Possible Breakthrough in Solar Thermal Costs for Industrial Process Heat
Posted by Gail the Actuary on March 3, 2010 - 10:12am
In solar thermal applications, there are three different heat ranges, with different uses. According to Wikipedia,
Low temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat swimming pools. Medium-temperature collectors are also usually flat plates but are used for creating hot water for residential and commercial use. High temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or lenses and are generally used for electric power production.
The possible breakthrough I want to discuss comes in the middle range (or perhaps upper middle range)--100 to 400 degrees centigrade. According to Rod MacGregor, CEO and founder of GlassPoint, the company has developed a new solar thermal methodology that, in that range, is cheaper than burning natural gas. The heat generated using the new technology can be for a variety of industrial processes, including making steam for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and for drying gypsum wallboard.
If what MacGregor says is true, companies that are currently burning natural gas for heat (100C to 400C or 212F to 750F) and have space for solar thermal collectors may be able to economically replace part of their natural gas use with solar thermal generated heat.
Glasspoint is a small, privately held company, so even under the best of circumstance, is unlikely to change the world overnight. But the approach does seem to have possibilities, so I thought I would tell you a little about what the company says about it.
How does the process work?
According to MacGregor, if one wants to produce solar thermal output that can be used to economically run steam boilers to produce electricity, one wants very high temperature output, and this requires very expensive mirrors for solar concentration. But if what one is looking for is more a mid-range of temperatures, cheaper mirrors can be used. According to the GlassPoint website:
The above image indicates the GlassPoint's methodology uses solar concentrating mirrors which appear not to be movable. MacGregor indicated that nearly the entire ground surface is covered by the mirrors, since the mirrors are relatively cheap, and shadowing by other mirrors is not a concern. He also indicated that the mirrors incorporate some sort of self-cleaning mechanism.
This approach is quoted to be 55% to 60% efficient, since there is no intermediate step of making electricity in the process.
GlassPoint has a number of competitors, including Brightsource Energy, austra, and eSolar, but these companies all make systems that are high-enough powered to generate electricity as well. The pictures on their web sites seem to indicate large numbers of movable mirrors. Brightsource indicates that for industrial processes, its systems are "competitive with fossil fuels" which is pretty good, but not as good a claim as GlassPoint's "cheaper than natural gas".
To keep costs down, MacGregor indicated that the units are made in China, and assembled there.
How much does this approach cost?
According to the material I was provided, the cost of heat is $2.73 per MMBtu, using NREL's 30 year level cost of energy calculation. With incentives, the cost is quoted at $1.25 per MM Btu, but I am not certain how the latter price is calculated. One incentive is a Federal tax credit of 30% available of installations begun in 2010. In California, there are also salable credits associated with California Cap and Trade laws. Since there are no carbon emissions, it avoids EPA regulation.
When this type of application is used, typically solar heat replaces only 20% of the natural gas that would otherwise be used, because sufficient solar energy to produce solar thermal heat is only available 20% of the time in sunny climates. If this application were used in a not-too-sunny climate, it would replace less than 20% of the natural gas used.
In order to really get this price, one would need the steam for the full 30 year period. If one does not have the cash, one would also need a way of financing the purchase. In the current credit environment, long-term loans may not be readily available.
Regarding space requirements, the material provided indicates:
GlassPoint's solar arrays are modular and occupy less than one quarter the land area of traditional solar thermal solutions. Although the power output varies by geographic location, a general rule of thumb is that one acre of GlassPoint solar field produces an average of 10,000 MMBtu per annum.
Applicability to enhanced oil recovery
The GlassPoint solar thermal approach was originally developed for drying gypsum wall board. It is now being marketed for EOR applications, but it is not clear to me that any units have yet been sold for EOR purposes. The GlassPoint system is said to produce over 50 barrels of steam per acre.
The idea of using solar thermal heat for EOR has been tested in the past, though. In the 1980s, ARCO tried one method of EOR in the Kern County area, and more recently, Chevron tried a second method of solar thermal EOR. Now, on the third attempt, GlassPoint believes that its approach is better.
If solar thermal can indeed be implemented cheaply, it would seem to make sense for enhanced oil recovery wherever there is heavy oil and there is still a long life contemplated in the field. Since solar thermal is only available 20% of the time, it would only replace 20% of natural gas that would otherwise be used, but it would be a step in the right direction. It would seem like solar thermal could even be used by itself, if operators would be willing to wait 5 times as long for full oil recovery, and if the melting and congealing were not too bad a problem (perhaps in locations where the oil is not too heavy to begin with).
GlassPoint provided the following map showing areas where heavy oil is currently being produced, together with solar resources. There are no doubt other areas where heavy oil is available but not being produced.
The Kern River area has been pumped for a very long time, and may be nearing the end of its life. If this is the case, Kern River may not be the best place to test solar thermal. But if this approach really works, it seems like there would be many areas of the world where it could be beneficially used.
Discussion
It may be that the biggest use for a cheaper solar thermal process would be in a variety of industrial processes (besides EOR) that burn natural gas for heat. Many factories in sunny areas burn natural gas to produce heat for their processes. If solar thermal heat could be used as a supplement, costs might be reduced. If it could be used as the only source of heat (where heat is needed only intermittently), the costs might be quite large.
If this approach really works as well as indicated, I would expect that there would soon be a number of other companies offering a similar product. So use may spread more quickly than availability from a single manufacturer might suggest.
For an industrial process used by an individual company, a 30 year planning horizon is a long time. Availability of natural gas for 30 years at reasonable prices is not something all Oil Drum readers would expect. But in some ways, this is exactly the same issue as evaluating how beneficial wind would be as partial substitute for natural gas in electricity production over the long term.
With capital budgets constrained, there really is a significant difference between a process which needs to be bought up front and one which is available to be purchased as needed. This constraint, plus the lack of available nearby land for solar collectors, may be the biggest constraints in implementing an idea of this type widely.
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Thanks for the story Gail. I'm very pleased to see you following solar thermal energy developments. Kudos.
Their website doesn't provide much technical information. I'm curious about what specific technology they (may or may not) have developed which is new. From their website, it appears that perhaps it is related to 4x higher collector density on a given area of land. Hard for me to see how that might be done, since surely the presently installing solar-thermal generating companies shouldn't be spacing their collectors out 4x further apart than necessary.
All that said, I'm certain that many variations of solar-thermal energy collection are capable of providing industrial process heat in the western US at costs significantly below that of present and especially future N Gas.
I recommend reserving judgement on this particular company until more technical details are available, and in the meantime companies should definitely be evaluating a variety of solar-thermal applications of technology from a variety of manufacturers.
Thanks to Gail!
I agree with lengould. The semi-cylindrical collectors shown in GlassPoint's diagram have been used for years. The company implies a cost breakthrough, but don't (or don't want to) disclose any detail. The only glimmer of some technological advance is the 'self-cleaning' feature.
I am suspicious that most of the cost breakthrough comes from substituting Chinese labor for US labor. These units are made and assembled in China, then modules are just put in place here. As I understand it, the competing units are made in the US and assembled on site.
One does not know how well the technology really works, or how well it will stand up over time. For example, will the cheap mirrors get scratched by sand and fail to work well before the end of the promised 30 year life time?
use small flat perspex based mirrors in a fresnel configuration. Much much cheaper.
precisely, unless I'm totally missing something this story has left me scratching my head. It's child's play
Actually. What would be better is a single piece Fresnel mirror. Very cheap to make indeed.
e.g.w
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Fresnel_20sheet_20reflector
Perspex (Acrylic) has better optical qualities than glass, is stronger, lighter, easily formed but is susceptible to scratching.
Simply silvering a Fresnel lens should do it. Still a problem with heat loss in the heat collector though. Perhaps use one of those vacuum tubes from a DHW systems.
Just had an additional thought. Lines and sheets naturally fall into a parabola when hung, so even cheaper than a freznel configuration woul be a simple box with a sheet of reflective mylar hung between the edges. Anyone could knock one of these up in an hour and the parts are maybe 20 - 40 euros per square meter.
Its a bit of a wild eyed guess, but I would think part of the claimed 4X efficiency, is that less heat is loss at the collector -because the temperature is lower, radiative and conductive losses should be lower. Also, they don't care is part of the time half the mirrors are in shade. With the other designs, whose goal is primarily electricity, you don't want to waste expensive mirror by shading, and so they are far enough apart that at midday, a lot of sunlight falls between the mirrors.
They may all be stating that 55-60% of solar energy is usable heat, whereas for solar thermal electric the net conversion to electricity which is a much higher quality of energy is more like 10%. The heat engine guys claim up to 40%, but these are expensive high tech systems.
A likely part of this advance is selective radiation surfaces. The thermal spectrum of the incoming light and re-radiated heat are very different, so surfaces which are black at visible and near-IR wavelengths and reflective (therefore not very emissive) in the far-IR can improve the performance quite a bit.
You could be right, EP, but I doubt that any breakthrough they may have lies in that area.
Surfaces with high short-wave absorbance and low long-wave emissivity have been around for a long time. Their performance is far from ideal, and it's possible that a breakthrough in cost-performance has been made, but I don't know that it would make much difference in the lower mid-ragne temperature regime. In a linear collector with a bare pipe, where a selective coating could otherwise help, convective heat losses to ambient air will dominate. For that type of system, you really need to be using evacuated glass tubes around the pipes that carry the thermal oil. The evacuated tubes will be coated on the inside to be transparent to visible and near-infrared, but highly reflective to thermal IR. That's standard technology these days.
There's been an interesting development recently in a "liquid glass" coating that is repels both oil and water and is supposed to be quite durable. That could be what's behind GlassPoint's "self cleaning" feature. That alone might be enough to affect system economics.
Gale said she was suspicious that "most of the cost breakthrough comes from substituting Chinese labor for US labor." Maybe, but again, I rather doubt it. Field setup remains a major cost of any system of this sort, and overseas labor can't help there. As to manufacturing costs for the components, that cost will be heavily dominated by capital equipment, not labor. If the Chinese do enjoy an advantage there, it has less to do with cheap factory labor than with cheap engineering labor for the design and construction of automated factories. Last I heard, however, we still had an edge there. Factor equipment is still -- I think -- one of our stronger export markets.
No matter what the claims, it is total heat (at any given temperature) per unit time that counts. The receiving process heat requirements must be matched to the outlet heat delivery of the solar system. In the end, it is still the aperture area of the collector that has to accommodate the process requirements. How much area needs to be covered to supply a substantial EOR operation? That is the only relevant question for this application.
If it is more than available at the site, guess what?
I worked with several concentrating collector applications back in the 80's. Some of the snake oil salesmen tried to wow the customers with high output temperatures (wow look how it boils the water!) But the integral of heat supply over time proved to be so low that these systems were effectively ineffectual. I have learned to be cautious on all heat transfer systems regardless of the the temperature range when solar input is involved.
Just a word of caution. Total BTUs out per unit time. That is the question!
Question Everything (and I do mean everything)
George
New Energy Research Page
I am sure there are lot of people out there hyping what they have available--including quite possibly these folks.
One thing that strikes me though is that in some sense, solar thermal applications are trying to find a substitute for natural gas, so as to use less/make it last longer. One could argue that there are a whole lot of competing ways of using less natural gas/making it last longer, including wind (and all of the transmission wiring required to make the modified system work), insulation, and CFL's. One could theoretically order the cost of the various substitutes. It would seem like it wouldn't be too hard to make some version of solar thermal that would be a more cost-effective substitute than wind.
Agreed Gail.
I'm not really down on solar energy. I just hope that people will put things in perspective. Solar energy is all we really have in all of its various forms (photosynthesis, direct heat, PV, wind, and hydro). But this requires a balanced view that we need to give up all of our high energy machines that require inordinate power inputs to maintain anything like a BAU economy.
Food. That is the best use of solar. All else is likely to be icing on the cake. In the end, all that really counts is energy production that can sustain itself via excess production that can be fed back into new infrastructure production. The only viable definition of sustainable is when something can self-sustain. All else is wishful thinking. Sustainable food production is the primary requirement. If we manage to have some kind of electricity that will be a bonus, only.
George
George,
I think people often put the cart before the horse. How much governmental support do we see for programs that would result in sustainable food production, without fossil fuels?
Very little, and for good reason. Agriculture requires very little FF as a % of the overall. We're going to have that much FF for a very long time. Other things are more important, like replacing coal with wind, and liquid fuels for personal transportation.
Not if you look at the whole chain. Transportation (several times), processing, refrigeration. Even if one looks at something simple as bread it is good to realise that the ingredients come from different places around the world.
Of course one have to look at the whole system. You cannot say: well, the whole chain of food production uses 'only' 17% of total energy (in the U.S.), so this will never cause problems.
Agriculture requires very little FF as a % of the overall. - Not if you look at the whole chain.
I wasn't looking at the whole chain, I was looking at farm production, as is common in this kind of conversation. Yes, if the entire society collapses, farms will have trouble. OTOH, that's a different discussion. On the 3rd hand, there's no evidence for that kind of collapse due to energy limits.
In 'Energy Bulletin' they did that though. And by doing that not even is counted the transport to (super)markets and the driving of consumers to buy it. Sure, a lot can change, but how fast ? Now food and almost everything is drained in oil.
If the world is going to try to maintain BAU, and they will try, then they will find out quick enough that there are limits to growth. If not because of energy, then because of other things like clean drinking water.
Sure, a lot can change, but how fast ?
Very fast. The US could reduce it's oil consumption by 25% in 3 months with an aggressive carpooling program. It could ramp up hybrids and plugins very quickly if it chose. Rail could replace long-haul trucking pretty quickly - just double-track some main routes.
The US reduced it's consumption by 18% in 4 years, back in 1978-1982. It could easily do so again, and then do it a 2nd time and 3rd time.
It's just a social choice - are we going to send $100's of billions to oil exporters every year, and pay many more in oil wars? Or do we choose something different?
Now, you may ask what I think is likely:
Well, it's clear that some changes are happening. Wind and solar are growing fairly quickly. Hybrids, EREVs and EVs are coming on the market. Moderately aggressive automotive CAFE regulations are kicking in. Heat pump sales are growing pretty quickly. Freight is gradually moving to rail. US oil production is rising slowly.
I think US economic growth will happen, but be relatively moderate for the next 4 years. I think oil prices will rise, but stay under $100. After that, the crystal ball gets very cloudy, because things depend so much on the choices we make, at the national and personal level: we could have a currency crisis which would put us in a fairly deep recession (10% likelihood), we could have an oil and tax induced recession due to a conservative pendulum swing by the US public (50%), we could have sustained growth due to good energy, fiscal and monetary policies (40%).
That's my latest wild guess - check with me next week.
You're grasping at straws, U.S. oil extraction has only increased marginally for a very short while. It is only temporary. Wind will never work because it is irregular, but more importantly the batteries simply aren't there for EVs.
Carpooling isn't going to reduce consumption by 25%, mass unemployment will.
I'm not sure why a conservative pendulum swing would do damage, Ron Paul would like to revert to sound money. It is deficit spending and fiat currencies which are the problems.
U.S. oil extraction has only increased marginally for a very short whil
Well, as a professional forecaster told me once, "the trend is my friend". US overall oil production is clearly rising, geologists on TOD say there are plenty of drilling opportunities, and the Bakken in particular is clearly going to rise for quite a while. If you have specific evidence to the contrary, please offer it.
Han has asked you for evidence to support your assertions regarding wind and batteries - I second that request.
Ron Paul would like to revert to sound money...fiat currencies...the problem
Like gold? How did that work out for the Spanish Empire?
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus1...
The trend is indeed your friend, I have added up the total production of crude oil in 2009 as located on http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus1... and it appears 1,938,128 thousand barrels were produced in 2009.
That is significantly less than what was extracted in 2005. Domestic oil production is clearly trending downwards.
I don't know about gold being used as a replacement, perhaps some sort of commodity basket currency could be used. I do know that Spanish gold is quite valuable, 500 years from now do you believe the USD will have any value?
it appears 1,938,128 thousand barrels were produced in 2009. That is significantly less than what was extracted in 2005
And what were oil prices before 2005, when those wells were being drilled? 2009 is clearly higher than 2008. More importantly, look at total liquids produced (with or without biofuels) including NGL & other petroleum liquids, and you'll see a clear bottom several years ago, and a clear rising trend.
500 years from now do you believe the USD will have any value?
Who cares? Really? If we have to add another zero to the currency every 100 years, why is that important? And I am curious: have read how the Spanish Empire debased the gold standard?
What about the long series of recessions and depressions of the 19th century, and how much the gold standard contributed to it?
Well Nick, that's 'great'. It shows how important liquid fuels are seen and that they do whatever is possible to keep up that addiction. In other words: trying this really doesn't help in the transition, on the contrary.
Who cares really what the world looks like in 50 years from now ? Or how many realise that what is going on now is not sustainable, neither with energy, not with a lot of other things like waterdepletion.
It shows how important liquid fuels are seen and that they do whatever is possible to keep up that addiction
Who is "they"?. We're talking about people who drill for oil. They don't care about "how important liquid fuels are seen", they care about oil prices. What this shows is that high oil prices can still cause increased oil production in some places - despite geology, the market still is important.
trying this really doesn't help in the transition, on the contrary.
I'm not clear what you mean. Surely, increasing oil production helps us deal with PO, especially during a transition.
Who cares really what the world looks like in 50 years from now ?
We were talking about the value of paper currencies 500 years from now. Who cares if inflation continues at 2% per year for 500 years, and sandwiches are priced in millions of dollars? It's just a means of exchange.
The oilcompanies and everyone who use oil for transportation, for other forms of energy and doesn't eat food from own garden. For oilcompanies it is just a product for which is demand. High demand means it is important so they try to sell as much as they can.
Because rising production in several regions can maintain plateau production for some more years, this means that when oilproduction goes down a few hundred millions more people are addicted to oil. That is what I mean. In other words: it is better to get the urgency of the situation now than in 5 or more years.
In Germany that happened within 1 year the past century. Something like what happened with Zimbabwe recently.
High demand means it is important so they try to sell as much as they can.
True, but what's important is they were able to. IOW, high prices brought forward more production, at least in the US.
it is better to get the urgency of the situation now than in 5 or more years.
I kind of understand why you would say that. OTOH, more years to prepare is probably good.
sandwiches are priced in millions of dollars - In Germany that happened within 1 year the past century. Something like what happened with Zimbabwe recently.
Germany was bankrupted by France, and Zimbabwe had it's own unique disaster. What does that tell us about the dollar?
"it is better to get the urgency of the situation now than in 5 or more years."
To combine your 2 comments: rising production makes sense because the demand is there (soon) but the key point is if "more years to prepare" makes sense. Because as I wrote before and you certainly also know: most people don't even know what is going on regarding PO. There may be PHEV's and EV's but as long as ICE sales don't go down and even rise, the situation the coming years doesn't get better, but worse.
Regarding windenergy and solar, you are right: that is increasing significantly. The biggest problem with PO as you know is not electricity (in most countries) but is a liquid fuel problem for transportation. Could be that rail is substituting trucks, but I think both are increasing. Last year I read there are about 200 million trucks on the road worldwide. I guess much less than 1% of them electric.
That from Germany by France I didn't know, I know it happened in connection with the 'Great Depression'. A lot of people are afraid that pumping trillions in the system is a bad idea and only a short time solution. 'Economy is powered by energy not by money' seems logical. I know you think different but I think in this economy the counter-value of money is for an important part oil. (By the way did you order the book "the next economy" ?)
the key point is if "more years to prepare" makes sense. Because as I wrote before and you certainly also know: most people don't even know what is going on regarding PO
Some people do, and they're working on the problem. Vehicles like the Volt and the Leaf are ramping up, and most car companies are working on similar things. Batteries are getting better, etc. As time goes by, we're more and more prepared to deal with PO.
'Economy is powered by energy not by money' seems logical.
Money is a means of exchange, not a means of production. No one thinks the economy is "powered" by money. OTOH, energy is just one of many things that are used by the economy. Energy is needed, but it's not as critical as some PO enthusiasts believe. In particular, we can get by with a lot less oil in the short term, and eliminate it in the long term.
Until we do, of course, oil importers will be hostage to oil exporters.
Most important is that the buyers must know a change is coming. Also, as long as idiots like Lynch are shouting crap, things go too slowly. Because that is what people are listening to. Even a manager from GM said recently that PO is not anytime soon. They are working on it, however a lot of car companies think they have a couple of decades more. I think preparation and implementation on large scale of alternatives should start decades before PO.
It seems yes, when one listens to most economists and looks at Wall Street mentality. And the saying must be there for some reason. The importance of money is even called 'a deadly lesson' for economy students.
Could be I am too pessimistic. Most worried I am for rising unemployment and social unrest disrupting society (like in Greece now) and oil hoarding and (local) wars.
Most important is that the buyers must know a change is coming.
That's important, but it's more important that higher-efficiency vehicles are available to buy.
It seems yes, when one listens to most economists and looks at Wall Street mentality. And the saying must be there for some reason. The importance of money is even called 'a deadly lesson' for economy students
Money supply is essential to an economy, and lack of it can kill an economy. But nobody thinks that it's "produces" anything by itself. A good analogy would be a thermostat: without a working thermostat you house will be cold, but it's the furnace that actually heats the house. Money is a distribution/control mechanism, not a productive mechanism, and all economists know that.
Most worried I am for rising unemployment and social unrest disrupting society (like in Greece now) and oil hoarding and (local) wars.
Those are valid concerns, but oil is only one of many causes, and it can be solved. I agree - the sooner we do that, the less painful the transition.
I think that another lesson is that lack of energy can kill the economy. Anyway, most economists don't grasp the reason of rising oilprices. And for most it is just a commodity. But it's not and that is well explained in 'the next economy'.
I think that another lesson is that lack of energy can kill the economy.
Sure, but 1) the Liebig's minimum ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum )of energy is much, much lower than current energy levels, and 2) that energy can come from renewables, and FF's besides oil.
for most it is just a commodity
Energy as a whole is essential, but oil really is just another commodity, meaning it can be replaced.
In another comment you write that PO is a big problem. Not all your answers point in the same direction.
Again, there are many shades of grey between "no problem" and collapse. Most people would consider economic stagnation for 10 years an enormous problem.
"PO is a big problem" is consistent with "oil is just another commodity that can be replaced". I agree, the tone sounds a little different, but really, they're consistent. Oil can be replaced - ideally, doing so would be done with good planning to minimize the difficulty. As it is, not replacing oil is causing most of our problems, ranging from oil wars to trade balance problems.
Certainly for those losing their job, and people affected by universities getting less subsidy, schools closing, healthcare money decreasing, pension funds evaporating.
Yes.
Now, we're clear that when I say "economic stagnation for 10 years" I mean zero growth, not decline? That's very different from the kind of Mad Max collapse scenarios often bandied about....
Yes. Let's hope it works out that way. And that enough people can buy PHEV's and EV's.
Let's hope it works out that way.
Well, I guess I should clarify further - that's just one scenario, and I think there's a decent chance we'll do rather better than that. I think there's a very roughly 60% chance that world liquid fuel production will be pretty stable for the next 5 years, and decline slowly after that. If that's the case, I think there's a very roughly 67% chance that world economic growth will continue at levels close to before. Of course, that only multiplies out to a cumulative 40% chance.....
If things don't go that well, then growth will be slower. I'd say there's a 80% chance we'll do better than the zero growth for 10 years scenario, and a 10% chance of worse (like a currency collapse).
Just my personal estimates. I hope that helps.
Yes.
Liquid fuel or even crude oilproduction could be stable until 2015, especially if Iraq can ramp up quickly (what I doubt, above all because of the instability there). For world economic growth to be only a little more than zero, it would help if China could temper its growth, which the government is trying with making lending money more difficult. Possibly that declining oilexports will anyhow increase oilprices above $100 before 2015. Some future articles will appear where we will get the possibility to write more about the developments !
You've made an amportant point, but it's the opposite of what you intended: more Oil was produced in 2005 at less Dollars per Barrel, than in later years, when the price-per-barrel was higher.
One year is not a trend.
more Oil was produced in 2005 at less Dollars per Barrel, than in later years, when the price-per-barrel was higher.
The absolute amount of production is much less important than the change from year to year: low prices in the years before 2005 meant low investment, and consistently falling production. Higher prices later drew investment, but that took years to show results.
Now we see an inflection point, and rising production. Yes, it's a one year result, but one which would not have been predicted by pessimists.
More importantly, we see the same trends more strongly and for more years for total liquids: see chart 116 of http://www.theoildrum.com/files/2010_February_Oilwatch_Monthly.pdf
Floridian, what exactly do you mean by: "the batteries aren't there" ?
Wind is irregular, but could contribute significant in total world energy use. Though in some countries much more than in others; look at Germany, Denmark, Spain.
I have to agree, that chance is bigger. Companies have invested based on a future with growth, on increasing sales. How could it be otherwise.
This is a red herring. Wind Power is reliable and predictable if you geographically disperse the installations (dispersal also makes it hard to deliberately take the system down). We don't build all our nuclear, coal, or gas plants in the one place, so suggesting (or suggestion by omission) that we'd do so with Wind Power is, at best, intellectually disingenous.
PBa batteries are quite adequate for regular commuting, within the range of the typical American, European, or Australian commute (<|=60km).Certainly you added the reductions from individual sectors. I looked for the totals: 'in all, petroleum consumption dropped from 47% of the total U.S. energy consumption in 1978 to 41% in 1982.' The decrease in oil use was compensated mainly by coal and hydroelectric.
It could be done, but not easily.
We will for now continue the way it goes, because oil is so damned easy. Windpower, solar, rail and a few electric cars won't change things significantly until the urgency of the situation kicks in.
The decrease in oil use was compensated mainly by coal and hydroelectric.
Yes, the single largest item was replacement of oil electrical generation. Coal was the biggest substitute, nat gas and nuclear helped - hydro I'm not so sure was a big element.
Another significant element was replacement of oil-fired home space heating.
It could be done, but not easily.
Yes, doing it quickly would be more expensive, and inconvenient. Perhaps "straightforward" would be a better word.
Actually, oil really isn't easy or cheap. Think about $2T oil wars. Think about security at airports that takes longer than the flight itself. Not easy, or cheap, at all. We stick with it because of resistance from people in the FF and car industries whose careers and investments would be hurt. Change would be very hard for them, but easier than the status quo for the society as a whole.
Nick/Han, there is one other thing to keep in mind when looking at the oil decrease from the 80's. Most of this decrease was from eliminating non-transport uses of oil (heating, elec, etc). Today, 75-80% of oil is used for transport purposes, and only 5% remains for heating/electric generation, and this is steadily decreasing.
So to get the next big drop in oil use means reducing transport use, which has not successfully been done, on a large scale (10% or more permanent reduction) anywhere since WW2. The only was it was done then was by rationing, and the economy was not nearly as oil intensive as it is today.
Quite agree with you Nick that change would be easier and more beneficial to society as a whole than the car makers. I think the FF industry will be just fine, there will be demand for their product, and the US majors, would probably still be happy if the market shrank to the point where no imports other than Canada/Mexico were needed, as long as prices stayed high, which they will, as there is no more "cheap" oil.
Buying oil from mideast and Venezuela and Nigeria is a mug's game, the sooner the US can get out of it, the better, for the whole world.
to get the next big drop in oil use means reducing transport use, which has not successfully been done, on a large scale (10% or more permanent reduction) anywhere since WW2.
Well, we haven't really tried very hard, have we?
OTOH, US MPG has roughly doubled over the last 40 years, largely due to regulation. In theory, US consumption would be about 9M bpd higher otherwise. This increase in efficiency is invisible, but very, very real.
Similarly, Europeans use only 18% as much fuel per capita for personal transportation, in large part due to very high fuel taxes (though certainly geography, and a heritage of mass transit and city streets too small for cars helps).
Finally, electrification of transportion is feasible, competitive, and affordable. We just have to do it.
the FF industry will be just fine
I agree - they're starting to realize this. But...this is new: the oil industry has fought oil substitutes very aggressively in the past. Similarly, the car industry is starting to accept electrification. OTOH, the coal industry is still defending itself viciously.
Buying oil from mideast and Venezuela and Nigeria is a mug's game, the sooner the US can get out of it, the better, for the whole world.
Absolutely!
That is why I wrote that efficiency gains decrease the percentage of increase of oil use. Population increase and Jevson's paradox are generally much stronger.
High fuel taxes helped, but not that much. In Europe there a lot less SUV's and people are more packed together in the cities. Less the suburban life that has the U.S. Small streets hardly exist, but there are city centres that are prohibited for cars.
Population increase and Jevson's paradox are generally much stronger.
They really aren't. Fertility levels in the OECD are negative - Population increase is just due to inertia during the Demographic Transition. Are you familiar with the Demographic Transition?. Jevon's isn't that strong - maybe a 30% effect - and it doesn't apply when prices are rising.
High fuel taxes helped, but not that much. In Europe there a lot less SUV's and people are more packed together in the cities.
If you feel that Jevon's paradox is important, than you can see that there's a contradiction here. High fuel prices prevent SUVs and long commutes.
Let's take a look at Wiki info:
Partly transition, partly better living standards, partly rising birth rates.
No. Europeans are not SUV lovers like the Americans. When fuel prices were much lower, there were not more SUV's. Regarding long commutes I repeat that a lot more people are packed in the cities. The number of people who work in another city then were they live hasn't change much in f.i. Holland, on the contrary. The last ten years with rising fuel prices the number and the lenghts of traffic jams (files) have increased. You read that well: increased. So nothing with prevention of long commutes with rising fuel prices. For that to happen in Europe gasoline has to be maybe 3 euro/liter. Then oilprices are $200-300/barrel, however it cannot stay there for long. In the U.S. with oilprices above $120 fuel use decreased, partly because some people got rid of their SUV, partly because of unemployment rising sharply.
Partly transition, partly better living standards, partly rising birth rates.
I don't think you found a good article. Here's a better one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
When fuel prices were much lower, there were not more SUV's.
European fuel prices have never been low. In fact, they're high enough to reduce the impact of changes in oil prices.
That one is not unequivocal:
That is what the politicians are heading for. Apparently not worried about the carrying capacity of the earth and considering 'money problems' more important (as almost always).
Then there is from the other article the fact that living standard in Russia are improving, so
increasing the average age from the population which is below average now. How will that affect local oilconsumption in Russia this and the next decades one can wonder.
That is indeed so, that is why the last decade files increased in number and length. With the exception of the second part of 2008. So oilprices way above $100 are necessary for more people to take the train/bike,etc. Unfortunately oilprices will not stay that high for a long time. So the very thing that is best for a transition is not happening.
That is what the politicians are heading for.
Well, that's what they're hoping for. They don't look that successful.
o oilprices way above $100 are necessary for more people to take the train/bike,etc.
European personal consumption is already low, at 18% of Americans. That'snot where the changes are needed most. In Europe, they need to get rid of trucks. Unfortunately, truck diesel isn't taxed like gasoline or even IIRC personal diesel, and Europe's heritage of lack of rail standardization has slowed things down greatly.
The article says that for now it only can slow down decrease and increase should be there in 2030.
It is too early to tell what the effects of the policy measurements will be. Apart from this, recent years fertility rates in France and Brittain and some other Northern European countries have increased, says the same article.
Are you sure ? Holland uses about 1 mbod, while population in the US is 20 times that from Holland.
Germany, France, Spain and Italy use also a lot of oil, must be together at least 5 mbod. So it seems only 5 European countries together use more than 30% of U.S. use.
Yes, rail was even better in the past in Holland.
The article says that for now it only can slow down decrease and increase should be there in 2030.
The article is full of "might" and other qualifiers. They don't really know. The bottom line: OECD fertility rates are at or below replacement.
it seems only 5 European countries together use more than 30% of U.S. use.
They probably account for 60% of European GDP. European personal oil-product consumption is much, much lower than the US, while freight oil-product consumption is a bit higher. European rail is oriented towards passengers, while US rail is oriented towards freight.
It is the article that you called better.
Fertility rate in France is 2.0. In Brittain and some other countries in OECD 1.8. In Russia living standards and average age are on the rise, that is bad for ELM.
Indeed, ship- and airtraffic accounts for about 40% of oiluse (in Holland). Oiluse in Europe is also high and more difficult to reduce than in the U.S.
It is the article that you called better.
Sure. The "they" in question is the government officials who are struggling with a demographic problem, not the writers of the article.
Fertility rate in France is 2.0.
That's below replacement.
In Brittain and some other countries in OECD 1.8.
That's well below replacement.
In Russia living standards and average age are on the rise, that is bad for ELM.
Russian fertility is really, really low, far below replacement.
Oiluse in Europe is also high and more difficult to reduce than in the U.S.
European personal oil use is difficult to reduce, but it's low, and unimportant. Long-haul trucking consumption is high, and that's not hard to reduce - just expand rail (and maybe some water) freight. At the moment, that's being slowed down by a lack of communication & other standards between countries, but that's not a fundamentally difficult problem.
I didn't know it needs to be 2.1 in developed countries for that.
It was 1.49 in 2008. Regarding energy use it will be offset by rising living standards and people getting older on average, unless the economy gets worse.
When I'm stuck in a traffic jam in Holland (during holiday's stay there) I wonder. Every working day in the morning and evening many files with total lenghts of more than one hundred miles ! Even in the day more files than 10-20 years ago.
Expanding rail significantly will take 1-2 decades.
Regarding energy use it will be offset by rising living standards and people getting older on average, unless the economy gets worse.
Yes, Russian energy consumption is likely to rise. Still, it's nice to be clear that their population is very likely to fall.
Even in the day more files than 10-20 years ago.
Yes, there is a good amount of driving in Europe. Yet, if you look at the numbers, it's not that high. Perhaps Holland hasn't expanded their highways in a very long time? Even a very small increase in traffic can cause a disproportionate increase in congestion, if capacity stays the same.
Expanding rail significantly will take 1-2 decades.
It can be done much faster, if people choose to. Adding a 2nd track onto existing right-of-way is pretty fast.
Indeed, not too much the last 10 years. Mainly at some places extra lanes, few extra highways. The amount of traffic is impressive though.
(oops, double post)
ok, I should have written: oil is easy in the way that it is impossible to do without and continue BAU at the same time. Vacation is big business and people don't bother for the time waiting in the airport because they want to see the other side of the world. A lot of oil use is unnecessary but it means also work for many millions of people around the world. And this is only one example: the vacation industry.
The problem is that status quo in fact is growth.
oil is easy in the way that it is impossible to do without and continue BAU at the same time.
We don't seem to be making progress.
How is it "impossible to do without"? Hybrids and EREVs provide all of the functionality of ICEs. Rail is a much nicer way to travel, and works great for freight. Heat pumps are much nicer than oil-fired boilers.
The problem is that status quo in fact is growth.
Where, oh where does this myth come from? FF isn't necessary for growth in energy production; growth in energy production isn't necessary for growth in GDP; and growth in GDP isn't necessary either (though it would certainly make life better).
Here's a good article on growth in oil consumption:
"Green energy policies in the US and China could spell the end of growth in global oil demand, countering a widely held belief that the value of oil will only rise in the future, a US think tank says.
The new policies under consideration in the world’s biggest oil-consuming countries leave the UAE and other Gulf exporters in a difficult position as they weigh investments of billions of dollars in new oilfields and export terminals.
Proposed policies that target carbon emissions by shifting energy sources away from oil and other fossil fuels are some of the most important variables in the oil markets, said Amy Myers, an energy expert at Rice University’s James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy in Texas, which will publish a major study on the topic this year.
In the US, the world’s largest oil consumer, the effects of policies on the table to raise fuel efficiency and encourage electric cars and renewable energy could range from having barely any impact, to reducing consumption by as much as 7 or 8 million barrels per day (bpd) after 2020, Ms Myers said in Abu Dhabi. That is equal to as much as 40 per cent of daily US consumption today.
“People have planned their vision for where they’re going to be in 2025, and that we’re going to have a shortage in the market,” she said. “Well, if the United States could eliminate 6 to 7 million bpd through policy, that would wipe out whatever gain you could imagine from China.”
Ms Myers said China was also likely to improve the efficiency of its oil use faster than experts had predicted.
“There’s a tendency out here in the Gulf to believe that there is this policy uncertainty in America, and therefore we shouldn’t focus on that market. We’re going to shift our attention to the new growth markets of China and India,” she said. “But I think there’s policy uncertainty in China and India as well.”
If China implemented the types of energy efficiency improvements that western countries introduced during the 1970s oil crises, she said, the country’s use of oil in the next two decades could be millions of barrels per day lower than forecast."
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100302/BUSINESS/7...
Nick, good points all. I agree that we haven't even broken a sweat trying to reduce personal transport oil use, there is huge potential there.
BUt, there will be some, and only minor, inconvenience and cost involved, which no one seems willing to accept and no politician is even willing to discuss. And cost means investment (in rail electrification, hybrid and NG cars, etc etc), is does not mean sunk money like wars and and so on. Best of all, it gives America it's independence back.
But as long as people believe they have a right, and politicians are willing to "defend the American way of life" change will be incremental.
I am very impressed by what was achieved inWW2, in terms of fuel saving/switching, increasing industrial production, etc. What is needed now is a similar national effort, just without the war!
I think the goal should be "energy independence", and it should be in 5 years, or at most, the end of the decade, so that it is immediate enough that everyone focuses on it. And oil is the only energy the America is not self sufficient, and for "independence" I will include imports from Can/Mex in American supply. So that means about a 50% reduction from today's level. Challenging, but doable. As JFK said,"we choose not to do these things because they are easy, but because they are hard"
I can;t think of anything else, today, that could unite the American people behind a common goal than the complete elimination of overseas oil imports. if Obama and Congress had agreed on that as the goal, and spent the last year deciding how to do it, the country would be way ahead.
America fought a war to gain its independence, now it fights wars to be able to maintain is dependence, who want's that way of life?
I like that.
But as long as people believe they have a right, and politicians are willing to "defend the American way of life" change will be incremental.
You have to look behind this, to the industries that support politicians financially, and the allied media that misinform the public. As long as there are media deliberately misinforming the public, things will be hard to change.
That seems to depend on you getting all the pieces of the big picture. Let me specify the example about tourism. I live on the Caribean island Curaçao, where thousands of people (probably more than 20%) live directly or indirectly from the tourism industry. How all those tourists can come by train ? With EV's ? Sure there are boats, but that would be mostly for tourists that are not too far away and still have work. So I expect many hotels and shops to be in big trouble in the future and that is not going to be nice for life here.
Let me put it in another way. Do you think that what happened since the start of fossil fuel age, and especially the past 100 years would have been possible without it (above all oil and gas): population explosion and industrial revolution ? Let's say all the alternatives that are possible would have been started 100 years ago, so everything that now needs oil and gas was made in another way or by oil from algae or whatever. One have to imagine how the world would have been now then, in 2010. FF isn't necessary for growth in energy production ? Let 'them' show it.
Nice words, but I don't believe it. At least not for this decade. Let they start to do without 100 new coalplants every year and all the planned nuclear energy and then see what happens. There are a lot of think tanks that don't understand the meaning of fossil fuels (and other non-renewables), at least not in a world with 7 billion people. Another possibility is that those think tanks think that supply of oil isn't a problem, in other words the world simply goes green whenever and in whatever speed it wants. So the question remains: why China, India and a lot of other coutries still chose massively for coal and nuclear and at the same time plan much more windenergy and solar ? It cannot be just a matter of choice. So again: FF isn't necessary for growth in energy production: let "them" show it. I believe it when they start to cancel at least half of new coalplant and nuclear plant production plans. What for me is sure is that from the moment oilproduction is going down it will be a race against time in a lot of ways and it is going to take a lot of cooperation, not only in countries but also between countries.
Maybe increase in energy is not necessary to increase GDP but the past decades GDP increased and decreased together with oilproduction. Then there is the increasing population: every year there has to be work for more people to keep up the civilisation that there is now. And what about (clean) water and GDP. Look for water problems in f.i. the article on TOD from 4 march about Ghawar oil production.
Agree. Though it needs a mass movement to do this. And mass movements were not too succesful in the past, at least didn't happen in a short time. Do you expect the government to say to GM: "listen, you have to stop producing SUV's, you have to cancel all future new SUV models and cancel all planned production in 2011, 2012, 2013 of new ICE cars". In the real world it is not about what should be done, but what is going on. And as long as Joe Sixpack thinks that this can go on forever, almost nothing changes. And as quick they forgot the oil price spike in 2008, as quick they will forget the next one. Let alone they will understand the reason of rising oilprices.
Who is listening to that there is a shortage in 2025 ? And then, if yes, what will they do? Certainly not what I wrote here above about GM. Politicians and other policy makers are just without power in this sence, until reality hits hard. Sure they can let construct much more rail, but how much and how quick this will change the big picture, wherein yearly 70 million more inhabitants are moving around (and yes, the U.S. depends also on developments in other key countries)
I live on the Caribean island Curaçao, where thousands of people (probably more than 20%) live directly or indirectly from the tourism industry.
Yes, tourist islands like Hawaii and the Caribbean will suffer from PO. I see why you're concerned. A few thoughts:
First, while jet fuel is probably the hardest use for oil to replace, it's only very roughly 40%of airline costs, and there are things airlines can do to reduce consumption, like buying more efficient planes, and filling the planes more fully. This means that if oil prices were to rise by 100%, airline ticket prices would only go up by 25%. That's not going to kill tourism.
2nd, it's very unlikely that oil prices will rise by 100% in a sustained fashion. First, oil prices above $150 would slow down economic growth (if not stop it entirely), 2nd, all of the major uses for oil have substitutes that are cheaper when oil rises above, well, about where it is now. If oil prices went to $150 and stayed there for any length of time, consumers would move to carpoooling, mass transit, hybrids, EREVs, EVs, rail, heat pumps, etc, etc, very very quickly. This would keep prices from rising further, and probably reduce them from that peak.
3rd, I expect tourism to continue, but to be more local: for instance, people on the West coast of the US might be a little more likely to visit the Disney park in California, those on the East coast a little more likely to go to Florida. People who want to go to an Island may go to those a little closer: those in the US will be a little more likely to go to the Bahamas, those in Venezuela might go to the islands right off of their coast.
Do you think that what happened since the start of fossil fuel age, and especially the past 100 years would have been possible without it (above all oil and gas): population explosion and industrial revolution ?
Sure - coal would have worked just fine. It would have been a little slower, and dirtier, but yes. Electric vehicles would have stayed popular (they came first, you know), and longer distance travel would have stayed more with trains.
Let 'them' show it.
It's already been demonstrated: the industrial revolution started with coal, and did just fine.
Let they start to do without 100 new coalplants every year and all the planned nuclear energy and then see what happens.
First, they're talking about oil, so coal isn't relevant. 2nd, What's wrong with nuclear?
FF isn't necessary for growth in energy production: let "them" show it. I believe it when they start to cancel at least half of new coalplant and nuclear plant production plans.
Again, we've seen it in the US.
More later...
I think a lot slower. That means no explosion of population and no industrial revolution in the way it happened the last 100 years.
You compare the situation now with how it was in the coal age. With 1-2 billion people and starting industrialism the quantitative increase in energy use is much less than with 7 billion people and many industrialised countries and many countries industrialising.
I know you don't see Peak coal as a problem anytime soon.
Nothing, apart from the protests because of nuclear waste and the possibility of peak uranium.
For that to happen, a recession was necessary to cut electricity use.
I think a lot slower. That means no explosion of population and no industrial revolution in the way it happened the last 100 years.
Why? Again, the industrial revolution was already well underway: steel, assembly line manufacturing, etc, etc. Population growth rates jumped well before 1915, when oil consumption started to really rise.
possibility of peak uranium.
That's unrealistic - there's an enormous amount of uranium and thorium in the world, and eventually waste will become fuel (unless nuclear is replaced by wind and solar...).
a recession was necessary to cut electricity use.
That's a big part how it happened, but it still happened. OTOH, recession's not necessary. Look at California per capita electricity consumption.
Ok, that revolution could have continued with coal and gas. They went on with more and more oil because that obviously was the line of least resistance. Growth rates with 1 billion or less is a different story from with several billions. For that it is helpful to look at the graph: time (in decades or centuries) against population (in millions or billions). The effect of exponential growth in a graph.
I read that California is considered to be the first failed state.
Growth rates with 1 billion or less is a different story from with several billions.
That gets into questions of scalability. Coal, unfortunately, is plentiful. So are other things that can be burned, like "oil shale", which is a terrible source of oil, but which burns just fine.
Finally, wind and solar are even more plentiful. The role of wind and water power is greatly understated in the history of European industrialization, and modern wind & solar tech is infinitely better.
California is considered to be the first failed state.
That's not relevant to energy questions. California has enormous problems because they refuse to raise taxes to pay their bills - that always makes creditors unhappy...
What do you expect from flow rates of oil shale ? Apart from the energy scalability, what about dropping watertables (fossil water), rivers drying up and polluting and desertification ?
Tax revenues falling with rising unemployment is a fear from al lot writing on Drumbeat.
what about dropping watertables (fossil water), rivers drying up and polluting and desertification ?
Yes, those are big problems. OTOH, they have solutions, even if those solutions will keep us busy for a while (thus keeping GDP up!). For instance, we could stop growing quite so much rice in deserts...
Tax revenues falling with rising unemployment is a fear from al lot writing on Drumbeat.
California has been hurt by the recession, but their main problem is that spending is rising, and they refuse to raise taxes to cover spending. They could cut spending, but that's hard because of various referenda which mandated spending of various sorts. They could raise taxes, but things like Proposition 13 have limited that arbitrarily.
California has the ability to pay it's bills: it just refuses to do so. Creditors don't like that....
Like building water-producing factories ? They need a lot of them with current speed of falling watertables and drying rivers and they use a lot of energy.
I thought that f.i. in China where desertground appears they grow nothing anymore. That is why China is buying farmland in Africa and South-America. But like with oil, there are limits and also ELM exists.
In Greece they are going to do that. When life is more expensive (energy, food) people don't like that. In California they chose for the people (until now), in Greece (in the past) they chose for the creditors.
Like building water-producing factories ?
That's one solution, though it's among the most expensive. A better solution: using water more efficiently, and shifting to food that uses less water. China grows a lot of water-intensive rice, and water-intensive meat production is growing.
In California they chose for the people
No, they just chose badly. Taxes were too low, and expenses were too high. For instance, when people are healthier and living longer, does it make sense for them to retire at age 50, as many California state and local governments have increasing allowed in the last several decades??
Yes, when they will start with that ? When watertables are so low that water flow rates start to drop dramatically ? Like always: 'events change people's mind, not facts'. 'Human nature' is a big problem.
True.
Still, we have the ability to feed many, many more people than we do, so if there are problems with water, they won't cause starvation due to overall food shortages.
A problem arises when they run out of water to irrigate farmland. In China in many places they had to stop using riverwater. Then maybe not starvation, but on average a lot less calories.
Meat consumption is rising very quickly in China. Meat production takes about 10x as much land and about 30x as much water as basic grains.
If some areas are having a problem with agricultural productivity due to water shortages, the obvious first step is to reduce meat production.
Agree. I didn't know the difference was 30 times. Lately I read that 1000 tonnes of water are needed to produce 1 tonne of grain.
Maybe increase in energy is not necessary to increase GDP but the past decades GDP increased and decreased together with oilproduction.
Actually, no. World GDP grew 5% per year from 2004 to 2010 with a pause in 2009, while oil consumption was pretty much flat.
US GDP grew slightly from 1978-1982, while oil consumption fell 18%.
Oil consumption changes do not cause GDP changes - it's the reverse, mostly.
Then there is the increasing population:
Again, google Demographic Transition.
no Government mandates to auto industry
Google "automotive US CAFE".
Friday I saw that oilconsumption in the US from 1978-1982 fell from 47% to 41% of total energy production. I think it is much better to look at the totals than to add the % of different sectors.
Well, then I am confused, since the graphs that are shown sometimes on Drumbeat show a clear up and down from GDP together with oilproduction. Probably the period 1978-1982 worldwide was different. Maybe from 2004 to 2008 world GDP grew mainly because of booming China,India and oilconsumption grew there and grew in some other developing countries. The relation could be reverse but if oilconsumption is forced to go down rapidly it cannot be a good thing for the economy.
I think it is much better to look at the totals than to add the % of different sectors.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm trying to address the question of PO, and what economic effect it will have. OTOH, I agree that a larger picture is useful.
a clear up and down from GDP together with oilproduction.
Yes, historically GDP changes have cause oil consumption changes. The difference in 1978-82, and 2004-2010 is that oil production was limited, and we found out that oil doesn't have as much power over GDP. IOW, GDP strongly affects oil consumption, but oil consumption has a weaker effect on GDP. We saw that in 2004-2010, when oil production/consumption was pretty much flat, but world GDP was growing strongly.
Han and Nick, what is there to say ? Firstly you seem to have a nice n' cozy chit-chat .... secondly Han wins!
Nick you have a nifty and impressing Cornucopian style, but that's all there is to it. To claim that the world's history over the last 100 y could have developed like it has without oil, is just stupid, in lack of a more proper word.
Han wins
Uhmmm...did you read the dialogue? Did you think about the details? I believe I answered all of Han's questions.
you have a nifty and impressing Cornucopian style
Thanks...but it's not about the style, it's the content.
To claim that the world's history over the last 100 y could have developed like it has without oil, is just stupid, in lack of a more proper word.
Well, don't hold back - tell me me how you really feel!
Seriously - I think you need more information to make an informed comment.
Did you read all of the conversation that led up to this? Please note that I wasn't suggesting that history would have been identical. Obviously, aviation and highway travel would be rather smaller without oil, and rail would be much larger. OTOH, oil really wasn't needed for industrial civilization: consider that industrial civilization was well developed before the period of roughly 1915-1950 when oil took off.
Are you aware that electric vehicles came before ICE's, and were very successful before dirt cheap gasoline appeared? That the Model T was designed to run on ethanol, and used soy fibers instead of plastic?
Are you aware that oil replaced coal for the English Navy in WWI because oil-fired ships could travel 20% faster? That 20% margin for top speed is enormous in time of war (it was the crucial difference in naval battles with coal-fired Germany), but how much difference does it really make for commercial freight?
That implies that there is only one possible answer on every question. Clearly that is not the case. I read opinions from hundreds of people, and yours is among the most optimistic of all. In a scale of 0% (most doomer) to 100% (most optimistic) you are 80-90% and I about 20-30%.
It is more a matter of exponential growth. With coal (and gas) most things would have been possible but wouldn't have grown with the speed of the last 50 years. And think of all the new materials developed and used in daily life thanks to the space programs.
Just in time deliveries.
That implies that there is only one possible answer on every question.
What I was trying to say to Paal was that his comment that you had "won" was simplistic. He may not agree with me, but I've provided substantive information.
yours is among the most optimistic of all
First, I'm not optimistic, I'm going on the evidence. 2nd, I only look optimistic if you stay within a very narrow universe of opinions - you have to dismiss the large majority of economists and energy authorities to say that what I'm saying is on the optimistic end of things. Remember when you said "most economists don't grasp the reason of rising oilprices. And for most it is just a commodity."? You're observing that most economists are much more optimistic than you are. Heck, all I'm saying is that we're not facing collapse - I agree that PO is a big problem.
With coal (and gas) most things would have been possible but wouldn't have grown with the speed of the last 50 years.
Maybe they would have been slowed down a little, but things like manufacturing would have been just fine. Mostly they just would have been different: more rail, more big-city living, smaller far suburbs, less air travel, less highway travel.
And think of all the new materials developed and used in daily life thanks to the space programs.
I'm not sure of your point here. Diversity in available materials makes things easier, not harder. Perhaps you're thinking of plastic? Keep in mind, plastic can be derived from any hydrocarbon source, like other FF's and biomass. 2nd, plastic can be recycled - right now recycling is slightly more expensive than virgin plastic, but in the large scheme of things that's unimportant.
Just in time deliveries.
First, a higher maximum speed isn't the same as cruising speed, so the difference in cruising speed would have been less than 20%. 2nd, slightly longer delivery times makes almost no difference to Just In Time supply chains: you'd have a little more inventory in transit, that's all. The scheduling would be the same, with planning windows just a little bit longer. Also, keep in mind that rail wouldn't be slowed down by not using oil.
I agree, and it made me a little more optimistic. Still there is (or could be) a big difference between what is possible and what in reality will happen.
Means that those who are pessimistic are ignoring the evidence or interpreting the evidence wrong.
Knowing PO is a big problem it could be, regarding 'human nature', leading to a collapse. One problem of human nature being 'ignoring or overlooking' PO. Most carcompanies knowing about PO thinking that oilproduction won't decline before 2030. Wise would have been to believe the PO pessimists. Not now, but in the 1970-1080 period.
it made me a little more optimistic.
I'm glad. That's why I do this - for you and everyone else reading this.
Means that those who are pessimistic are ignoring the evidence or interpreting the evidence wrong.
Yes, that's my belief.
Knowing PO is a big problem it could be, regarding 'human nature', leading to a collapse.
I think that's highly unlikely - it's not that big a problem. There are many shades of grey between "no problem" and collapse. Most people would consider economic stagnation for 10 years an enormous problem.
Most carcompanies knowing about PO thinking that oilproduction won't decline before 2030.
Most car companies have begun to accept that oil supply is a problem - some, like GM and Toyota (the biggest), have publicly accepted PO.
Wise would have been to believe the PO pessimists. Not now, but in the 1970-1080 period.
I agree. OTOH, we can deal with this as an emergency in the short term, if we have to. It would be more painful than a better, long-term plan, but it's doable. Again, as I've said before, we could reduce oil consumption by 25% in 6 months if we had to, and reduce it by another 20% in 5 years. And that's without going into full WWII command economy mode.
Paal, I'm looking for the thoughts behind the optimists. Last year I read an article with comments from about 10 people (in the energy business) who are optimistic and say that alternatives can make the difference and comments from about 10 people who say the opposite. IMO a lot is possible, but changes are going much too slow, the reason for that being human nature. So when oilproduction is well on its way down, it's mayday with a lot depending on how the superpowers react.
I wrote that in the U.S. from 1978-1982 oilconsumption fell from 47% to 41% of total energy production. That is not 18%.
Maybe because strong growing economies like China had rising oiluse ? I agree that GDP can rise without growing oiluse, but only if alternatives are sufficiently implemented. A problem remains the airlines. You wrote that 100% increase in oilprices increase ticketprice only with 25%. Could be, though in 2008-2009 more airlines went bankrupt than after 9/11. I expect in the future that when oilprices are $150-200, tickets are 25-50% more expensive and when oil is below $100 the economy is on the ropes with airlines carrying much less passengers and freight.
I wrote that in the U.S. from 1978-1982 oilconsumption fell from 47% to 41% of total energy production. That is not 18%.
Actually, it may be (adjusting for rounding, and a changing base). Divide 41 by 47 and subtract 1: you get -13%. Now, if you look at the authority: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTUPUS2... you'll see that 1978 consumption was 18,847 bpd, and 1982 was 15,296: that's a 19% decline.
Take a look at the monthly figures for 2009: 2009 US oil consumption was lower than in 1978 while US GDP roughly doubled! I tend to look at world figures, because that eliminates any question about outsourcing manufacturing energy consumption, but that's pretty clear: the US grew strongly from 1978-2009 while not using any more oil.
Maybe because strong growing economies like China had rising oiluse ?
The point is, overall world consumption was flat, and yet world GDP was growing. Some countries used more oil, some less, but overall the world produced a lot more, without using more oil.
I agree that GDP can rise without growing oiluse, but only if alternatives are sufficiently implemented.
Alternatives can be very simple, like better efficiency. A vehicle that gets 10 miles per gallon doesn't transport a commuter any better than one that gets 50 MPG.
in 2008-2009 more airlines went bankrupt than after 9/11.
Sure: that's a competitive thing: some airlines hedged their fuel prices much better than others. Some airlines did just fine. Also, of course, you had the business cycle and the great recession (indirectly related to oil).
Food is 17% of FF is just nonsense.
The fertilizer industry is .7 quads.
All plastics are .4 quad.
Out of 23 quads of industrial energy consumption the food and beverage industry amounts to 1.4 quads.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mecs/mecs98/datatables/d98n1_2.htm
Refrigeration is only 5% of the residential energy consumption.
Large freezers are typically more efficient than refrigerators.
Out of 3.3 trillion ton miles of transport, .42 tTm of live animals, .46 tTm of foodstuffs, fats and oil and .26 tTm of milled grains, etc = ~1/3rd.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/PQRTable?_bm=y&-ds_name=CF0700A06&-ib_type=COMM&-COMM=$06-09&-ib_code=00&-_lang=en
Freight transport is 30-40% of all energy so food transit energy isn't more than 10% of all transit energy.
There's no way food is 17% of total energy.
Maybe 9%.
Nothing compared to paper 2.7 quads, 7.3 quads petrocoal , 2.9 quads metals, 5.3 quads chemicals minus fertilizers.
Majorian, then the article in Energy Bulletin is nonsense. I have to admit it seems too much. But could it be that you forgot to count something ?
Followed with:
I have to agree with Majorian - things like "1,000 energy units are used for every energy unit of processed food" are completely unrealistic.
Energy Bulletin isn't really a very good source for reliable info.
Then let it be somewhere between 9% and 17%, because of all the waste (apples send to China to make applejuice from it, then send back to the U.S. and send to other countries) in the system. It certainly is a lot, and when oilproduction goes down, this percentage will rise, unless much waste is eliminated and food is grown more locally. Good to realise is also that waste means work for many millions of people.
That is an opinion. And certainly this is valuable info: "Getting our food production sustainable is the most urgent task for humanity; it is also the key to delivering health, ameliorating the worst effects of climate change and saving the planet from destructive exploitation."
"Getting our food production sustainable is the most urgent task for humanity; it is also the key to delivering health
I'm puzzled by that - the two don't seem strongly connected.
ameliorating the worst effects of climate change
I'd say eliminating coal is the most important for reducing climate change. Reducing cow methane is important, it's true. OTOH, reducing cow methane doesn't seem to require a 100% redesign of our food production.
What is meant is probably that organic farming needs less use of pesticides, some of them being 'hormone-disrupting chemicals'. For much more on that you can read the book "Our stolen future".
Solar energy is all we really have
There's geothermal, nuclear, tidal. Also, I'm not really sure it's helpful to think of wind, hydro, wave, etc as solar. It's certainly plausible to think of them that way, but it doesn't seem to make things any clearer.
this requires a balanced view that we need to give up all of our high energy machines that require inordinate power inputs to maintain anything like a BAU economy.
That's highly unrealistic. Wind power is high E-ROI, affordable, sustainable...
Back of the envelope calculations for domestic usage.
Where I live, gas costs approx €0.04 per kWh (electricity €0.16 per kWh, which reduces heatpump desirability). We use around 30,000kWh per year. Cost approx €1200 per year.
Solar insolation at our climate and is approx 1200kWh per year per square metre. 1200kWh replacing gas at 4c per kWh is only €50 per year per square metre. I would need something like 25 square metres of collectors to cover my central heating & hot water requirements, and crucially it would be wildly over capacity in summer and under capacity in winter.
To start replacing gas (currently), the collectors & systems will have to get down to tens of Euros per square metre, rather than hundreds or thousands. The only way I can see for that is to replace the expensive parts (vacuum tube panel) with cheap parts (plastic linear Fresnel reflector & a single vacuum tube).
Alternatively wait till gas gets much more expensive.
A system that replaced 50% of your consumption would save €600 per year. Wouldn't that be worth spending €3,000?
George you are pinning the core message here but why are they wasting energy by embedding a heat exchanger anyway? Just pass the heat straight into the process and add a bypass circuit if there is more heat than needed in the main feeding pipe.
Obviously this GlassPoint-way of doing things begs for a lot of disruptions and/or other energy backups- night follows day you know, but I feel it is the way to go midterm, so if the solar collector input were several times larger than processing needs- they could design a heat storage that allowed for a smooth op. during the full day.. eg. for a prolonged period.
5 cents worth.
Of course, it is going to take a little while for the panels to heat up each morning, which suggests that most of the useful work to be done using the heat from this process might occur from mid-day through late afternoon. This might be ideal for once-per-day batch processing operations. I am thinking of bakeries as one example of something that could be re-engineered to work this way.
Widespread adoption of this technology might have broader societal implications. Maybe workers at facilities using this energy source would have to go to a six-hour-per day schedule, six days per week. We've talked about shortening the working week as a way to spread employment opportunities around a little; this could be one way that it could actually happen.
We rarely see discussions about thermal storage systems on TOD. Storing heat is much more efficient than storing electricity in batteries. Using phase change materials (certain salts) can improve the usefulness of these systems:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/thermal_storage.html
While this technology has been used for electricity production, it is more efficient when used in a thermal only system.
Or domestically, there are "Thermal Stores" and "Heat Banks". Basically big water tanks you heat up using solar, wood, whatever and use the heat for domestic hot water and central heating.
Unfortunately. The systems are expensive compared to the cost of gas.
Unfortunately. The systems are expensive compared to the cost of gas.
I built my own for less than $800. It's not very high temp (165f max) but its capacity offsets this (450 gal). We heat the water with wood and solar, for radiant floor and DHW. Simple copper coil heat exchangers.
I built my own for less than $800.
How much are you paying yourself for your labor?
How much are you paying yourself for your labor?
One beer/hr (no overtime) ;-)
I'm actually a big believer in sweat equity!
Ghung, I like your $800 storage system, but not the complex PCM you started with. That sounds like a lot of expense, building space and possibly dangerous materials for the heat you get.
Space (or water) heating however, is an ideal application for solar, and we have so much of both that we heat that there is no need to store heat for high temp processes. In fact, there is so much energy to be saved i this way, that all the $ spent on photovoltaic would have saved probably 5-10x the CO2 if it was spent on solar thermal instead.
"night store" electric heaters, basically boxes full of sand or bricks, are very common in countries that have off peak electricity rates. They would work equally well with solar thermal. I know of one guy that built a sub-basement under his house, with insulated concrete forms, then filled it with earth and ran the water coils through. Takes him all summer to heat it from rooftop panels, and then it starts radiating heat into the lower floor in Oct and provides useful heat into March. That is far better value for $ (and CO2 offset for $) than any photovoltaic system.
We had solar flat panels on the roof of my parents house at the farm in Australia 30 yrs ago. used it for hot water and hydronic heating. We wanted to expand the system, and my dad just put a couple of coils of black poly pipe on the roof and connected them - much cheaper, and with the glycol already in the system, was freeze proof. Not as efficient, for sure, but much more cost efficient. We then did the same to heat the swimming pool in the spring fall, but had to stop in the summer - was turning into a hot tub!
I have just had a conversation with a neighbour here in BC who has just spent $6k getting a solar thermal system (the evacuated tube type, fancy circ pumps and electronic sensors and controls) installed - living proof that we can make a high tech, expensive solution when we can get 80% of the results for 20% of the price.
The mid temp collector as described are great, it if they work, but I would expect that by the time you add a storage system, for >100C, you have probably lost your advantage over NG.
What is this thermodynamic penalty of phase change taht everybody keeps talking about? Isn't phase change reversible?
I can understand a penalty from less eficient heat exchangers, but can't see an inherent loss on the process.
The penalty is also the advantage. It takes more energy to convert a material from a solid to a liquid (while not raising it's temperature) than it does to raise its temperature while in it's solid or liquid state. The same applies in reverse. This is the point of using phase change materials.
Latent heat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_heat
This is the same process that makes evaporative coolers function.
If you are heating/cooling liquids or solids without changing their state (from solid to liquid, or liquid to gas, or back again) it's called sensible heat.
Sensible heat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensible_heat
The penalty they refer to may be that they must impart enough energy into the phase change material to cause a phase change or its usefulness is diminished (it is most effective during phase change).
As Paul noted above, these systems tend to be complex and expensive, though they don't have to be. They may be more useful as "heat capacitors" than "heat batteries".
Sorry if you knew most of this. I just put it out there for general consumption.
these systems tend to be complex and expensive, though they don't have to be.
Heck, they can be as simple as drywall:
"Building materials that absorb heat during the day and release it at night, eliminating the need for air-conditioning in some climates, will soon be on the market in the United States. The North Carolina company National Gypsum is testing drywall sheets--the plaster panels that make up the walls in most new buildings--containing capsules that absorb heat to passively cool a building. The capsules, made by chemical giant BASF, can be incorporated into a range of construction materials and are already found in some products in Europe."
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24476/
Or a frozen tank of water with pipes running through it. Freeze it at night with off peak electricity. Use it for cooling during peak hours.
The drywall you refer to is neat stuff. I heard that they've had some problems with condensation in humid climates.
I wonder if proper use of insulation and vapor barriers would help?
I think he means on the inside of the house.
You would probably still have to dehumidify the air to some extent and then make up the rest of the cooling need with the wall cooler.
That is the thing A/C "conditions" the air not simple cools it.
The idea of thermal storage in walls has been around for thousands of years - mud brick houses are perfect, they take about 8-12hrs to heat up (daytime) and then release it over next 8-12hrs (night) which leaves them cooler again for the next day.
With modern houses, concrete is a good medium. basement walls built with the ICF system (the foam bricks) actually perform better if the inside insulation is removed - the concrete absorbs interior heat and re-radiates it inwards Cob houses and rammed earth achieve the same, by being so thick the interior heat never reaches the outside.
It's funny that we need a new, expensive, high tech drywall (probable hailed as an "innovation") to achieve the same result - sounds like an article for the Low Tech Magazine.
Another thought, building on such a daily batch scenario: After the daily batch process was completed, you would still have a lot of heat in the system that would gradually dissipate overnight. There should be a way to capture a lot of that with some type of co-generation system, probably to generate electricity that could be fed into the grid. This would be great, because a lot of residential demand for electricity would be in the evening hours when the sun isn't shining, and thus PV power won't be a feasible supply.
Another possibility would be to use this in an industrial facility housing two different processes: a high-heat process during the day, and then a lower-heat process in the evening hours.
This isn't collecting heat at high enough temperature for efficient generation. And if it were, you'd want to generate electricity first, then use the resulting waste heat for other purposes.
And, as said, storing heat is reasonably efficient, so the system can collect heat ~6 hours a day and dispense it all 24.
I think you are on to something here. This is part of what I think of as radical paradigm change in how we structure and organize our societies in the future. We probably will not be manufacturing useless consumer items on the over night shift anymore, getting paid double overtime.
Maybe we will only have "Jobs" a few months out of the year and everyone will put in a couple of months of their free time to work on food production and we could still spend a month or two sailing around the world on community built boats ;-)
...changing work hours...
I agree with you and the other people who agree with you. We can also talk about taking the day off when it's cloudy or it rains. The dutch used to grind grain with their windmills when the wind blew, and do other things or take the day off when it didn't.
It is amazing to me that "it won't work at night" is put forward as an argument against solar power, when "it won't work at all" is where we will be with fossil fuels in another century.
+1 Exactly! Hence my statement below that when FF go unobtanium, alternatives are going to go from being (extremely?) "expensive" to being extremely valuable.
Alan from the islands
We've gotten spoiled living in a 24/7/365 world. Wasn't that way for most of our past, won't be that way for most of our future.
Spoiled in the way that milk left in the sun spoils.
"Of course, it is going to take a little while for the panels to heat up each morning, which suggests that most of the useful work to be done using the heat from this process might occur from mid-day through late afternoon."
No, mirror reflector systems like this can reach full temperature in minutes. In fact if it wasn't for the heat transfer fluid flowing through the pipe, the pipe would melt in a minute or less.
The reason for this is that the mirror concentrate the light to very high levels and the flow rate of the heat transfer fluid is selected such that it leaves the solar collectors at full temperature in one pass through the collection field. Add thermal storage and a backup heat system (natural gas, biomassm, etc.) and the factory could stay in operation 24 hours a day
Thanks Gail.
Back in the 1970's, I proposed building a system using parabolic concentrators to capture solar energy. I didn't get funded, but my efforts have given me some insight into the problems of such systems. Basic physics makes it difficult to build a system which exhibits efficient conversion from solar irradiation to thermal energy at the higher temperatures claimed. That's because the collection surface also radiates thermal energy, a process which increases rapidly as the temperature of the collection surface climbs.
Keeping the collection surface small compared to the aperture of the mirror(s) results in the smallest losses from the collection surface. A cylindrical parabolic trough type system of necessity has a smaller concentration than is possible with a circular parabolic type, such as the central receiver tower systems. With a lower concentration, the efficiency is always going to be an issue.
The description of the system from the GlassPoint web page doesn't go into any detail about efficiency vs output temperature. There's no description of their collecting pipes, which one might expect to be surrounded by glass tubes, so I am extremely skeptical of their claims. Sounds like salesman's hype to me.
Note, there was a system built in the late 1970's which used circular parabolic concentrating collectors to provide process heat to a textile plant in Peachtree City, just south of Atlanta. A buddy of mine worked on it. You might check out what happened with that system, since you live nearby...
E. Swanson
I live just outside of Peachtree City, I wasnt aware of anything like that. Im going to ask around.
There ar 9 solar thermal power plants that use trough solar collectors in California. They were built in California in the 80's and all are still generating power. Total capacity is 354MW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEGS
Additionally Nevada solar 1 a new 64MW plant with a similar design started generating power in 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One
There are many more proposed plants currently workiing through the review and approval process.
The collectors used at the SEGS plants is similar to what is shown in the glasspoint web page. However in the SEGS systems the pipe is not simply stainless steal. In the SEGS design the pipe (not sure what metal but probably high temperature steal) has a special none reflective coating and it is sealed inside a glass piple There is no air between the steal and glass pipes. This minimized reflective, radiative, and conduction losses.
Steven,
The applications you are talking about are for electricity, not for industrial process heat.
It is agreed that the electrical applications can be done, but it tends to be expensive and require higher heating values.
The question is whether there is a possibility of cost-effective industrial process heat, in a lower heat range. The fact that these electric plants have been able to remain open since the 1980s gives hope that if there are cost effective industrial process heat applications, they can be kept open for years.
Reducing the collector sectional perimeter will reduce loses only up to the point that the collector is still able to conduct all the heat to the fluid. At hight temperatures, if you increase just a bit the temperature of the external area of the collector, you'll increase radiation by a big amount, but will only have small improvements on conducted heat.
A thiner collector will help, but it is limited on how strong is your material. A big internal perimeter (with some internal texture for example) would also help, but that would be way too expensive to create.
Thanks Gail, and interesting comments.
2 points from the article:
Gail, nothing is going to change the world rapidly. Neither small nor big companie(s), no matter if there are 1 or 100 of them. Apart from the 'breakthrough' and 'economics' issues, the urgency of the situation must be seen. Fossil fuels are simply too easy and reliable to use. Look at the carindustrie. There are many companies that make (PH)EV's, but apart from in Japan (10%) it is a small market and that won't change the next few years. When the urgency for transition is felt the economy will be (still) on the ropes.
This is of course a big disavantage. Most companies will think twice before they make a decision.
Hi Han,
I must agree with your concerns in regard to most companies thinking twice before commiting to such an investment.
But if it actually can be proven to be cost effective,it appears to be the sort of thing that can be rolled out pretty fast-if the space and financing are available.
There should be vwery little problem with permits, safety zoning, and so forth.I'm not knowledgeable about the overall demand for such heat, but it could be used directly for space heating in sunny climates where there are good locations for the mirrors NEAR but not actually on the buildings, for drying lumber,and possibly for some agricultural purposes such as pastuerizing milk, canning vegetables,and warming brooding houses.
I think you're exaggerating. First of all, 20% of the time is more than half an 8 hour shift. Also, glasspoint shows its system in series with gas-heat, pointing out that you save money on gas during the day and seemlessly transition back to 100% gas during the night (if your factory needs to have a night-time shift). This is exactly the same basic design as some residential solar water heating systems which put tankless gas heaters in series with solar collectors.
So in the short run, you save money on gas, and in the long run you could keep your factory open part time even if gas prices force bankruptcy on your competitors who didn't invest in solar.
Frankly, if companies think twice about it, they could be more impressed on the second think.
Twenty percent of the time sounds ridiculously low to me. The sun is up 50% of the time. Now probably the first and last hour or two are not that good, because the sun is low in the sky -(and probably your parabolic troughs don't track). But it would be a pretty cloudy desert location to miss that much direct sunlight.
Good point. I think Gail is thinking of the usual calculations for PV, which use 20% as a benchmark capacity factor. IOW, if you use noon-time sun as the standard, one gets about 5 hours of equivalent sunshine per day.
OTOH, the sun really is out much longer than that, so such a system would be useful for much more than 5 hours per day, just at varying levels of power.
20% sounds about right for fixed collectors, USA averaged. That's about 1752 hours/year of full sun.
Tracking PV arrays produce around 20%-40% more than fixed arrays. Of course, location/latitude, season, and sighting are critical for anything solar. Tracking would increase output (and cost/complexity/maintanance). There is an old debate in PV circles whether it's better to spend money tracking or to add more PV panels. Good arguments for both. I use (homebuilt) tracking because it increases the length of my solar day and increases output without increasing balance of system costs (except for the trackers), and space requirements.
I've never seen tracking flat panel solar thermal but concentrating solar is different.
The Glasspoint design is similar to solar thermal power plants built in California in the 80's which use tracking collectors. I didn't see any information in glasspoint web site indicating if it is a tracking design.
A heliostat uses tracked flat mirrors to concentrate sunlight on a central tower.
I am using the numbers Rod gave me, and that were in the material I was given.
The question is how much time will pass between the first and the second one. Could be one year, but also five or more.
This is a great technology, sure, but nowhere do I see anything close to what constitutes being called a "breakthrough". I understand that GlassPoint is working on this - but so are a huge number of companies.
I know of at least several companies in just my own area that sell solar process heat for industrial processes. Yeah, this is a GROWING SECTOR, and we will see much greater adoption as time progresses. So can we revisit the objective of the article? It seems to be selling the idea that we can experience a breakthrough due to specific technology developed by a specific company. Nothing could be further from the actual state of affairs.
I am a big fan of solar thermal process heat. I think it's possibly the lowest hanging fruit for renewables to capture and in addition to that, I EXPECT significant growth.
I was hoping the article could result in some knowledgeable responses from readers, including you.
Do you have a source of information that gives trends in solar thermal used for industrial process heat over time? I see this information on the EIA website, but it does not indicate very much use of solar thermal for industrial process heat. When so little seems to be currently used, it is hard to find a starting point.
Due to the moderaterate temperature of this process it cannot be compared BTU to BTU with any fosil fuel. If using say natural gas, you could generate a considerable amount of electricity and have an exhaust heat in this temperature range. That is what is typically done in industries using cogneration/ combined heat and power (CHP) like pulp and paper, where high temperature steam is sent through a turbine, exhausting a lower pressure steam that is used to dry paper or other process heating.
Steam injection for heavy oil recovery is another CHP process.
400 C solar heat could be used to generate some electricity and still have low temperature process heat. By low temperatrue proces heat I mean 50 to 150 PSI steam (150 psi or 10 bar saturated steam = 180 C).
I have worked in industries that used small amounts of process heat that would make CHP uneconomic. The total amount of process heat used by these industries is probably small compared to heavy industry.
A good application for mid level process heat is drying of various crops that is presently done with LPG.
That is a good point. I know the Chevron Kern River facility does significant electricity co-generation, so it's cost structure is significantly lower than just a cursory look at natural gas purchase prices would suggest.
Most of the Alberta oil sands operations use the NG to generate electricity first, then the mid temp steam for process heating or underground injection. The whole oilsands area around Ft McMurray is a significant electricity exporter, and is now at the limit of the transmission lines!
Using solar heat for crop drying is good, but what do you do with all that heat for the other 11 months of the year? Unless you can find an alternate application, it is huge $ in capital for a short time. And what happens if the weather stays bad, which is likely the reason crop drying is needed in the first place? If I was the farmer I might rent the setup for the month, but I think I'd still prefer the reliability of NG - you can't leave the crop damp for very long.
When I was up in Alberta, I heard discussion of switching some of the energy inputs (on SAGD production) from natural gas to electricity, because of the good availability of electricity.
I agree that with thermal solar, one really needs year-around applications, and these need to last 30 years. If because of lack of natural gas availability they stop working after 10 years (or for other reasons--for example, lack of replacement parts for needed infrastructure) then the supposed calculations of the cost of solar thermal are very much understated.
these need to last 30 years. If...they stop working after 10 years ...then the supposed calculations of the cost of solar thermal are very much understated.
The ROI doesn't change nearly as much as that might suggest. The first 10 years is much more important. The last 10 years matters not that much.
To pay back $1,0000 for 30 years at 7% interest requires a savings of $80.59 per year.
To pay back $1,0000 for 20 years at 7% interest requires a savings of $94.39 per year - less than an 20% increase, and much less than the 50% increase one might expect if one didn't take interest into account.
To pay back $1,0000 for 20 years at 7% interest requires a savings of $142.38 per year - less than an 80% increase, and much less than the 200% increase one might expect if one didn't take interest into account.
So, if we work with the assumptions in the article, even a 10 year life is still economic.
"So, if we work with the assumptions in the article, even a 10 year life is still economic"
Nick, while ten years is economic, most businesses wouldn;t put them unless the payback is about 5yrs, or less (but still with a minimum 10 yr life), unless they suspect a signficant risk in price or availability of their existing energy supply.
Conversely, if they are not sure their enterprise will still be around in 10 or five years, or that someone else will own it, they are less likely to make these changes.
I work in water conservation and try to convince companies and municipalities to do projects all the time - they only ones that bite are where they are facing an impending limit on their water supply, or massive $ for expansion. very few do it for the purposes of reducing operating cost (even with paybacks of 2yr or less), unless someone else is going to subsidise it. Right now, they are just trying to not spend anything.
Paper mills use a lot of mid level process heat. Some are using biomass for this, but many use natgas as well. There are many applications for solar thermal if costs/efficiency/heat storage can be made competitive. Looking at today's drumbeat, natgas prices are likely to increase. I suspect that this technology's time will come soon (if the economy doesn't crash).
Pulping is done by digesting wood chips in an alkaline (sodium hyrroxide, commonly called lye)solution with sulfur compounds, mostly sodium sulfide. The sulfur compounds help promote dissolving of the lignin that holds the cellulose wood fivers together. The end product of the spent chemicals and dissolved lignin has a significant heating value and is evaporated to a thick tar like consistency (80% solids) and sprayed into a specially designed boiler. The spray falls to a bed of molten sodium carbonate and sulfide on the furnace floor. The bed is rich in carbon and deficient in oxygen, that is, a reducing atmosphere, as opposed to oxidation in the upper combustion zone. (Redcution is tha process whereby ores such as iron are treated with carbon (typically, as it is cheap) to deoxidize the ore, which turns the carbon to CO2). The smelt is dissolved and treated with burned lime, which recnstitutes it to be reused. The heat from the boiler supplies about 50% of the energy used in the pulping papermaking process.
Thanks Paul. What about the other 50% energy used?
I forgot to mention that bark from the wood is also burned.
The 50% of fuel that is purchased is usually either oil or gas.
What about commercial processes like cooking and laundry? In my neck of the woods, the tropics, these sorts of systems could be very interesting. One application that comes immediately to mind is a small banana/plantain/cassava chip factory I pass on my way to visit my dad. I guess they use deep fat fryers to fry the chips and they use LPG or something similar since I have seen the storage tank on the site. If this technology can be scaled down enough, an operation like this could achieve considerable savings and at the same time get some insurance that, some kind of production can continue when FF go unobtanium, a scenario I expect will happen well within the nest 10-20 years.
In a similar vein, commercial cooking to produce mid-day and/or early evening meals, such as done at schools, hospitals, commercial centers and factories among other places could benefit from the savings from using concentrated solar thermal energy collected using system like these, if they can work at a small enough scale. These applications are an almost perfect fit more so than the bakery idea that WNC Observer raised further up this thread. On the matter of bakeries, during a visit to France last summer, my sister who lives in th UK and vacations in France most summers, informed me that the small bakeries in the town or Pierre-Latte where we were staying, baked bread three times per day so, solar thermal energy could conceivably be used for the mid-day and evening batches. Could this technology be scaled down and still be cost justified for applications like that?
If this idea could be scaled down to the level of individual dwellings (or food/lunch trailers) at a cost that allows it to compete with LPG cookers over the long haul, I think it would be a winner. I have been running this idea around in my head for a while but, I am convinced that if I ever attempt to commercialize it, by the time I finish any R&D and get around to production, somebody in China will have come up with "solar stoves" and will be churning them out by the millions at Chinese mass production prices. In that case I am better off waiting for someone else to "invent" them and just add them to the mix of renewable energy solutions I intend to offer at some point.
The thing about these solutions is that, like electric vehicles charged by non FF sources, when FFs get very expensive or in my case, go unobtanium, they are no longer expensive but valuable. For really small scale systems, the only worry will be, what lengths people will go to in order to acquire (deprive others of?) them. Not an insignificant thing to worry about IMHO.
Alan from the islands
It sounds like you have some good ideas there. Perhaps a fancier version of the solar ovens that some of us own.
Solar is ideal for home heating and water heating, and can be used for cooking.
http://solarcooking.org/plans/
There are many manufacturers of high efficiency water heaters. Low efficiency is suffcient for hot water in mild climates and many places with good sunshine.
Passive solar home heating has been discussed on T.O.D.
When this type of application is used, typically solar heat replaces only 20% of the natural gas that would otherwise be used, because sufficient solar energy to produce solar thermal heat is only available 20% of the time in sunny climates.
This assumes 24 hour operation. Do manufacturers that use process heat for things like wall-board generally run 24 hours per day?
Nick, because the other 'energy breakthrough' topic is closed, I give a comment here on what you wrote there. It seems completely off topic, however all the energy questions are linked.
What you wrote about net-exports was actually questioned by someone else. The question:
The answer was:
And:
You wrote that the situation now is different because of the recession, but OTOH you also think that the economy will recover slowly but surely.
Han, points #1 & 4 conflict. If developing countries are outbidding developed countries for declining oil exports, then that's different from "Saudi Arabia is increasingly favoring China & India". Oil will go to the top bidder.
Now, I would disagree with the pessimistic assumptions implicit in "developing countries will continue to outbid developed countries for declining oil exports."
Instead, I would say: "developing countries will continue to become more dependent on imported oil, while developed countries become less dependent."
the economy will recover slowly but surely
Yes, that's what I think. Also, higher oil prices will tend to provide negative feedback. IOW, higher prices will slow down economic growth. OTOH, substitution for oil already in progress will tend to slow down oil price increases. All of this points towards less volatility in oil pricing.
Right, the word "favoring" is not correctly used. It is that the U.S and Europe is using less oil because of the recession. Point remains that developing countries are putting more and more strain on the system.
Agree. However IMO this "less dependent" is not going fast enough if governments don't get the urgency.
A lot depend on how substitution will be offset by increasing use by developing countries. And of course on geological and geopolitical factors.
A lot depend on how substitution will be offset by increasing use by developing countries.
As prices rise, substitution will accelerate. This story is a good example: as natural gas prices rise, substitutes like solar heat become more and more attractive. According to the company's claims, this process is competitive at gas prices less than half of current pricing: that doubles the ROI of this system vs a gas system. If gas prices rise further, that difference becomes even larger.
Wind, solar, EV and heat pump costs will continue to fall, even as oil costs rise. A shift from oil to electricity will accelerate.
Some thoughts regarding Chinese oil demand:
China recently eliminated price controls for gasoline. The next step is to do the same for natural gas, which is a natural substitute for oil, but which is underutilized in China due to old price controls which suppressed production.
Automobile sales in China in August 2008 shrank 6.3% year on year to 629,000 units, the first fall in about two years, due to higher fuel prices.
Chinese GDP growth has dropped by about 1/3 recently - see http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/10/middle_kingdom.html .
Chinese are much more aggressive than the US about replacement of oil-based electrical generation with coal and nuclear; energy efficiency (especially automotive); and PHEVs/EV's.
Regarding competing with China for imported oil: the US produces at least 40% of it's own oil, so a 20% reduction of overall consumption is a 33% reduction in imports. I would note that the US reduced it's oil imports by about 15% recently, even before this credit crunch hit.
China, already a global center for lithium-ion battery component production and battery manufacturing, is ramping up its research and development efforts in the field, both within the private sector and with government support.
"China has also begun to see energy efficiency and renewable energy as ingredients for the type of modern economy it wants to build, in part because it would make the nation's energy sources more secure.
"We think this is a new business for us, not a burden," said Gan Zhongxue, who left a job as a top U.S. scientist for the giant ABB Group to head up research and development at ENN, the Langfang company that made its fortune as the dominant natural gas distributor in 80 Chinese cities. "
---------------
"China has taken significant steps in the past five years. It removed subsidies for motor fuel, which now costs more than it does in the United States; its fuel-efficiency standard for new urban vehicles is 36.7 miles per gallon, a level the United States will not reach for seven years. It has set high efficiency standards for new coal plants; the United States has none. It has set new energy-efficiency standards for buildings. It has targeted its 1,000 top emitters of greenhouse gases to boost energy efficiency by 20 percent. And it has shut down many older, inefficient industrial boilers and power plants. "
source
In a previous post you admitted that high prices will harm the economy. And when that happens oilprices will drop again.
True, but the solar heat system seems to work only 20% of the day. Suppose an optimistic estimate: that in 10 years from now 50% of the companies that can take benefit from this system has this system implemented. Then the total gas used by companies is not even close to 50% less (apart from the rise because of more companies, if the economy doesn't collapse).
Besides some comments here suggest that this system is not a breakthrough, just a 'salesman hype'.
For that to accelerate the transport sector on the first place has to electrify, since in the '80s most electricity generation in a lot of countries was changed to coal, gas and nuclear. So now the gains are above all in transportation. Wind and especially solar have a so low starting point, that even with a yearly big increase it will take many decades to become really something. You wrote that in the U.S. they can install 78 GW of windpower every year, but is it realistic to think that this indeed will happen ?
That from China is promising, but don't forget that they construct tremendous amounts of buildings, in one year the surface area of new buildings is the same as in Germany. Same with energy, still a lot of new coalplants every year. With cars you look at fuel-efficiency and the possibility of EV's and that is good to do, but I think for now what is more important and counts is the increasing amounts of ICE cars. I look forward to the year that less ICE cars are sold than before and that yoy, only then things start to change. IMO that will not be before oilproduction is heading down.
Yes, therefore now sales are rising sharply again.
The last thing that the government wants is protesting people because of problems to buy gasoline for their recently bought cars. Social unrest is contra productive.
The past decade they have build 2 coalplants every 7-10 days and oilconsumption was rising sharply. Seems that also in China most oil goes to other things than electricity generation.
Apart from the article in Washingtonpost there are also this type:
ABC News: 29 State Unemployment Programs are Almost Out of Cash
Bloomberg: China's Hidden Debts Risk Large Financial Crisis in 2012
If this kind of things come together with dropping oilproduction...
high prices will harm the economy
hmm. I'm afraid we're starting to go in circles. Maybe we need to take this one step at a time.
OK. First, what's "the economy"? Is it the US? The OECD? Oil exporters? The world? The answers are different.
True, but the solar heat system seems to work only 20% of the day.
This is just one of many examples of FF uses for which there are competitive substitutes. Personal transportation is the biggest (e.g., hybrids, PHEVs, EREVs, EVs). Others include long-haul trucking; oil-fired electrical generation (about 5M bpd, around the world); oil-fired space heating (a large item in the US); asphalt; etc, etc.
Wind and especially solar have a so low starting point, that even with a yearly big increase it will take many decades to become really something.
Wind provided more than 40% of new generation in the US for the last 2 years. Wind is "really something", right now.
You wrote that in the U.S. they can install 78 GW of windpower every year, but is it realistic to think that this indeed will happen ?
It certainly can. We may choose to use coal - that would be terrible. OTOH, the lights won't go out. Let me repeat: there will be more than enough affordable electricity, at least in most countries (some countries may mis-manage their grid).
Automobile sales in China ...now sales are rising sharply again.
Yes, now that gas prices are lower. The point is: car sales in China are sensitive to gas prices. Chinese car sales are not an unstoppable juggernaut.
The last thing that the government wants is protesting people because of problems to buy gasoline for their recently bought cars.
No, the Chinese government is smarter than that - they care much more about the overall economy. Furthermore, the repeal of price controls hasn't met with protests. You're assuming the worst, and that assumption is disproved by the reality.
I don't think in this world of globalisation economies can be separated. If the U.S. goes down other economies will suffer also.
As I wrote: I am looking forward to the year that ICE car sales start to diminish. And not one year, but year after year. From that year on things are starting to get serious.
40% of new generation. So still 60% something else. And how many percent of that 60% is fossils ? It has to replace existing generation. Again, when will be the first year that to happen ? 2020 ? 2025 ?
Sure, but the question was: is it realistic to think that will happen ?
This means gasoline price isn't a problem now and they can keep on driving. Maybe on average per car less miles than in the U.S. but China is allready the biggest car market in the world.
I wrote that high gasoline prices will lead to protests so I expect that they try to keep prices a lot lower than f.i. in Europe. Not the worst, but my pessimism could be realism. You are optimistic in every alternative energy possibility, I wish I could see things as bright as you can.
I don't think in this world of globalisation economies can be separated.
From 2004-2008 world growth wasn't slowed down by rising energy prices. The world economy didn't slow down until petrodollar recycling broke down when the US mortgage bubble burst. Mortgage based petrodollar recycling has now been replaced by sovereign borrowing. The impact of rising oil prices on the US and world economies now depends heavily on petrodollar recycling based on sovereign borrowing.
Does that make sense to you?
I am looking forward to the year that ICE car sales start to diminish.
Me too.
It has to replace existing generation. Again, when will be the first year that to happen ? 2020 ? 2025 ?
It was 2009 in the US, because electrical consumption fell. That meant that new wind power replaced FF one-for-one. For China...that's harder to know. They're ramping up both wind and coal.
is it realistic to think that will happen ?
Eventually. Will it be before Climate Change has done very bad things? I don't know. Again, it's a social choice. It's feasible, affordable, etc. Will people whose careers and investments are in FF continue to block change? I don't know.
This means gasoline price isn't a problem now
That's misleading. Chinese drivers on average drive only 1/3 the miles of Americans due to market forces.
China is allready the biggest car market in the world.
It's risen for the moment above US sales because of the US recession, but it's still well below the average US sales volume.
You are optimistic in every alternative energy possibility
Not really. I just follow the evidence. For instance, I think Climate Change is a very big problem - much worse than Peak Oil.
I am sure something else is at least as important: for most people energy and food is a large proportion of their spendings. With rising oilprices that proportion rises and less is left to buy things that keeps the economy going.
AGW or WG, as long as coal is ramping up in countries like China and India, nothing will change. BAU comes before climate: wind and solar are unable to contribute a lot ( I mean more than 20% worldwide) this and the next decade and coal works always and 24 hours a day, so the choice is obvious. And no climate protocol will work if China and India are out. That is the hard truth.
And because most live closer to work than in the U.S. Anyhow, at Peakoil what counts most is not the absolute numbers but the increase and the companies that make profits because of this increase and projected the future based on increase.
Well, the evidence doesn't make me too optimistic. And the evidence is not about that wind has the potential to increase with 78 Gw in the U.S. for many years, it is what happens in reality.
Even if 3 billion people think that, it won't change anything. So that evidence doesn't help. Peak oil will be what wakes up the world, but only a few years after the year that production starts to go down, so a few decades too late. IMO Peakoil is the biggest problem in the short and middle-long term. Climate Change could be devastating for billions of people in the long term, unless under the influence of a Maunder minimum the earth will start to cool from about the year 2050. Massive methane release could, apart from warm the earth, also cool the earth (see Wikipedia).
Nick,
I can't speak for other industries but my polymer/synthetic rubber/adhesive plant ran 24/7/364 (we closed for Christmas day). Even my process development and semi works/pilot plant ran this schedule.
We had both exo & endothermic reactions, i.e, we used both process heating and cooling. Frankly, this system would have not been of interest to us from an economic perspective. We saved far more money by having a good power factor for motors (most of which also ran 24/7/364).
Todd
Do I understand you correctly that this is because process heating costs were such a small percentage of your costs? Or because capital expenditures were limited so you spent what was available on something better? Just curious... (Saying you saved more money doing something else wouldn't by itself invalidate the economy of solar process heating.)
Jag,
I don't want to get into a major post but let's say this; we had an industry average ROI of about 7 1/2%. Capital expenditures were via state industrial development bonds. Further, we were a division of a non-chemical company whose "chemical" business grew out of suppling a retail, high mark-up product for the "home" company because it was cheap, via bonds, to in-house the products.
At some point someone said, "Hell, we have a chemical plant. what else can we sell?" So, it "just grew."
Now, returning to alternative energy, which would have probably precluded state funding via bonds, compared to other costs (raw material, labor, etc.), the potential gain would have been minimal. Suppose we'd have had an additional 0.25% eventually. Compared to the debt it would not have been worth it at that point.
Let me put this into perspective. When I was still managing the process development group, I came up with two processes that reduced reaction times significantly; one was a controlled, runaway reaction that cut time from 2 1/2 ours to 45 minutes*...no cost just a heck of a lot attention so it didn't blow out the rupture disk and vent. The other would have required significant capital expense but reduced the reaction time from 30+ hours to about 8.
The response? Fuggetaboutthem. Why? It wasn't worth it from a "corporate" point of view. Don't argue. I wasn't on the board.
Todd
*This always struck me funny: I'd go out to one of the reactor buildings in my coat and tie (with hard hat and safety goggles of course), tell the operator to load up more catalyst..and more catalyst... while I watched the pressure and temperature gauges until I saw the "surge" coming, tell the operator to put on full cooling and go back to my office. But, the decision was that I was the only person in the company would could do it.
Thanks for enlightening us. :-)
Processes heat is typically used continuously, 24/7/350 days/yr. These processes are not easy to start and stop and require coordinated shut down and start up. It is time consuming to go through a controlled shut down and a start up. Also, cast iron drying cylinders are under steam pressure and should be kept at operating temperature and pressure. Escessive cycling of temperature from cold to hot may lead to cracking and failure, meaning an explosion.
That makes sense, and yet I wonder how many processes are kept up to temperature, but run only at minimum levels?
For instance, aluminum and steel smelting and processing typically happen at night, when electricity prices are lower. Aluminum can't be allowed to cool, but you can maintain temperature with minimum energy inputs without doing significant processing.
A lot of manufacturing happens mostly on the day shift. For instance, car manufacturing very rarely runs a 3rd shift - too much maintenance is needed on the 3rd shift.
Car manufacturing is really assembly; the parts are made elswhere, except in the early days like Ford's River Rouge plant where almost everything was made on site. Now parts come from around the world.
Most basic materials manufacturing is continuous. This includes aluminun, cement, oil refining, pulp and paper, chemicals, plastics. Things made in batches are mostly specialty materials. There are important exceptions to these, but I can't think of many off hand. I think plywood can be made one or two shifts per day.
Some manufacturing processes are best done when the factory is on 24 hours a day. Frequently you cannot just turn it on and off as needed. Some parts have to warm up before the equipment can be used or need adjustment before you start making product.
Other than using natural gas as a backup when the sun is not shining, an alternative approach is to store some of the heat from the solar collector in a large insulated tank. It can then be used at night or during cloudy weather.
Andasol 1 and 2 power plants built in Spain store some of the heat from the solar collectors for use at a later time. The technology was demonstrated in the 90's in the USA. Andasol 1 and 2 are the first comercial solar power plants to implement this technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andasol_Solar_Power_Station
Nick, that depends on the specifics of the process, but many of them do need to keep the drying kilns going 24/7 - if you let them cool down, you get condensation on the product, and have to start again.
Now, one process where I think the solar heat would be an ideal supplement for NG would be ethanol distilling - the 70C temperature is perfect for solar. It would take some plant modification, and a large array, to run the distillation only during the day, but it could be done. Would up the EROEI and reduce the FF input dramatically. And most corn growing areas are fairly sunny...
The British, over hundreds of years, messed up their weight and measure systems: French foot, slug, grain, township, rood, cable, fathom, furlong, et., with a bewildering set of conversion factors from one measure to another.
With the EU the metric system came along but in the British way one must mess it up. The temperature measure is given by a person's name such as F (Fahrenheit), R (Rankine), K (Kelvin), C (Celsius) etc. So, what do the Brits do: C stands for centigrade. Centi is Latin for 1/100 such as centimeter, centiliters. Hence if above article mentions "...the middle range (or perhaps upper middle range)--100 to 400 degrees centigrade" really means(100-400)/100 = 1-4 degrees Celsius and hence completely misleading.
Not exactly to your point, but we whould be using absolute temperatrues, like Kelvin or Rankine. Farenheit and Centigrade are relative scales developed before we knew that there was an absolute zero. The fundamental math of physics, physical chemistry and thermodynamics uses absolute temperature.
At least the Brits had enough sense to go metric/SI. The US held on to their standards and now we need two sets of wernches to repair a car. Same with threaded fasteners and a lot of other things.
LOL
(You're wrong. Centigrade means practically the same thing as Celsius, Latin meanings notwithstanding.)
Probably a reference to the division by 100 of the temperature difference between freezing and boiling water.
Yes, that's what it is (and not "probably", but actually). I don't know why Dr. Gass is confused, he can visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/ for himself and see his mistake. Perhaps he was trying to make a joke.
The problem with solar process heat for use in local food processing is that the location is likely to be cloudy so the solar assist may disappoint. OTOH industries like brine evaporation are usually in the desert.
In a strange twist a local company is pushing a product called 'First Harvest Beer'. No link since I know Leanan disapproves of ads. Normally hops used in beer brewing are dried in gas fired kilns. It is hoped that consumers will take to the taste of beer made with green or undried hops that look like small pine cones, not dried flakes. That also saves on energy costs. If solar drying has merit I think these people will look into it.
About 75% of the energy input for ethanol is nat gas process heat for distillation. Ethanol plants tend to be located in farm country, where open land for solar collectors would be easily available.
Wouldn't this be ideal for ethanol plants?
To get enough sun, they might need to be more in the Southwest (where the corn won't grow).
The difference in insolation between most of the southwest and Iowa isn't as large as you'd expect (maybe 20%). Besides, if their PR is correct, they only need 50% of maximum insolation to be competitive with current NG pricing.
Shopuld have read here before posting up above.
Solar thermal for distilling is IDEAL, from a technical viewpoint (economics is a different question). The 70C temp required is within the range of flat pale and glass tube collectors. Yes, you would get more sun in the southwest, but rather than transport the corn all that way (where there is little market for the distillers grains), would be better to just add 20% more tubes/panels.
You could design a heat storage to run distillation 24/7, but it is probably cheaper to change the distillation to run 5/6 hrs/day instead - either way the area of panels is the same.
One acre of panels, for 5hr/s day, at 50% collector efficiency, will give 34MMbtu/day, or an average heat rate of 2000kW. Now, at current industrial gas rates, this is only worth $200/day for one acre of panels, or $73k/yr. That acre of panels will cost at least $1m to install, so you have a long payback. I would be looking for cheaper collectors here.
Solar thermal works well for residential/s,all commercial as their NG rates are double that of industrial customers, but the economies of scale for the equipment are not as great as the economies of scale for being an industrial NG customer - that is why solar thermal (and solar PV) are mainly used for residential and not industrial, the payback is not nearly as good .
See, that's where I have a problem with present standard economics. Every modern MBA will tell you that an investment makes "no economic sense" if its payback time extends beyond the payback time of some other potential investment competing for the boardroom's attention. I contend that they're wrong. Investment options for an eg. industrial corporation should be divided into two catagories which are not compared to each other.
Catagory 1) is the standard one where present MBA's think every investment runs, eg. "Either we make this investment or we keep the money in the Bank"
Catagory 2) is the new one where things like energy efficiency should be placed, eg. "Either we make this investment or we spend more money in the long term for the services the proposed installation offers".
The point is that with energy efficiency projects the business doesn't have the option of "keeping the cash in the bank". They will either pay the efficiency project supplier OR the (fuel etc) supplier, but the money will go out in either case. In that circumstance, if the cost reduction over time of the efficiency installation can cover installation capital, interest and O&M cost in eg 24.5 years of a project with a 25 year lifetime, then the company makes money and should make the investment. The only time this doesn't work is in the case of scarce capital, which is what we've always been taught is the case, but I would argue that western societies are no longer operating in a "scarce capital" environment because the entities responsibe for lending money have the capacity to create capital from whole cloth on their whim, (Fractional reserve banking) and are simply trying to maintain the appearance of "scarce capital" in order to avoid collapsing the value of their shareholders trust funds. In fact, investment capital in the modern world is worth almost nothing, witness recent activities eg. subprime mortgage etc. etc. etc.
I think there are increasingly uncertain times ahead. Huge investment now, which are only profitable if the investment can be kept going long term (off shore wind, for example), need to be carefully evaluated. If the purpose is simply to save natural gas, there may be better approaches.
Yes, getting companies, especially manufacturing/process ones, to spend capital right now is like getting blood out of a stone.
Len, keep in mind that something like a solar project must also cover the cost of the interest on the capex, compared to the fuel cost.
I agree the MBA types can have too narrow a focus, there is more than just next quarter's results, but you can goo too far the other way. A 20yr investment is no good if you go broke in 5. And right now, taking on debt for capex for a project like this, you are at risk of interest rates rising faster than NG costs in the next few years.
Also, the costs for the solar stuff will probably keep heading down over the next few years, so a prudent decision would be to evaluate, and then take a look in another year and see if the outlook has improved any.
One final though, once you put the system in, you have paid for full capacity, whether you use it or not. if business changes and you have to reduce production 50% (think of lumber mills and their drying kilns) you are still paying the same each year to pay off the solar, and your business is actually worse off, as you can't (easily) reduce the repayments of that capital cost.
By turning a variable cost (fuel) into a fixed one (capex repayment) you are making the business more risky (less able to respond to volume changes), so it's not unreasonable to expect a faster than 10yr return on the investment.
In my opinion the most interesting thing to do with solar thermal heat is to generate cooling.
The School for Renewable Energy Technology in Phitsanlok, Thailand installed a solar thermal powered air conditioning system that generates over 80% of their cooling needs. The remaining 20% of the energy on overcast days is supplied by LPG. The nice thing about generating air conditioning from solar heat is that the 2 tend to have a very strong correlation, so you get really good performance.
Unfortunately, the absorption chillers are extremely expensive and are not generally available in a size economical for most people. What I would love to see is a residential sized ammonia or lithium bromide absorption chiller. If this were available, not only would electricity usage (currently from natural gas) go down, but it would go down during the peak hours.
If anyone knows a place to obtain small sized absorption chillers, please let me know.
Almost every single structure created today needs climate control, whether it is heating or cooling. Both can be accomplished by concentrated solar power.
Absorption household refrigerators and air conditioners were common in decades past. The air conditioners tended to be high maintenance. I bought a house in 1976 that had an Arklagas air conditioner that did not work. They had been discontinued so I replaced it with electric.
The gas refrigerators I believe were more reliable.
Thre is no reason these couldn't be designed for thermal solar, other than cost; however, if the sun has to be shining, PV would probably be a more economical option.
The efficiency of electric refrigerators and air conditioners has doubled over the last 3 decades. Sunfrost refrigerators are the most efficient and can be run from solar PV. 12 V models are available.
http://www.sunfrost.com/
Interesting...Is this cheaper than installing PV solar to run the typical compression coolers?
It is typically used when waste heat is available, particularly steam. Of course, the higher the tempreature of the waste heat the more effective the equipment, within design range.
Situations where waste heat arise when the quantity of heat does not lend itself to recovery. Also, when using CHP there may be a mismatch between the glectrical generation requirements and the amount of steam produced. Good proces design normally minimizes waste heat, but sometimes it is unavoidable, expecially when the product mix changes or part of a plant is sped up or slowed down.
Absorption refridgerators are still available, in domestic sizes - just go to any marine or RV service agent.
You could easily adapt one for solar use, and still retain the ability to run on lpg or electric.
But, you would need fairly hot water, probably 70+C to do it.
RV absorption fridges, when using 12V power need 12amps to run. The same sized compressor fridge needs 3-4 amps, thus 25-33% of the energy. And the compressor will turn off when not needed, but the absorption system maintains at least some heat rate. So using a 15-20% efficient PV panel will give the same result as 60% efficient thermal panel.
Problem is that absorption fridges are twice the price of electric, and higher maintenance - RV agents make lots of money servicing them, and almost no money servicing compressor fridges. Also, you can run other things (e.g lights, fans) from the pv, but not hot water, so it is more versatile.
Now, if you had a larger system, and generated solar thermal electricity, you could then use the waste heat for the the absorption fridge. But that would probably still be more expensive than PV panels and batteries.
I find your comparison numbers on electric inputs to be somewhat difficult to understand. Are you comparing a fuel-burner-heated absorption fridge with 12V x 12 Amps = 144 watts electric input in addition to the fuel heat, as being of the same capacity as a compressor fridge with only 12V x 4 amps = 48 watts input? That seems questionable (to me).
I note that the Thedford Absorption Fridge Model N80 at approx 3.8 cu ft, uses
Input 230V** (kWh/24h) 2.5
Input gas* (gr./24h) 300 (I assume 0.3 kg or about 3/4 lb propane per day)
My son's beer fridge in the basement is about the same size (4 cu ft Danby), and EnergyStar Energy Star Qualified Compact Refrigerators - Energystar.gov states it uses 29.126 kwh / month or (kwh/24h) 1.0
So it sounds, if those are fair comparisons, like you are correct, the thermally driven fridges use MORE electricity than the compressor driven ones. Who woulda thunk it? Unless that spec. on the Thedford fridge is for a dual-fuel operation, where the fridge runs EITHER on fuel OR electricity, not both at the same time. In that case, the direct solar heated fridge circuit would be a LOT more economical than a PV Solar powered electric fridge.
Len, a small (3cu.ft) Dometic RV fridge has a 150W, 12V heating element,which is 12 amps at 12.5 volts. Tis is when the propane is off (i.e. driving), they always only use one of the three heat sources at any time.
Have a look at an electric fridge of the same size, that uses the Danfoss BD compressors, draws 2.5 amps at low speed, and 5 amps at high speed http://www.seafrost.com/skuttlebut.htm#b
The compressor system is much more efficient, if your energy form is already electric. Now, if we take 150W of thermal energy, and make electricity at 33% eff, we have 50W, 4 amps at 12V, so it is about line ball if we must use a thermal source.
The RV dealer who gave me all this information builds new travel trailers (trilliumtrailers.com), and ONLY uses the 12V fridges. A 50W solar panel and a deep cycle battery gives unlimited running for 3cu.ft fridge and trailer lighting, and is much more reliable.
For an off grid application, I would go PV + battery+compressor. All of these are mature, reliable technology, and the shortest lived component, the battery, is the cheapest. And you can run LED lights, charge cell phones, etc off the battery. A more versatile system.
It's worth keeping in mind that about 5% of US oil consumption is for industrial/commercial process heat: about 1M bpd. http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/11/considering-how-to-reduce-oil.html
The ROI for oil replacement should be much, much higher.
Nick,
This, along with residential heating oil, has got to be the lowest hanging fruit of all for reducing oil consumption.
There are very few stationary industrial/commercial applications where NG could not be used instead, except for those where the site is a long way from the NG grid.
Same for heating oil, where there is also the option to replace with wood pellets, which is a rapidly growing market.
Sweden has been particularly aggressive in reducing heating oil use, by NG, district heating systems and wood pellets (largest user in Europe of them), and high taxes on imported oil replace
For an oil using application, that does not have NG available, the ROI will be about 3x better. If you need 24/7 process heat, then you may still be able displace sunny daytime oil use (about 20% of total) and you will have an excellent ROI on your solar. If it is for space heating, then you can probably replace 2/3 of the oil with solar, but trying to all of it means the system is at capacity in winter, and way oversized/redundant in summer. Trick is to size it to get best return on cost, which is normally for about 1/2the winter load, which makes for 70-90% of spring/fall load.
if all the gov subsidies for solar PV had been directed to solar thermal for oil thermal replacement (at all scales), the country would be much, much, better off.
The 1m bpd is all the oil imports from Saudi Arabia right there.
I didn't see this addressed above, and forgive me if I missed it, but what is the scope we are talking about?
In other words, what percentage of energy use is for industrial process heat?
thanks.
Perhaps you can find a breakdown on the Energy Information Agency web site. The link is to industrial use.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=us_energy_industry
Click the "In depth" tab for more detail.
About 5% of US oil consumption is for industrial/commercial process heat: about 1M bpd. http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/11/considering-how-to-reduce-oil.html
The single largest contributor is very likely not oil - it's probably natural gas, followed by electricity (which is about 45% coal, 27% NG, 20% nuclear, 6% hydro, 2% wind), petroleum liquids (propane, etc) and coal.