improvements in the efficiency of solar panels.   I suppose one could also say that plug-in hybrids fit that description.  When battery energy densities and cost curves advance pass a certain point, fewer and fewer electric vehicle customers will be concerned about extending their range by lugging around big, heavy, and expensive internal combustion engines.   20 years from now, I predict that we’ll regard plug-in hybrids the way we do eight-track tapes or floppy discs today. 

But what a joy it is to promote a technology that really changes the way billions of people live and work.  I happen to be talking to some people who are sitting on what appears to me to be a real game-changer in renewable energy:  relatively inexpensive, unobtrusive, and benign to its local environment. 

Maybe what I like about bringing a technology like this to market is that it’s so easy; there are far fewer errors that can be made along the way.  Thus my advice to them: 

It seems to me that there are only two basic mistakes we can make here:

a) Losing control of the technology; in particular, letting it fall into the hands of someone who suppresses it.  I don’t think I’m being at all paranoid in making this point; the energy industry is rife with examples of this. 

and

b) Waiting for a certain preferred business model to take form, while excellent opportunities for perfectly valid but different business models come and go before us.

The beauty of the energy market is its enormous size — measured in trillions of dollars. In this case, I recommend entering it by “making (this solution) too cheap to steal.” One-tenth of one percent of the market is still billions of dollars.  That will make everyone quite happy, won’t it?  Let’s just go get it.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketWith the Copenhagen summit occupying so much attention on the international stage, I may as well weigh in with my own viewpoint. In brief:

Obama’s commitment to a 17 percent emissions cut from 2005 levels by 2020 is virtually meaningless – even if it actually occurs. It’s a small fraction of what climate scientists have called for in their peer-reviewed studies on global warming. This carefully contrived, last-minute decision to send Obama was made with the proviso that it needed to appear to be a success. The commitment to this meager cut in emissions may be construed as a victory for the White House, but it most certainly is not for the rest of the people who live on this planet.

Having said that, as I’ve written many times before, Obama’s hands are tied. Here’s a man who won a landslide election a year ago, who has no more power than I do to move forward a progressive agenda and make real change. The lobbyists who work for the big energy corporations have an utter stranglehold over him and the entire the legislative process.

If you think I’m exaggerating, look at the healthcare logjam. The vast majority of Americans – and 57% of the physicians who treat them – favor single-payor – and we can’t even get that on the table. Here, the lobbies for the big money in healthcare are so powerful that our representatives are forbidden to even discuss an idea that represents a potential threat.

I honestly wish I could find I way to be optimistic and less cynical about the way in which we govern ourselves — but I can’t.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Guest blogger Geoff Nicholson writes:

I just noticed something very curious…. Airplanes fly more when exposed to direct sunlight, hence, confirming you thesis that solar energy is the way to go. Check out this video of airplane traffic over a 24 hour period. Note that airplanes tend to fly toward the sun… and when the sun is overhead, airplanes leap off the ground and fly around a lot. There’s a very high correlation between exposure to sunlight and energy utilization. Clearly, aluminum, titanium and stainless steal have a similar characteristic as chlorophyll in plants. I think this must be a new, bizarro and highly efficient transformation of solar energy into both potential (altitude) energy and kinetic (velocity) energy. What do you think? 😉 lol

(….and then later)

I think I answered my own question about metal acting like chlorophyl. Clearly, aircraft must not be constructed of stainless steel but, rather, “stainless steal” as I had misspelled it in my prior post. This unnatural material “steals” the quantum energy from the photon impact and, instead of heating the stainless steal, causes the material to get highly irritated and then the airplane leaps off the ground and flies around. The musings of a new-age, mad engineer. Mad I say.

To which I reply:

Great stuff, man. Hilarious. Thanks for the post. And I love that video. Happy Thanksgiving to you and all other particpants at 2GreenEnergy.

I hate to sound like I have no sense of humor, but what you’ve written here reminds me that there are a great number of ideas being circulated out there, which I try to categorize as:

1) Pseudoscientific garbage from well-meaning crackpots, i.e., people who actually believe in them.

2) Pseudoscientific garbage from charlatans, i.e., people who do not actually believe in them, but hope to profit from the gullible.

3) Solid but relatively uninteresting, inconsequential, “me-too” ideas.

4) Unproven but theoretically possible and super-transformative ideas. These of course, as the things that get us excited. Unfortunately, they’re also the things that get squashed by big, powerful interests that are threatened by the prospect of change.

Having said this, I believe there is no amount of training that anyone could possibly have that would enable him to get this categorization right in 100% of cases. And we all need to keep our arrogance under control; we need to keep in mind the fact that civilization 100 years from now will look back on 2009 with a mixture of pity and ridicule, as we were so pathetically unable to break out of our entrenched paradigms and see the world from a 22nd century viewpoint.

In any case, let us bear in mind that often, many times, today’s crackpot is tomorrow’s Nobel Prize winner.

 

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

PhotobucketAs I wrote to a friend recently:

Thanksgiving is actually my very favorite holiday; I love what it stands for: take a moment, take stock of yourself, be grateful for who you are and what you have, and take time to thank the people who contributed.

When I get up Thanksgiving morning I always call my parents and tell them THANK YOU. And they always say, “Oh, Craig, you don’t have to say that.”

But I do.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

On the things I find so fascinating about the migration to renewables is that it represents the confluence of so many different scientific and technological disciplines – especially in the quest to drive down costs. To take an obvious example, wind turbines are rooted in straightforward fluid dynamics as well as electricity/magnetism. But some real cleverness is required to get wind (and the others) to a point at which, as a source of renewable energy, it is cost-competitiveness with fossil fuels. As we’ve noted here numerous times, there’s plenty of renewable energy out there if you’re willing to pay enough for it. The problem is that we’re on a tight budget here, and that’s where this becomes interesting.

Enter materials science as a potential solution. The way we fabricate things out of steel has created a practical limit to the size of a wind turbine; really big units have been fantastically difficult (and thus expensive) to build. But a material called HT Ferro may represent an abrupt change to that.

Ferrocement, meaning the variety of composite materials in which steel (wire, mesh, rebar) and concrete are used, are widely used in building, due to its great strength and economy. HT Ferro, a wild new variation on this theme, is a patented technology owned by associates of 2GreenEnergy based in New Zealand. According to what I’ve been able to learn, it is vastly superior to steel on many important ways, along the following important dimensions:

a) It was developed for marine application, thus wind turbine components made from it are virtually maintenance free — even in the rugged ocean environment.

b) These components will be far less expensive than steel.

c) Most importantly, a unique manufacturing process enables components to be fabricated in enormous sizes.

It appears that this makes possible very large units that will generate 10+ MW apiece.

More on this soon.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

PhotobucketI’m always amazed at a phenomenon that I presume to be coincidence – that similar things all seem to happen at the same time. No sooner do I publish a few posts of the conservation of energy than a young reader in North Carolina writes asking for help on a subject that has this concept at its very core. See conversation below:

Reader: I’m 19 and a student at ITT-TECH of Highpoint, NC. I’ve had ideas for the past year or so for a renewable energy business related to vehicles using HHO Cells as a fuel source. I have experimented with these types of cells enough to know how much potential they have for our future. I was wondering if there is any capital out there for these types of businesses, and if so where should I start, I don’t have a business plan yet but I feel that I can write one myself and was wondering if you had some tips. Thanks.

Craig: Sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to help directly here.  Raising capital is not easy, and I wouldn’t know how to go about it outside of the traditional manner: writing a cogent business plan and circulating it to potential investors.  Having said that, I’m interested in the subject too.  Can you send me a link to a site that explains this clearly and credibly, please? Best of luck to you, my young friend.

Reader: Here are just one of the few hho cell businesses out there right now. http://www.punchhho.com/. This site offers cell kits that are designed to increase gas mileage; you have to install these cells yourself and not ever seeing one of these before it could be difficult, not to mention dangerous if you don’t know what your doing. You have to do modifications to your vehicle to get it to work properly depending on what type of vehicle you have, some are easier than others to outfit with this technology. My idea is to start a business that not only makes the cells but makes the components to convert your make and model of vehicle to a hybrid or use hho as its only fuel source. There are parts that can be made to simplify the application of these cells and make them more efficient. If you have any futher questions let me know.

Craig: Thanks.  From a pure physics point of view, I can see that this could improve gas mileage if it somehow acts as a catalyst and causes the gas to burn more completely; I’m aware of additives that have this effect.  But from the standpoint of burning the hydrogen and oxygen,  you’re going to use more energy in performing the electrolysis than you are going to get back from the combustion of the gases.  This is a straightforward consequence of the conservation of energy. 

Reader: Correct, but it is possible to make a cell that produces more power than it consumes. These cells are measured in MMW (Milliliters per Minute per Watt), anything above 5 MMW is extraordinarily efficient….People become really skeptical when you tell them you could run a car on water. But its a lot easier than it seems, the technology is here it just has to be applied. it would be no different than upgrading to the newest cell phone, or the lastest music media, we went from tapes to cds to ipods with no problem, why shouldn’t we go from gas to hho without a problem. We’ve been running on gasoline for far to long, its time for a change.

Craig:  I join the other skeptics, for the reasons I’ve outlined (coincidentally) in a very recent post on the conservation of energy. If you can demonstrate a working model of this or any other device that produces more energy that it consumes, you will be the first person in the history of the world to do so.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Peter Buzzard comments on my post “Molten Salt Energy Storage” as follows:

“That was an interesting article. I didn’t know a combined cycle could be made to be that efficient… What about simply heating water with molten salt in a heat exchanger, and running that through a turbine, then recovering left over heat from the condensate? I know that all conventional plants can only convert 30 to 33% of the thermal energy to electric. In fact each of my units produce about 3600MW Thermal but we only generate about 1200MW. Of course these were built between 1971 and 1986, but even the new nukes are only claiming a maximum of 36% efficiency.”

This molten salt technology is actually far simpler that what you’re describing, and the efficiency of the storage itself is huge – up to 99%, according to this report by Sandia Laboratories. Obviously, the process of concentrating the sunlight, generating steam, turning the turbine, etc. is far less efficient, but the issue doesn’t lie with the storage medium/system.

Overall, solar thermal has about 17% total conversion efficiency in terms of incident solar energy to electricity. Of course, the industry is working hard to improve this, but still, a solar thermal farm that would occupy 3% of the Moroccan desert would generate more than enough power for the entire continent of Europe. This really IS the answer, it seems to me.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

PhotobucketYesterday’s guest blogger wrote:

The idea of collecting solar energy from the upper surfaces of already constructed buildings seems like the least intrusive and most efficient method to utilized light, in my opinion. It doesn’t shade the natural ecosystem and collects/distributes the energy where humans need it.

This is true. A few additional comments:

Obviously, the migration to renewables will be a blend of public and private projects. It’s good to see solar installations on a piecemeal basis on residential and commercial buildings. But clearly we need a real game-changer, and that has to happen at the utility level. And here, PV is one of many competing alternative energy technologies. As I’ve written often, I advocate large solar thermal farms in the southwestern deserts.

This brings me to my other point: the natural ecosystem. With very few (perhaps no) exceptions, generating renewable energy comes at the price of some level of violence to the local environment. In my conversation with Brian Rutledge of the Audubon Society, I ignored this; I made the mistake of referring to proposed solar thermal sites as “desert wastelands,” and Brian broke in: “They’re deserts, but they’re not wastelands,” he pointed out. Good point; I stand corrected.

I nevertheless contend that paying a certain well-defined ecological price for turning off fossil fuel and nuclear plants is a deal that we simply must make without shame or compunction. If we’re speeding the extinction of a rare desert lizard in the process of reverting the rise of greenhouse gasses and the terrible consequences to every species on earth that are very probably tied to this phenomenon, it strikes me as the bargain of the century. 

I’m not sure how anyone could object to this.  The only proviso here, I would think, would be that that such decisions be made on a fair and measured basis.  We need to study the issue carefully and pull the trigger only when we’re sure we’re doing the least possble damage.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

My friend Geoffrey Nicholson comments my post “Renewable Energy and Basic Physics”:

Craig, I couldn’t agree more.

 Other than geothermal energy, all the other sources of energy available to us originally came from solar energy and with a rather lossy process. Petrochemical from solar growing primordial goo. Hydrokenetic from solar driven convection. Wind from solar convection with a bit of coriolis effect. Water from lightning from solar convection. Wood and alcohol from solar energized green growy things.

Gas turbines can be around 50% efficient burning fuel but, again, how efficient is the production and transportation of the fuel?

Steam turbines a bit more efficient.

Gasoline engines about half as efficient as turbines with Diesels a bit more efficient that gasoline.

Stirling engines are quite efficient but pound for pound don’t produce much work.

Interestingly, hydrogen fueled aircraft could be more efficient than kerosine since the specific weight of hydrogen is less than gas but the design of the aircraft would have to change dramatically since the specific volume of hydrogen is greater. Fat planes would result that would probably fly slower than today’s aircraft. Again, how would the hydrogen be produced?

The idea of collecting solar energy from the upper surfaces of already constructed buildings seems like the least intrusive and most efficient method to utilized light, in my opinion. It doesn’t shade the natural ecosystem and collects/distributes the energy where humans need it.

What do you think?”

To which I respond:

Thanks, Geoff.  Everything you write here is true, as far as I understand.  PV on rooftops makes a great deal of sense.  The costs and coming down, the efficiencies are going up, and the overall engineering is getting increasing clever.  See my post on California-based Solyndra as an example.

The only piece you’re missing, I feel, is solar thermal / concentrated solar power (CSP) as described at the bottom of the post.

Thanks for writing!

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

My old friend Peter Buzzard commented on my post “Molten Salt Energy Storage“:

“Craig, do you know if a Stirling engine would be more efficient than making steam for a turbine?”

To which I reply:

I don’t know know much about Stirling engines; I need to learn about these.  But it sounds like you may be comparing apples and oranges.

I’m sure you’re aware that devices that simply store energy (e.g., molten salt, batteries, capacitors) and devices that convert energy form one form to another (e.g., motors, turbines) are two different things. And as far as the latter is are concerned, electric motors, even using the technology of the very first ones 120+ years ago, are quite efficient; in fact, the AC induction motors that are used in today’s electric vehicles are close to 90% efficient. What’s not to like about that?

Thus, it seems to me that the real question is how to generate, store, and distribute the electricity.  Coincidentally, I was writing my book’s chapter on basic physics last night, in which I noted the following about the conservation of energy:

Once one really wraps his wits these basic ideas, one is in a terrific position to understand most discussions of energy. Here are two examples to make this clear:

Hydrokinetics: Every day, the energy from the sun evaporates water into steam that is later condensed into clouds, the precipitation from which forms rivers, some of which are in high altitudes. The kinetic energy of the water flowing back downhill can be converted into electrical energy. But the conservation of energy tells us that the most electricity one can possibly hope to generate from this water is the potential energy it had before it started to flow (which equals the weight of the water times the height of the elevation from which it fell). This is for this reason that hydrokinetics cannot provide a significant amount to the overall energy picture, regardless of how many dams, how efficient the turbines, etc.

Solar: On the other hand, the earth receives 6000 times more energy from the sun every day than mankind currently uses for all its purposes: transportation, heating, air conditioning, etc. Put another way, if we had the capability of capturing and distributing 1/6000th of the sun’s energy, we would not need to burn another lump of coal, spilt another atom, or pump another ounce of gasoline. This fact alone forms the rationale for our interest in solar energy.

I encourage readers to review all assertions about different forms of power generation — renewable or otherwise – to this discussion on the conservation of energy. When someone says, “This car runs on water,” ask yourself: water? Isn’t water already “burned” hydrogen and oxygen, i.e., the result after these two elements release energy by joining together? That’s like saying, “Let’s build a fire using those ashes for fuel.” Sorry, they’ve already been burned, meaning that the chemical energy that was once stored in the carbon bonds of the wood has already been converted into the heat, light, and sound of a fire. The ashes are the low-energy result of that process.

I got an email from a friend announcing a miracle car that runs on air. As it turns out, it actually runs on compressed air. The energy required to compress the air is stored in a tank and converted into kinetic energy. Trust me, there is not one bit of energy delivered to that car’s wheels that didn’t going into compressing the air in the first place.

At the end of the day, I think the energy direction of the planet is very clear:

Generation: solar, especially concentrated solar power (CSP).

Storage: molten salt (Note that storage is somewhat less important for solar than say, wind, as solar tends to be generated in congruity with times of peak need). Note also that solar it’s already heat energy; there is no need to convert it to something else.

Transmission: High voltage direct current (HVDC). This requires a build-out of our ancient power grid, but we need to do that anyway.

Thanks again for writing, Peter.  I hope this was useful.

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