Cost Effective Energy

Including the loss of interest on capital?

""Overall a diverse mix of every type is most realistic. But then there are still too many people that don't seem to live in reality and that itself will cause more political based downsides to the implementation of any energy system."

Very true

And for these reason:

(a) Smart and honest consultants /advisors /experts are needed for politicians and for general public in mass media.

(b) Energy effective applications and physics MUST be a subject in elementary education

Just a few more notes/remarks:

(c) Nuclear in today's its renaissance has initial cost of 6000-10000 USD/kW, e.g. to build a new units some states allow increase of kWh rate by 37%. It needs a lot of water to cool, needs a solution for thousand-year storage post-processing fuel rodes. But - allows to have huge (GW range) units located in the load centers.Ask French government.

(d) Electricity is the most easy controllable energy. Watch/ask for kWh rate via Internet. Are you agree with Mr T. Boone Pickens that personal cars of future will be electric type? Search: Pickens Plan.

(d) Solar seems to be the best for southern regions, for small loads (houses). No water needed, no high voltage grid for distribution, etc. But present initial/investment cost is a little to high: 3000 to 8000 USD/kW but seems to steady decrease. Ask Germans and California guys (manufacturers + installers + investors).

Joe

Only if the rest of the world were as wise as you and I !

My co. has a very strong commitment to sustainability and very recently, decided to switch off air conditioners on the weekends and activate them only when it get above 85F during weekdays. Also, aerators were installed on all faucets to conserve water.And bouy! what a reception it got from the employees! Employees behaved as if they have always been living on a slab of ice. They complained and they grumbled that their productivity would get affected. Some of them were even concerned what image they will carry in front of their friends.

The developed world needs to cut down on its needs and for this to happen the people need to change their old habits. The developing world obviously would not face this problem; they are used to living without air conditioners 12 months an year!

I am very much in favor of efficient use of energy or other resources. You mention something that I am experiencing while on an assignment far from home. The company I am working with does not turn on the AC until the temperature gets quite warm (by my standards which is probably mid 80s). The office has over 75 employees and computer equipment. They promptly turn off the AC near the end of the work day. Sounds great.....saving a lot of $ (or in this case Won) on cost of electricity. But are they really saving money and being efficient with their resources? Since the summer began I have pondered this as I don't want to be a whiner. I constantly reassess my position and wonder if I'm just too soft based on the environment where I typically work (Florida where the AC is on most of the time and the office is comfortable if not cool). Not only is the outside temperature in the summer quite warm (30+ deg C) it's also quite humid as it's the rainy season. The rain makes for an interesting situation at work. When it rains most of the day, the temperate never gets above the set point that the guy manning the AC controls goes by, so the AC stays off.....everyone (with very few exceptions....me being one of the exceptions) has a fan on their desk that they switch on.....by mid morning on those humid days, the employees are taking many breaks, and getting up walking into another part of the building where there is AC. By mid afternoon, most of the employees are falling asleep at their computers......not laid out snoozing, but dozing off...fighting the head nods, etc. And if you try to exert any effort such as moving a desk or moving things around, lifting, etc. you get exhausted quite easily. I am not talking about myself only (I happen to be in decent shape...exercise...eat well...take the stairs instead of elevator), I'm also referring to the locals who have been working this way their entire life.

So are they really saving money?

If they left the AC operating at night and on weekends, but just turned up the thermostat (assuming they have one) then that would at least keep the humidity in the office low....but we walk in on Monday morning and it's noticeably uncomfortable until the AC kicks on.

I kind of view it as a see-saw....they are pushing expenses down in one area (easy to quantify electricity expenses) only to have them go up somewhere else (more difficult to quantify lost productivity).

The burning of natural gas releases particulate matter (PM, PM10 and PM2.5), SO2, VOCs, CO, HAPS, and Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxics such as dioxins, lead, etc. Natural gas is not an environmentally friendly solution.

Nearly all NG units, Rankine cycle, Brayton Cycle or IC are permitted for zero opacity, no visible emissions or PM. SO2 is permitted and regulated in the delivered fuel. PM2.5 and VOCs are the same and are control by limitng sulfur in the fuel and controlling thermal NOX formation during combustion. You might find a rare example of the other pollutants you mentioned, but on a industry scale these would not be found in measurable amounts in the products of combustion for distribution grade natural gas. And like many other pollutants the anthropologic sources make up only a tiny fraction of the natural emmission of compounds.

AP-42 provides the emission factors for natural gas and is what EPA and state agencies (IDEM in Indiana where I wrote Title V air permits until my promotion) use to determine emissions from a stack. The link is http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch01/final/c01s04.pdf

Even though these emissions are within regulations, they are still damaging the environment and harming those people that live down wind of the facilities. This still leaves the facility liable for medical cases related to those emissions.

As an engineer of small off-grid and grid-tied power systems I can say the most cost effective energy producer is micro- hydro; hands-down, no contest. I can put in hydro for 1/10th the cost and twice the output of PV (Photovoltaics). I have no info for large scale systems (eg nuclear) and I don't live in area which wind is viable. Although, ultimately, efficiency and conservation are the cheapest.

Here in Panama, mini-hydro costs on the order of $3,000 for one kilowatt, when you look at the complete system. Add in battery replacement every four years, and mini-hydro has trouble competing with a cheap diesel-powered generator that one can purchase locally for as little as $100 per kilowatt (yes. about $1000 for a 10 kW diesel power plant...made in China and of questionable reliability, but, still, hard to compete with).

That's $3000 for one kW/ 24 hours/day. 8760 kW/year. How much diesel would it take to produce the same? Batteries, properly maintained, should last 10+ years.

A GA and I gave you one.

Hydro power is by far the most effective provided you have the flowing water available, and I am a proponent of micro-hydro and use it where I can in water projects. Unfortunately, few people have access to a consistant flow of water for power production. As you say, efficiency and conservation are the cheapest.

My friends are enjoying saving by cutting off their hot water heaters on friday evenings and then turning them back on Sunday night. Some also have turned their water heaters down to 85 degrees and when they take a shower there you only use hot water. The water heater recovers really fast to at that low a temp.

The combination of wind and solar is working for me on the farm. I use verticle wind generators and panels for the green houses, heating water, pumping water to the gardens and lighting in the house.

Imagine the little wind turbine that run off the heat of a candle, I am using that same principle here. My model can even work off the heat rising off a parking lot.

I imagine the light support poles in large parking lots fitted with verticle wind generators producing electric power for the stores. Parhaps even the street lights along highways producing power. We know the large trucks would be a driving force for these mills.

I am working on a set of 5 verticle wind generators for a building with a flat roof we just purchased. The heat rising from the roof adds a boost to the sails on days with light wind that allows my test model producing so I am going to build some largers ones for the roof after I get the reinforcements for the roof in place.

I know this is off topic but all the research remains just that until the products are producing in the feild for a long period of time and real studies of the total cost can be done. They had to shut down a wind farm in Alaska because of a manufacturing problem in the generators. Production must be of high quality for real long term effective production to make a difference

It all depends upon the location. For example solar energy in Middle east countries may be cheaper compared to wind energy whereas in certain parts in India wind energy is cheaper. To install and operate nuclear energy skilled man power is required especially from the safety point of view. In developing countries this is still a problem.

From the three you have mentioned:

Nuclear. Since it has had the most research and work done on it (over fifty years). They can give you the best assessment of what it costs per kwh.

Wind is still in the development stages and the best they can give you is the short term data they have gathered in the last 10 years.

Photovoltaic is still in its research stage and right know is only about 3% efficient. I would wait on this one until you can get good data from a pilot program.

I do agree with hydroelectric it is not expensive to build and it has many redeeming qualities the other systems do not.

If somebody is very sincere about this issue, I feel the action plan is quite clear.

The first thing to do is to remove any financial subsidies in the whole system.

The second thing to do is to keep the energy costs slightly high for the customer ( Government can tax energy a little more and reduce other taxes ).

Now the economics ( including the input costs and enrgy conservation efforts ) will work on its own. As we know, cost of particular energy options vary from place to place. There will be less environmental damages and everybody can live in a slightly better world.

Rajan

After reading all posts on Thursday 2009-07-30 14:00 GMT / 9am EST we must establish criteria:

1. It is correct: end user's needs are the first. Local access to the source vary from place to place.

2. Second: what is more important: people's health and safety or production effectiveness or preserving environment. E.g. I recall an old long lasting and deep study (I am not sure if it was done for sailors on ships crossing equator or somewhere else) that indicates 78 deg Fahrenheit (+26 deg Celsius, about 300 K) are optimal for a human body, but it must avoid temperature shock of over 10K or about 20 deg F. Reflections: the summer temperature around Baghdad, how it effects any human activity there?

3. Insects, bugs etc may enter facilities and create some problems.

4. Storage of some materials, electronics are also sensitive for temperature and dramatic its changes.

5. Experts should consult owners and users before damage is done. So this is warning to make simple money value decisions.

6. Check geothermal too.

Feel free to add your remarks.

Joe

I agree that geothermal should be included in the list. Somehow to me not researching how to best recover and utilize the existing heat beneath the floating crust of our planet is insane. Geothermal has the potential to provide massive energy simce it has a high concentration of energy. All that needs to be done is to determine the best way to recover the energy cost effectively.

While the sun spews out huge quantities of energy, a review of the incident energy on the earths surface shows that even at 100% recovery efficiency you still need massive recovery systems or massive facilities to focus that energy on a collection system. (ie: limited energy concentration).

The governments of the world are too impressed by the populace shouting for solar energy and wind energy, many of whom are driven by people with vested interests in wind or solar power.

I believe the best approach would be tho start a research program (similar to what became NASA) and fund it similarly to the way NASA was funded. I think once all the options are looked at realistically without the vested interests, we will get a clearer picture as to the way to proceed with energy. This is a world-wide problem and perhaps, just perhaps, we would all benefit by working together to solve the problem.

Aqua_doc-

There is an outfit in the US, EPRI, although electric industry-controlled, does conduct research programs into various energy options, and most of their work appears quite objective. A lot of their work is also available free on line, although some isn't. I have been able to glean some important information regarding, for example, ocean energy conversion. They also provide references to other sources of objective information.

As you note, the scam artists are going to kill any practical wind or solar solutions by destroying public confidence in these solutions, through attempting to apply them to inappropriate applications (it is going to be hard to convince the public that wind is a viable alternative when the horizon is obscured by all those abandoned wind turbines).

Here in the Northeast, hydro power would be first (if you can get past the enviro-wacks), nuclear second (if you can get past the enviro-wacks), and coal / oil / wind running third depending on too many factors mention here.

I can appreciate the need for conservation having been doing that all my life (thanks to my parents). Their house built for them in the mid sixties was built to be energy efficient, and had some upgrades over the ensuring years, but still would be considered poor by today's standards.

However, there comes a point of diminishing returns. If I let the heat in the house coast down too far overnight (50F) then I waste more energy trying to bring it back up to 65 F than if I let it fall only to 55 F.

After changing all the tungsten light bulbs in the house to fluorescents for two years, I can report no decrease in my electric bill, but a definite increase in bulb costs and aggravation. The so-called efficient bulbs cost me an average of $2 each (bought on sale) but only lasted about twice as long as my $0.25 tungstens. Also waiting for them to turn on and then warm up to produce full light was especially aggravating to my wife. I can't even use them out in my barn / shop.

While conservation is on my mind, every vehicle I have owned since 1989 has gotten better gas mileage at 70 - 75 MPH than at 50 - 65 MPH

With regards to bulk power generation, here is a summary of the costs of various generating options that I have put together from a variety of sources, including "industry estimates" (i.e., studies from EPRI and other industry groups), analysis of actual project costs, the book, "Sustainable Energy- without the hot air", by David McKay, and a variety of Internet sources.

For isolated private, small systems, the cost effectiveness is highly dependent on local conditions. A major factor most often overlooked in costing systems is the fact that energy storage for intermittent sources is a significant cost. Buying cheap batteries is generally false economy- the only reasons for buying cheap batteries is a lack of available financial resources, or the fact that you can't be bothered with proper battery maintenance and you are only going to get 2 years life out of any battery you buy.

With regards to solar hot water heating, locally the cost of the installation is about an order of magnitude greater than the cost of installing a conventional electrical or gas conventional system, but, under the right circumstances, this can be easily justified.

In a previous post to this blog, I compared the cost of mini hydro to diesel generation, based on actual project costs. In the case of the mini hydro system quoted, the excessive cost was justified because it was installed on a remote mountaintop, the only access being by horseback. Hauling fuel up the mountain on the back of a horse was NOT a viable option. Mini hydro proved, in this case, to be much more cost effective than all of the other alternatives considered (including solar and wind), although I no longer have access to the cost trade-off study done on that project.

I would very much like to see your chart in more detail, but can't zoom in on it, or copy and paste into other formats to see it...

Any suggestions?

Could you email it to me?

greg@villagetechnologies.ca

There are tons of research and what it all amounts to is, at any given time some for of energy will be the "cheap" and another form of energy might be the "clean," and another form of energy could be "politically correct." Resources, technology, reliability, economics, consumer sentiment and government regulation will converge to determine the energy mix of any particular area or system. The utility or energy producer that has a broad mix of energy resources will benefit most as political and technological climate changes. And as far as the global climate, we'll just have to see who's right about that.

At any location and regardless of scale the correct answer is nuclear. I'd like to have it in my basement (engine room) again

Thorium is very interesting...residential reactors what a concept...

If they ever go to robotic mining on the moon then we can store the nuke waste up there. It would be win win.

There is plenty of research and studies on cost of power from various sources. One has to be wary of who the authors are, since vested interests run deep through the energy industry.

I have been studying and participating in the electricity and thermal energy industry (primarily in the Toronto Canada area) since the mid 1990s. My observations are that "the market" and private capital have made increasing investments in solar, wind, and peak load plants (natural gas - often the investments in these plants are from gas companies) and coal base load plants, and some hydro electric.

To my knowledge, the private market has never invested in the construction or ownership of nuclear power plants in the world (they will make the tech, though). Further, the industry is protected from full liability in Canada due to regulations limiting requirement for insurance and setting upper limits of amounts that must be paid out in any claims brought against the plants/owners... There's no way that the clean up and decommissioning costs are covered by private industry.

Central government authority seem to be the only ones who are willing to invest in nuclear, and historically in Canada, nuclear construction and tech development (the CANDU project) is one of the biggest sinkholes for tax payer money.

Also, consider the distribution networks - large centralized plants need large transmission wires, substations, transformers etc. In Ontario, this infrastructure is paid for through public investment, and not covered by cost accounting for generation assets. Decentralized power needs less infrastructure for transmission of the power.

So if private capital is making bets on most types of electricity generation except one, it can reasonably be said that the one not being invested in is the most expensive and highest risk.

I strongly agree with earlier posts saying that the least expensive energy source available to us is conservation (by far). Next least expensive is hydro and wind (especially if used in combo).

Fossil fuels may seem less expensive if a "total cost approach" is not taken. Consider subsidies to oil companies for exploration, and extraction; consider also economic impact of pollution and risk of climate change. These "externalities" are only now being considered, but will make their way into the price structure of fossil fuels over the next 5-10 years - well within the life span of new generating infrastructure.

My core business at this time is thermal energy systems design for small to medium sized buildings.

On incremental cost increases for renewable energy equipment we routinely see following return on investment in greater Toronto area (typically replacing natural gas as fuel - better ROI for home heating oil or propane)

Solar water heating (residential) = 8% - 11%

Solar water heating (commercial laundromat) = 15% - 30% depending on grants

geothermal heating and cooling (residential) = 10%-20% depending on type of earth loop

A free program one may want to look at to see what potential there is for investments in renewables and retrofits is RETScreen from Natural Resources Canada. It's far from perfect, and older versions were actually better in my opinion, but again, it's free...

Thanks for the intro to RETScreen. For other readers interested, the link to the software is http://www.retscreen.net/ang/home.php.

correct to

http://www.retscreen.net/ang/version4.php

Let me throw woody biomass into the mix. One acre of land will produce one ton of biomass per year sustainably. I think of trees as using organic technology to turn solar energy and atmospheric CO2 into a stable, non-toxic hydrocarbon (celluose) that can be stored and transported. Run it through a gasifier and it will fuel an IC engine. Better yet, use the output of the gasifier directly in an external combustion engine. Gasification combustion eliminates most of the environmental concerns, and the technology exists to make wood burning as clean as natural gas. Capital costs can be significant, but are offset by the low cost and ready availability of fuel in many areas.

I'd like to see some data or links on that: the last I had read on the subject, it was still a net loss over existing technologies given the required energy inputs to produce and handle / store the gas.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/fuel-value-calculator.pdf At $200 per ton, wood pellets cost $14.70 per million BTU. At $3 per gallon, #2 fuel oil costs $26.09 per million BTU. Even if pellets go up to $300 per ton, that's still only $22.06 per MBTU. Here are some prices for an 85% efficient wood boiler: http://www.rohor.com/page4.html