Hey, J.B.C., take it up with the White House, if you don't like my conclusions, 'cause most of them are taken right from the Bush/Cheney Energy Plan:
whitehouse.gov
You can also get some relevant information from NERC.com (though most is not available online). A little noodlin' around (fuel cell companies, various elec. utilities, cross-industry studies, etc.) should be able to help you to verify (or at least source) what I was talking about....
Since you didn't bother - ever - to actually post any verifiable sources or facts to backup your assertions, I'm not going to waste much time here rounding up the complete case for you, however, here are some quotes lifted from the Cheney Energy Report of this year (it's a big PDF, about 2.5 MB) to backstop my statements:
"Transmissions between the <regional> grids are very limited."
"About 204,000 miles of long-distance transmission lines move power from region to region...."
"The US does not have a national transmission grid..." (we have a series of regional ones.)
"Transmission constraints limit these power flows, and result in consumers paying higher prices for electricity. <ie.>... the electricity price spikes in the midwest in summer of 1998... summer 2000 ...limited the ability to sell power...."
"...an antiquated and inadequate transmission grid prevents us from routing electricity over long distances and therefore avoiding regional blackouts, such as California's."
"...We must greatly enhance our ability to transmit electric power between geographic regions.... Most of America's transmission lines, substations, and transformers were built when utilities were tightly regulated and provided service only within their assigned region. The system is simply un-equipped for large-scale swapping of power...."
Bush/Cheney also want to: "expand the DOE's R & D on transmissions reliability & superconductors."
You can also get a little background by checking out the field tests for AMSC's product line....
RE: >>>>> Errrr, higher mileage efficiency (ceuterus paribus) = lower fuel consumption. (Nobody said anything about driving twice as many miles :-)<<
AND YOUR COMMENT: "It equals only lower fuel consumption on a per mile basis."
>>> ...Well, duh! That's all I was saying! I never mentioned 'someone's disposable income', as you brought up... talk about a red herring!
RE: "reducing particulates in diesels." And your question: "Is the regulation and cost of measurement worth it based on your oft quoted study?"
>>> No, it is not, it is a medical study. I, also, never brought up a cost/benefit comparison for this.
RE: As you say: "your 1st assertion of 40% loss in current systems."
>>> Apparently you didn't bother to accurately read my comments. I NEVER said that. What I claimed was that some 40% greater EFFICIENCY can be wrung from our (as Cheney says: 'antiquated') system by such things as:
1) expanding interconnections between the regional grids, and
2) moving to more efficient technologies for the long-distance runs that link those grids (ie, AMSC's and others, proposals).
3) decentralizing the production of power to a much greater extent... by moving <smaller> generators (as proposed variously by different parties: cogeneration, solar, micro-turbine, fuel cell, re-generative means such as flywheel, etc., etc., etc.) closer to the users.
This second point is - in the opinion of many - not particularly well addressed in the Cheney plan, but some of the fuel cell companies such as PlugPower, and GE, and UTX are all over it... and there has been a national debate occurring over their recommendations.
All three approaches would greatly improve the efficiency (cost efficiency), and reliability of the US electric power system. Method #1 would allow us to shunt power grid-to-grid on a major level nationally (load sharing), and would therefore permit a lessening of total generator capacity to serve the same number of users.
Method #2 would promote increased efficiencies by reducing those high line losses on the long-run inter-grid connections (please check out the US News and World Report cover issue, and The Economist's reports on the 'power crisis' for background on this).
Method #3 (decentralizing the production of electricity), is claimed by it's corporate backers to alone enable an increase of efficiency in the total system on the order of 40%. Since the Cheney report (which does not directly address decentralization), yet also claims great increases in energy efficiency by utilization of the first two methods... I feel safe in believing that combining all three approaches could yield substantial gains in system-wide efficiency.
RE your final three points:
1. "Line loss is no where near the numbers that you give."
>>> All the studies that I have seen disagree with you. Check out the losses on those aluminum-cored long distance high tension runs that are used for the regional grid interconnections. I think you mis-interpreted what I actually said.... That "60% figure" I mentioned had been reported on some of the very longest runs, when the ambiant temp. was up, which is - I believe - what I said.
2. "Most electrical production exists near the point of use now."
>>> No. ("close" is, however, a semantic point). But the generating is not currently as "close" as in the same building, or on the same city block in the major cities... which is what has been proposed by many of the proponents of a 'decentralized' approach to generation.
3. "Existing superconducting materials are too fragile to warrant using this way. Mild winds would snap these lines resulting in excessive disruptions and excessive mantenance cost."
>>> DOE & Cheney's report (and of course, some of the companies who stand to make money selling such infrastructure upgrades) disagree with you on this point.
Like I said, if you've got facts, and you feel like posting them, go right ahead... I'm always interested. |
