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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (186366)	11/8/2014 3:04:30 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206330

OT Hi Elroy Jetson, Where did you get the idea that electrical transmission loses a lot of energy? Electrical Transmission which loses a huge percentage of the electricity generated as heat. Transmission losses could theoretically be reduced with superconducting transmission wires. Waste heat from electrical generation is already close to theoretical minimums, using massive turbines operated at optimum speed. The HV AC transmission lines from Grand Coulee Dam in Eastern Washington loses about 4% of it's energy by the time it gets to my neighborhood substation here in the Seattle area. That's about 170 miles of high voltage transmission line. And that includes the losses in in both the "step up" transformers at the beginning of the path and the "step down" transformers at our nearby substation. Even better is HVDC which feeds from the Columbia River all the way down to Southern California: en.wikipedia.org HVDC is more economical than AC transmission for transmitting large amounts of power over long distances. High power HVDC transmission scheme generally has lower capital costs and lower losses than AC transmission at long distances.HVDC conversion equipment at the terminal stations is costly but the transmission line costs over long distances are lower. HVDC requires less conductor per unit distance than an AC line, as there is no need to support three phases and there is no skin effect. Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted as about 3.5% per 1,000 km, which is less than typical AC transmission losses. [16] en.wikipedia.org Some of my old classmates in EE at WSU in the early 1970's still work on the system today improving its efficiency and reliability. It has about one half to one third of the loss compared to the AC intertie going south. Both systems are bi directional, power can go north and south when needed. Eric

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (186366)	11/8/2014 3:16:03 PM
From: E_K_S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206330

Nice chart. A few things I see that caught my eye. (1) Coal 17.4% vs NG 9.31% for Electrical generation. If Carbon tax legislation is approved for Coal usage, NG demand could double in usage. (2) Only 10.6% of Electrical usage is Residential. (3) I see little to no electrical allocated to transportation which probably will grow w/ the introduction of electrical cars. (4) Petroleum for Autos will probably come down due to more fuel efficient engines. (5) Would have thought Biomass would be a future grower especially for the Industrial Sector (ie > 4.3%). New plants will be designed to use solar, biomass & geothermal sources for electricity. The new Tesla battery factory in NV will incorporate all three sources in their design. -------------------- The table is two years old so probably some of the percentages have changed. It would be interesting to see how a similar table looks for the EU, Asia, China & India. I suspect Nuclear is a much larger percentage in the EU & Asia than U.S. but more coal usage in China and India. EPRI here in Silicon Valley is working on efficient transmission of high voltage electricity. There is also a lot of work done here on "distributed" electricity generation and storage. The key for this to work efficiently here in CA is to use Solar w/ super efficient long lasting batteries. There is also research being done of hydrogen fuel cell technology. Bloom Energy is one fuel cell "on-demand" system ( they use bio-gas) being tested here at Google, E-Bay and and Apple facilities. Bloom Box: The Alternative Energy that Terrifies Obama EKS