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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (5349)	2/26/2009 6:32:19 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86356

I'll post it again, a very good scientifically reviewed article in Scientific American Magazine that came out in the December 2007 issue: Ok.. let's look at it.. Page 2.. Discussion of using compressed air in caverns. 1.) To have excess power available for night-time/cloudy day (NTCD) usage, you need to install far more capacity than would be normally required for baseline requirements. IOW, you not only have to produce sufficient power to meet peak requirements, but also store sufficient power for periods when you have no solar electrical generation. 2.) Compressing air is not much different than compressing any other gas. It all requires electricity usage (requiring even more generation capacity). And being a larger molecule, it will require more power to compress than a lighter Hydrogen molecule. Furthermore, they state that when that compressed air is utilized in the turbine, they will need to add some NG to boost its energy coefficient. Doesn't sound like a smart manner in which to provide baseline power, but I'm open to reviewing the data as prototypes come online. Page 3 Solar Thermal A much more promising technology given it's not subject to polysilicon (or any other resource) price fluctuations. Additionally, it's "low tech". I also like the Hot Salt storage concept, but again it's handicapped by the need to install additional generation capacity to meet NTCD conditions. They tell you right here that we'd require an additional 16 hours of generating capacity to just meet the required storage parameters: For our plan, 16 hours of storage would be needed so that electricity could be generated 24 hours a day. Thus, you need sufficient power to meet the peak hour requirements, plus the additional 16 hours of capacity to be stored. Doesn't sound efficient to me unless prices come down substantially. HVDC Sounds interesting, so long as the loss coefficient from converting back to AC at the regional level is not prohibitive. Don't know much about it, but I'm ALL FOR upgrading our power grid. BTU reduction. Page 4 I've already discussed at length the fallacy of believing that PHEV hybrids based upon Li-Ion vehicles will actually save us money, or reduce our dependency on a vital resource (Lithium). But what will we achieve with this plan? Am I actually reading this correctly? $400 Billion total cost in order to reduce our BTU usage by 7%??!!! Ironically, the solar grand plan would lower energy consumption. Even with 1 percent annual growth in demand, the 100 quadrillion Btu consumed in 2006 would fall to 93 quadrillion Btu by 2050. This unusual offset arises because a good deal of energy is consumed to extract and process fossil fuels, and more is wasted in burning them and controlling their emissions. Furthermore, none of this factors in the material, or energy costs required to cover 19% of the American SW with Solar panels (electrical or thermal). Also, regarding pollution, the very ACT of installing all of these facilities will pollute and disturb the natural habitat and leave a long-term human footprint. And anytime you expose a metallic material to the elements, it will eventually corrode. That corrosion will leached into the soil, so it's disingenuous to claim that there will be no pollution of the land, even if minor. Thereby, we all should be suspicious of such "rosy scenarios". Is this truly an "efficient" method of providing our power? Or is it an example of Eisenhower's warning about letting the scientific elite guide our public policy decisions? Hawk