SC 203
OUR ENERGY FUTURE-UPDATED
PROGRESS IN TECHNOLOGY
The SLATE Panel
GEORGE HUME
Jan. 23, 2008
SUMMARY OF PRESENTATION
APPROACH
• Brief review of the Situation or Status as Presented last
year, then Identify Significant Changes/Progress made
since
•
Energy Subject Areas to be Covered:
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–
–
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Hydropower
Solar
Wind
Coal
- Nuclear Energy
- Waves and Tide
- Alternative Fuel
• Advances of Technologies for Automobile Energy Use and
Environmental compatibility
Hydropower
• Of the renewable energy sources that generate
electricity, hydropower is the most often used. It
accounted for 9+ percent of total U.S. electricity
generation and 75 percent of generation from
renewables in 2004
• Over one-half of the total U.S. hydroelectric
capacity for electricity generation is concentrated
in three States (Washington, California and
Oregon) with approximately 27 percent in
Washington, the location of the Nation’s largest
hydroelectric facility – the Grand Coulee Dam
World-wide, about 20% of all electricity
is generated by hydropower.
Trends Re Hydropower
• Share of total electricity generation by hydropower could decline
to 5.3% by 2030. (DOE, Energy Info. Admin.)
- Very limited locations remain for major hydro dams, small yes
- Public concern about environmental impacts of dams on
fisheries and wildlife habitat.
- Climate changes could impact water supply by reduced rain
and snowfall
• R and D is underway to improve hydropower technology
- Improve fish survival rates
- improve efficiency of generation
Solar Photovoltaic Electricity
• Silicon wafers doped to form photovoltaic cells
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Power is free, but
Large wafers still thick and crystal grown as chips, so still expensive
Cost still 3 to 10 times as expensive as fossil fuel power
Efficiency only 10 to 15%, so large areas needed
Daily and yearly average only 1/5 of maximum power capacity
installed
Don’t need storage if send excess power back over the grid
Storage could be in charging car batteries or in hydrogen fuel, or
Concentrate on using more energy during the daytime
Silicon valley investigating thin film disk technology to make cheaper
California’s Million Solar Roofs
• California SB1 (Senate Bill 1) to provide rebates to equip solar power
installations
• Goal is 3 gigawatts solar by 2017
• This could be 3 kw/household, at $9/watt is $27,000/household
• Companies rebated per kwh generated
• New homes must offer solar option by 2011
• 500,000 more homes can be added to generating electricity into the power
network
• $2.8 billion CA cost, 30% Federal rebate, up to $18 billion total cost, but
for less average electricity than a nuclear plant at $2-3 billion.
• Could only nearly pay if it brings down costs through economies of scale,
• or if it leads to technological breakthrough through research and
competition
• Only $100 million for solar water heating
U. S. Solar Resources
U. S. Tracking Mirror Solar
Solar Trough Mirrors
• Suitable For Large
Systems
• Grid-connected Power
• 30-200 MW size
• Heats mineral oil to
hundreds of degrees
• Then vaporizes a fluid to
drive a turbine
Dish with Sterling Engine
• Modular
• Remote Applications
• Demonstration
Installations
• High Efficiency
• Conventional
Construction
• Heat expands gas and
drives piston
Solar Tower
• Suitable For Large
Systems
• Grid-connected Power
• 30-200 MW size
• Potentially Lower Cost
• Potentially Efficient
Thermal Storage
• Molten Salt heated,
averages out solar input
• Can store heat overnight
Cost Of Energy*
(Max Lechtman)
Trough
2000
2010
2020
2030
11.8
7.6
7.2
6.8
*Cents/kWh in 1997 $
Dish/Engine Tower
17.9
6.1
5.5
5.2
13.6
5.2
4.2
4.2
WIND GENERATION OF
ELECTRICAL POWER
WIND POWER
• The most promising near-term renewable resource
• U.S. installed capacity growing about 25% per year
• Intermittent, irregular supply
– Value depends on installed capacity, site specific capacity factor,
and timing of generation (summer is more valuable than winter)
– At greater than 20% of a grid’s supply, managing the grid becomes
difficult and expensive.
• Issue: What will happen when the subsidies vanish?
World Wind Capacity. Total now 74
Gigawatts worldwide, with 65% in Europe.
Market growing at 32% a year. 3.3% of
European electricity now from wind. 1% of
U.S. electricity.
Wind Generation Physics
• Power proportional to the cube of the wind velocity.
• (v² from Bernoulli pressure for force on wingshaped
propeller, times a distance per second of rotating propeller,
which is proportional to v.)
• Most of energy from small bursts.
• ½ of energy comes in 15% of the time.
• Average capacity factor is 35% of the maximum.
• Wind turbines best spaced 3-5 times the rotor diameter
perpendicular to the wind, and 5-10 times the diameter
parallel to the wind.
Virginia’s “Switzerland” Wind Power
Proposal
• 39 towers of 400 feet height
• $2 million per tower at 1 megawatt
– So about a 40 megawatt peak project
• Enough power for 15,000 homes x
– 12,000 kwh/yr / 9,000 hours/year =
– 20 million watts average
– Implies a 50% duty cycle
• To compare to a 1 gigawatt nuclear plant, would require 50
such projects, or about 2,000 wind towers and $2 billion.
England, Germany, Netherlands:
10 Gigawatt Foundation Project
• Proposal for 2,000 wind turbines of 5
megawatts each to make 10 gigawatts
• Could power more than 8 million homes
• Would cover 3,000 square kilometers
• In the southern North Sea
TECHNOLOGIES
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•
•
•
Horizontal axis fans are the best proven technologies
Windmills have been in use since the Middle Ages
New designs are proliferating
Issues
– Mechanisms are complex and expensive to maintain
– Large blades for efficient units are expensive to make and transport
– Grid connection issues seem to be solved
SOME GENERAL ATTRIBUTES
• Best where there is reliable strong wind: U.S. midwest and southwest
• Adaptable to either centralized (wind farm) or decentralized siting
• Siting issues: Martha’s Vineyard & Nantucket
– Aesthetics, visibility– NIMBY
– Noise
– Electromagnetic interference
– Banned within 1.5 miles of shipping/ferry lanes
• Wild life fatalities: California, West Virginia
– Low flying, migratory song birds (Altamount Pass)
– Bats
WINDPOWER POTENTIAL FOR
THE UNITED STATES
• Battelle estimate: 20% of U.S. electricity demand with
siting constraints
• DOE goal to meet 6% of U.S. demand by 2020
• Unconstrained potential equivalent to operating ~1500
1000MWe nuclear or coal plants
• States potential: North Dakota, Texas, Kansas, South
Dakota, Montana—California is 17th
• North Dakota could supply 25% of current U.S. electricity
demand –need a major growth of electric (or hydrogen?)
transmission capacity
WINDPOWER PROSPECTS
• Big potential market: world capacity growing at 30% per year
• Annual equipment sales ~ $2 billion in 2005
• Project financing for renewables in 2005
– Wind Power $ 3.5 billion
– Solar Photovoltaic $ 2.2 billion
– All other $ 1.25 billion
• Major companies are involved
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General Electric
British Petroleum
Goldman Sachs
J P Morgan chase
Siemens AG
NUCLEAR POWER and WASTE
MANAGEMENT
CONTEXT OF OUR STUDY
• Nuclear power (fission) is an economically viable
energy source
• PROBLEM: Many U.S. citizens have a negative
attitude toward nuclear power. The three W’s:
Worries, Waste and Weapons.
• QUESTION: What must be done to address the
problem so that we can employ nuclear power to:
– Meet our increasing demand for electric power?
– Reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?
STATUS OF WORLD NUCLEAR
POWER GENERATION (as of June
2006)
Reactors in Operation
Country
Reactors Under Constr.
Power,MW
103
98K
19.3
3.1K
France
59
63K
78.5
1.5K
Japan
55
47K
1
866
29.3
1.2K
Russian Fed.
31
22K
4
4K
15.8
870
Unit. Kingdom
23
12K
19.9
1.4K
Korea
20
17k
44.7
259
Canada
18
13K
14.6
442
Germany
17
20K
31
689
India
15
3K
8
4K
2.8
252
Ukraine
15
13K
2
2K
48.5
308
China
10
8K
3
3K
2
56
Others
75
53K
9
7K
441
369K
27
21K
TOTALS
Power, MW Elect. 2005
Years Oper.
Number
United States
Numbers
% Total
Experience
1.9K
16
12K
SOME IDEAS FOR ALTERNATIVE
DESIGN APPROACHES
• Use of hybrid fuel assemblies containing both
uranium and Thorium
- More complex at construction but keeps most of
fuel in reactor longer and produces less toxic
waste
• Use of “small”, “self-contained”, “factory built”
reactors about size of railroad car.
Produces enough electricity for 35,000 homes
PROGRAMS THAT WILL IMPACT the
FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER
• Nuclear Power 2010: Government-industry cost sharing
effort to identify sites, develop new plant technologies and
demo. untested regulatory procedures
• Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: US and other
advanced nations develop fuel market, spent fuel recycling
technology and reduce proliferation risks
• Generation IV: International initiative to develop 6 nextgeneration reactors that are safer, more reliable, more costeffective, and more proliferation resistant.
• ITER: International R&D project to demo. Scientific and
technical feasibility of commercial fusion power.
WAVES and TIDES
POWER FROM TIDES AND
CURRENTS
• Technical Approaches
– Tidal dams (barrages)
– Tidal fences
– Turbine fields
• Common features
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–
–
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Generate electricity using water driven fans or turbines
Low operating costs if avoid storm damage/biofouling
High construction costs
Various negative impacts on marine environment
TIDAL BARRAGES
• Dams across estuaries with gates to control water flow and
hydroturbine generators to produce electricity
• Depend on minimum tidal difference of 16 feet—perhaps
40 sites in the world
• The LaRance facility has operated reliably for many years
• Possible sites in Pacific Northwest and Atlantic Northeast
• Cause silting, destroy wetlands and interfere with fish
migrations
• Probably of limited potential for the U.S.
AXIAL FLOW HYDRO
TURBINES
• Technology is in very early stage
• Installations look like underwater wind farms
• Ideally in rivers or near shore at depths of 60100ft
• High capital cost: $4300/KWe
• U.S. potential is speculative: equivalent to 12 to
170 coal-fired (1000MWe) plants?
• Demonstration project in Manhattan’s East
River—6 turbines, 200KWe in 2006
POTENTIAL FOR TIDAL
TURBINES IN US
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•
•
•
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Tidal locations (120): 1200 MWe
Riverine locations: 12,500-170,000 MWe
Gulf Stream: 685,000 MWe
Fragmented industry with no major industrial firms
Demonstration in 2006: Manhattan’s East River, 6 turbines, 35 rpm,
200 KWe by Verdant Power
• For discussion see:
Proceedings of the Hydrokinetic and Wave Energy Technologies
Technical and Environmental Issues Workshop Oct. 26-28, 2005
http://hydropower.inl.gov/
WAVE ENERGY
• Several technical approaches
– Floats or pitching devices
– Oscillating water columns
– Wave surge focusing devices
• Demonstration installations in Great Britain (oscillating
water column) and off Portuguese coast (floats)
• Issues
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–
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Storm damage
Biofouling
Grid connection and power conditioning
Wave damping (surfers)
• Potential: 7% of current U.S. electricity demand (EPRI)
WAVE ENERGY
TECHNICAL APPROACHES
• Floats or pitching devices: wave action moves
two or more bodies relative to one another—
various devices generate power; energy storage in
supercapacitors since voltage/current are wildly
erratic
• Oscillating water columns: wave action drives air
in and out of column—power is generated by an
air turbine in the column
• Wave surge or focusing devices: wave action
drives water up a channel into a reservoir—power
is generated by hydro turbines during outflow
from reservoir
WAVE ENERGY POTENTIAL
• Designs range from distributed generation to large
scale power plants
• Susceptibility to storm damage and biofouling are
issues
• Power conditioning and grid connection are also
issues
• EPRI estimate: at 60 m off US coast the average
wave power is 2100TWH/Year
• Could generate 7% of current US electricity
demand by capturing 20% of the total wave
energy at 50% efficiency.
TECHNOLOGY TO PERMIT SOME
CONTINUED USE OF COAL
• Supply of residual coal and large investment in
legacy generation plants suggest continued major
use
• Advanced clean coal technologies: supercritical,
ultra-supercritical, adv. Pulverized coal combustion,
circulating fluidized bed, and integrated gasification
combined cycle (IGCC).
• Coal and utility industries are working with DOE
and EPRI on “clean coal power” projects
– Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) - cost-share on demo
projects
– FutureGen Project- build first coal based-emissions free gen,
NEW NATIONAL LAWS THAT RELATE
TO BIO. ALTERNATIVE FUELS
• The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
(signed in late Dec. 2007):
• - Creates Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that requires:
– Production of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022
• That includes 21 billion gallons of adv. Biofuels (~ cellulosic
biofuels)
• Biofuels to be ~20% of road-transportation fuels by 202
– This requirement is a MAJOR challenge because:
• Total biofuel production in 2007 was only about 4.7 billion gallons
• There is still NO commercial production of cellulosic ethanol
COMPARATIVE COSTS TO REDUCE FOSSIL
FUEL USE AND GHG WITH BIOFUELS
Incentives
Corn
Ethanol
Wood
Based
Canola
Biodiesel
Gasoline
Energy in Fuel (BTU/gal)
76,300
76,300
118,000
120,000
Fossil fuel energy input
(BTU/gal)
Cost (including
subsidies) per BTU of
energy in fuel ($/million
BTU)
Cost of reducing fossil
fuel use with:($/M BTU)
60,800
12,200
70,300
148,00
0.8
0.16
0.6
1.24
49.27
24.26
19.69
28.1
13.8
11.2
15.3
7.5
6.1
170
31
27
Use of biofuels
Increase in gas tax
1.75
Raise fuel economy stds
3.22
Ratio of costs: biofuel
use to gas tax
Ratio of costs: biofuel
use to increased CAFÉ
stds.
Cost of reducing GHG
emissions ($/ton CO2)
RESEARCH AREAS RELATED TO
ADVANCING ALTERNATIVE FUELS
• Ethanol - use genomics and synthetic biology to improve
ethanol production, improve pretreatment and enzymes
for cellulosic ethanol, learn from Termite guts, etc.
• Butanol -engineer microbes that can convert sugar from
various feedstocks into butanol
• Waste to Fuel - Possible military use of a gasifier and
fuel reactor to convert any carbon containing material
into a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen
• Carbon Dioxide to Fuel - “reversing combustion” could
lead to hydrogen, methanol and gasoline.
• Fischer-Tropsch liquid fuel from coal.
Conclusions
• “All renewable energy is local” Adapt to locally available sources of
renewable energy
• Energy conservation is still the cheapest form of making energy
available
• In California, solar water heating is the next cheapest source of energy
• Hydro should be maintained
• Solar arrays are efficient and should be supported
• Wind power is about the cost of nuclear. Have to find the right
location. Siting a problem with views, noise, birds.
• Nuclear power is omitted from renewable, but should be included as it
also is non-polluting for greenhouse gases.
• Solar photovoltaic needs more research and improvement, and is
currently a wasteful investment.
HYBRIDS as an EXAMPLE of
ADVANCED TECH. For AUTOS
•What are they? How are they different?
•Why should we be interested?
•What are their primary characteristics?
•What is the situation on Plug-In Hybrids?
•What may be future trends?
George Hume, OLLI @ UCI
November 2007
DEFINITION AND BACKGROUND OF
HYBRIDS
• DEFINITION: A hybrid is a vehicle that uses two or more
distinct power or fuel sources. Often the vehicles use a
combination of internal combustion engines and electric
motors.
• BACKGROUND:
The concepts and designs for hybrids have TRUE or
been developed in just the last decade.
FALSE
WHY IS THERE A MARKET PLACE FOR
HYBRID AUTOS?
• Most conventionally powered autos are inefficient in use of
energy and are significant producers of emissions.
- only about 20 hp is needed to drive on level road at 60
mph
- if I have a 200 hp engine, what are the other 180 doing?
• helped accelerate the car from stop to 60 mph
•available to help accelerate for passing or for hills
• powering accessories eg. AC. PS, Entertainment, etc.
• consuming significant amounts of gasoline
• may have contributed to a hp “one upmanship” debate
TYPES OF HYBRID AUTOS
• Overall type categories:
– MILD HYBRIDS - Essentially conventional vehicles with
oversized starter motors allowing the engine to be turned off
whenever the vehicle is coasting, braking or stopped, yet restart
quickly and smoothly.
– FULL HYBRIDS - Engine and motor configurations specifically
designed improve fuel mileage and reduce pollution - a true
hybrid. Categories include: Serial, Parallel, and Series-Parallel.
COMPARISON OF CURRENT HYBRIDS
DEFINITION OF A PLUG-IN HYBRID
•
•
A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is defined as any hybrid electric
vehicle which contains at least: (1) a battery storage system of 4 Kwh or
more, used to power the motion of the vehicle: (2) a means of recharging
that battery system from an external source of electricity; and (3) an
ability to drive at least ten miles in all-electric mode, and consume no
gasoline.
(source: IEEE position statement)
The US Dept. of Energy (DOE) will provide nearly $20M to further
development of advanced batteries for PHEV’s. DOE goals include
making PHEVs cost-competitive by 2014 and ready for
commercialization by 2016.
1.
(source DOE Media Release dated 9/25/07)
The Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) Situation
•
Currently, much public interest since PHEVs seem like
potentially a nearly ideal solution.
– Allows us to keep much of our driving lifestyle
– No vehicle pollution or fossil fuel consumption
– Recharge battery with “green” (solar,wind,nuc.)
power But battery technology currently doesn’t
support the need
– Availability of “green” electrical power sources and
integration of PHEVs with power system pending
PRIUS PHEV at UC DAVIS
• Modified to recharge from
110 v outlet
• Can travel 20 miles on
battery only and get 100
mpg in combined gaselectric mode
• Will be test driven by up
to 100 N. Calif. Families
over next 2 years to gather
data on their attitudes and
preferences
• Toyota plans to market a
PHEV in 2010