http://www.nearingzero.net (nz158.jpg)
Physics 6 Schedule
April 10
Fossil Fuels
April 12
Times Beach Video
April 17
Video Discussion
Alternative Energy
April 19
Global Warming
April 24
Your Oral Reports
April 26
Your Oral Reports
May 1
Your Oral Reports
May 3
Your Oral Reports
Lab
Friday
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”—
Anonymous
Your Talks
April 24 (9 students)
1. Jau, Whitbeck (15)
Reinagel, Cotita, Majdili (20)
Gott, Tekle (15)
Killian (10)
Towrey (10)
70 minutes
April 26 (5 students)
Blue, Wuest (15)
Bonar (10)
Hardy (10)
Smith (10)
45 minutes
The class period is 75 minutes (3:00-4:15). You are allotted 10
minutes if presenting alone, 15 minutes if two are presenting,
20 minutes if three are presenting. If talks end early, I will
lecture.
Your Talks
May 1 (6 students)
Burgdorf (10)
Glaude, Green (15)
McCarthy (10)
McDuffee (10)
Salley (10)
55 minutes
May 3 (9 students)
Durso (10)
Heath (10)
Lurhsen, Wilburn (15)
Neyland, Payne (15)
Reilley (10)
Stites, VanWagner (15)
75 minutes
Uncommitted (1) Butler (10 minutes April 26 or May 1.
The class period is 75 minutes (3:00-4:15). You are allotted 10
minutes if presenting alone, 15 minutes if two are presenting,
20 minutes if three are presenting. If talks end early, I will
lecture.
Grading Your Talks
Tentative grading sheet:
environment-related topic (0-3)
scientific evidence presented (0-5)
effort by presenter to evaluate evidence (0-4)
talk organized and flowed logically (0-5)
evidence of thought on part of presenter (0-5)
good effort and enthusiasm (0-3)
total (0-25)
Times Beach, Missouri
Any comments on the video?
Guess where I went last time I taught Physics 6?
Meramec River
ex-Times Beach
remember the
protesters along
the highway?
If I were glowing green when I returned, what would you do?
Dioxin
One of the most toxic compounds known to man?
Dioxins:
TCDD (dioxin)
furan
pcb
There are several hundred compounds in the dioxin “family.”
Perhaps 10-15% of them have dioxin-like toxicity.
Dioxins don’t decompose readily. They “live” for a long time.
Remember the food chain.
Sources of dioxin:
Times Beach dioxin (from Verona, MO?): Agent Orange, facial
cleanser production (hexachlorophene).
Dioxin: one of the most toxic
compounds known to guinea
pigs.
One millionth of a gram can kill
a guinea pig.
The video suggested dioxin killed horses and birds (“birds
falling out of the sky”) and impaired squirrel jumping ability.
Detailed information on effects of dioxin is available from the
EPA. See their September 2000 draft documents. Maybe too
much information for the “average” person.
Dioxins affects different species in different ways. Some
(guinea pigs) are extremely sensitive. Others not so sensitive.
Humans seem to fall in the middle or the sensitivity range.
According to the FDA, people exposed to dioxin suffer
chloracne (really nasty), skin rashes, excessive body hair,
possibly liver damage, and increased cancer risk.
Long-term exposures to low levels of dioxin, or short-term
exposures during “sensitive” times, might result in
“reproductive or developmental defects.”
Diseases the VA has acknowledged are “associated with” (but
not necessarily caused by) Agent Orange exposure:





chloracne (a skin disorder)
porphyria cutanea tarda
acute or subacute peripheral neuropathy (a nerve disorder)
type 2 diabetes
numerous cancers:
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin’s
disease, multiple myeloma, prostate cancer, and respiratory
cancers (including cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and
bronchus)
 chronic lymphocytic leukemia being added to list
 also perhaps spinal bifida and other birth defects
This list is telling, because it is where the government puts its
money where its mouth is.
How could we learn about the effects of dioxin exposure on
humans?
Run a big experiment, and expose volunteers to varying
amounts of dioxin?
It will always be possible to claim that there is no proof that
dioxin is harmful to humans.
In my opinion, dioxin is not good stuff for humans, but not the
most toxic (to humans) chemical. Do you think the people of
Times Beach overreacted to the presence of dioxin?
 Would you mind if someone paved the roads of Route 66
State Park with asphalt that contained dioxin?
 Would you mind if someone paved some Rolla streets with
asphalt that contained dioxin?
 Would you mind if someone paved the street in front of your
house with asphalt that contained dioxin?
 Would you eat a clump of dirt laced with parts per thousand
of dioxins?
 Would it concern you if there were streets within 10 or 15
miles of Rolla that were contaminated with dioxin?
 How would you feel if men in moon suits showed up one
morning and started digging in your yard?
Times Beach, Missouri
You can read the town history here, or read an article by the
last mayor of Times Beach here.
Times Beach was founded in 1925 as a result of a newspaper
promotion (subscribe to our paper, get a great deal on a
vacation lot). The newspaper is now defunct.
Times Beach started out as a summer resort, but turned into a
low-income community during the Great Depression.
It was a lower middle-class city of about 2200 when it died.
According to Marilyn Leistner, “on December 23, 1982, the
residents received what we now call our Christmas message.
‘If you are in town it is advisable for you to leave and if you
are out of town do not go back.’ ”
Russell Bliss
Russell Bliss, “the Johnny Appleseed of Dioxin” (St. Louis PostDispatch), not to be confused with the 50 or so other Russell
Blisses in the US, was a breeder of show horses.
He also had a business hauling waste oil. He found that one
spraying of oil kept dust down for as long as 6 months. See
here.*
Naturally, he spread the good word. In 1971 he sprayed
dioxin-containing oil on Shenandoah Stables, owned by Judy
Piatt. You saw the results.
*A student term paper from an industrial chemistry class. Lots of
interesting information. I wish he had cited sources.
Bliss told the Piatts the oil was just engine oil, but after the
entire family (including children) had to be hospitalized, and
horses kept getting sick months later, Piatt started “tailing”
Bliss, noting where he got oil and where he sprayed.
8 years after the Piatt Stables spraying, the EPA finally had to
get involved when a former employee of NEPACCO (more
later) told them about buried drums containing 1 part dioxin
per 500 parts oil. (The safe level was then calculated by the
EPA to be 1 part dioxin per 1,000,000,000 parts everything
else.)
Your last homework assignment: how many guinea pigs could
you kill with a 55-gallon drum that contains 0.2% by weight of
dioxin?
Just kidding, although it is an interesting question.
It wasn’t until mid-1982 that the EPA, using Piatt’s information,
started visiting Bliss’s sites. They picked Times Beach because
it had the greatest concentration of people.
1971 spraying. 1982 site visits. You can’t accuse the EPA of
jumping in willy-nilly, now, can you? Or perhaps it is only
hindsight that makes some people wonder why something
wasn’t done earlier. Keep in mind that most science problems
are really very easy—once somebody has figured out how to
solve them.
Anyway, men in moon suits
showed up in Times Beach one
day and started digging in
resident’s yards.
But this section is about Russell Bliss.
What do you think of Russell Bliss?
The St. Louis Post Dispatch calls him a “charming rogue,” with
“folksy charm” and “smooth sales skills.”
Would you buy a used car from Russell Bliss?
The Post Dispatch also points out that in the waste oil business
of Bliss’s time, haulers had to pay for oil that was not
hazardous.
Haulers only got paid if they oil was hazardous.
Let’s see…did Bliss get paid? Whose idea was it that he get
paid?
Bliss was never convicted of wrongdoing regarding dioxin, but
with all the attention focused on him, the Feds noticed some
funny business in his tax returns, and he ended up spending a
year in prison for tax fraud (early 1980’s).
None of what I am putting in these notes is personal first-hand
information. I am trying to credit most of my sources. Most of
the information is “out there” if you keep your ears open.
Now for some hearsay.
That means “the good stuff.”
When I taught this course in 2001, I had two young ladies in
class who knew Bliss personally.
They said he had a used-car business somewhere near St.
James. They also called him—for the whole class to hear—a
*****.
Can anybody verify that for me?
No, the used car bit, not that other … piece of information
about him.
“I like this hearsay. Got any more?”
One of the students in my 2002 Physics 6 class (also a young
lady) told me that you could drive some of the back roads the
other side of St. James and come across fenced-off, locked
roads with hazardous waste signs warning you away. My
memory says she claimed the signs contained warnings about
dioxin.
Can anybody verify that for me?
One more bit of hearsay… (don’t want to put it in writing).
The next four slides are from Kathy K’s Physics 6 talk, April
28, 2004.
My family in the 1980s
• Lived in Arnold, MO,
20 miles away from
Times Beach
• Owned 5 acres in a
large subdivision
that had gravel
roads
My family in the 1980s
• In 1984, when the Globe-Democrat
folded, we moved to Connecticut
– High cost of living here, so tried to sell land
and house in Arnold.
– No one would buy it because they feared
Times Beach could have affected Arnold too.
– Voluntary foreclosure, and a new start
Government action
• Superfund act and
nationwide attention
• When my parents tried
to get help from the
state and national
governments, they
were refused.
• Ironically, 2 years later, my
parents got a call from the
bank who originally
foreclosed on the property.
• The bank could not find
anyone to buy the land
either, and they got tired of
wasting their money.
• They tried to get my parents
to buy back the land from
them.
A Tangled Web?
Some of you have written that companies should be held
responsible and made to pay for problems they cause.
If you think it over carefully, you might be less willing to hold
company owners criminally responsible, except in the most
extreme cases.
It starts, maybe, in Verona,
Missouri.
Oh, dang. I drove through
Verona once when I visited a
school in Monett.
(Took the scenic route.)
Am I looking a bit green
these days?
Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company
(NEPACCO) in Verona, Missouri, made an antibacterial
chemical. Dioxin was a byproduct. It went into contaminated
tanks.
NEPACCO partnered with Hoffman-Taft, also in Verona, which
made Agent Orange, to share facilities. Dioxin from agent
orange production also went into the contaminated tanks.
The contaminated byproducts were initially sent to Louisiana
for incineration—which destroys the dioxin—but that was
expensive.
Agent Orange and the bactericide production were halted in
the early 1970’s. Shortly after (as far as I can tell), HoffmanTaft was taken over by Syntex Agribusiness.*
Syntex contracted with their chemical supplier, Independent
Petrochemical Corporation, IPC, to dispose of their waste.
*Would it make a difference to you if you knew that Syntex is a Mexican
company?
Remember from the video—IPC got a quarter from Syntex for
every (gallon?) and paid Bliss a nickel to haul it away.
The real story is a bit more complicated. You can read about it
here and here.
Now, here’s the question: who knew what?
A NEPACCO employee knew enough to turn whistle-blower in
1979.
Supposedly, Syntex never told IPC that their waste contained
dioxin, so IPC couldn’t have alerted Bliss.
It is not clear that the above statement represents the truth.
It has also been claimed that Bliss got waste oil, known to be
dioxin contaminated, from a big chemical company in the
state, but far from Verona. In fact, Judy Piatt documented
Bliss’s pickups from this company. This company did produce
dioxin as a byproduct of their work. (I don’t want to name the company.)
So here’s the big question—who gets sued?
Lots of lawsuits (“thousands?”). In the end, only Syntex lost
and had to pay.
As far as I can tell, Syntex paid $10 million. The total cost of
the Times Beach incident was over $200 million. I wonder who
paid the rest?
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
A couple of loose ends:
The $1.5 million award the video mentioned was for a dioxinrelated cancer death having nothing to do with Times Beach.
Vernon Houk—the CDC person with the industry connections
who kept “defending” dioxin…
I have seen it stated that he claimed chemicals don’t harm
people. I can’t verify that right now from primary sources. I
have seen it stated that he led a Federal agency
responsible for hundreds of junk science studies used to
show various chemicals are not a risk to humans.
Houk died in 1994 of cancer of the larynx.
“The Vernon Houk Award recognizes unsurpassed
leadership in preventing lead poisoning.”
In general, accurate, trustworthy information is hard to come
by.
Rumors and innuendos are abundant.
Times Beach: the Aftermath
Would you trust this person?
He says “the dioxin contamination was
generally limited to the top twelve
inches of soil surrounding roads, road
shoulders, and drainage ditches.”
“Approximately 13,600 cubic yards of soil at concentrations
above 20 ppb dioxin as well as 105,000 cubic yards of
structures and debris were contaminated. No detectable levels
of dioxin were found in the groundwater or surface water at
the site.”
An incinerator was
built on the site to
burn contaminated soil
and building materials.
Incineration destroys
the dioxin. You hope
there are no power
failures while
incineration is taking
place. Such was not
the case.
The remedial action was “demolition and onsite disposal of
all structures and debris remaining at the site; excavation of
dioxin contaminated soil exceeding 20 ppb and thermal
treatment in a temporary on site thermal treatment unit with
onsite disposal of incinerator ash…”
… and “placing of clean soil cover and revegetation over all
areas with residual dioxin levels between 1 and 20 ppb.”
The incinerator burned “about 265,000 tons of contaminated
soil and debris from Times Beach and 28 other sites in eastern
Missouri.”
The incineration cost itself was about $110 million (of which
Syntex paid $10 million).
The Superfund paid much of the cost of cleaning up Times
Beach.
According to the EPA, in 2003 there were 791 completed or
in-progress Superfund projects.
Industry has contributed about 70%-80% of the Superfund
money. The Superfund trust fund has gone from $3.8 billion in
1996 to a few tens of millions at the end of FY 2004.
Industry used to pay a tax to support the Superfund. That is
no longer the case.
The US Chamber of Commerce position is that the states
should respond to contaminated sites and there should be no
reinstatement of the Superfund tax.
The majority of US voters agrees with this position.
The American Council of Engineering Companies believes
cleanup of contaminated sites should be voluntary.
You are invited to visit Route 66 State
Park.
“The 419-acre park is a boon to park
visitors who want to enjoy nature and
see interesting historical displays
showcasing Route 66. Bridgehead Inn,
a 1935 roadhouse, serves as Route 66
State Park's visitor center. It houses
Route 66 memorabilia and interprets
the environmental success story of the
former resort community of Times
Beach, which once thrived on the
location of the park.”
“The environmental success story of the former resort
community of Times Beach”!
A Neverending Story?
How would you feel if men in moon suits showed up one
morning and started digging in your yard?
Dioxin found in Ellisville,
1997.
1998, McDonnell Park, near St. Ann, found contaminated by
dioxin.
There are others. The links in this lecture may direct you to
them.
The Big Joke?
Now, are you ready for the punch line to this 38-slide story?
Are you sure?
Times Beach was not …incinerated…because horses were
dying, birds falling out of the sky, and squirrels missing their
jumps.
It wasn’t incinerated because city workers were getting sick.
It wasn’t incinerated because residents were suffering
chloracne, skin rashes, liver damage, or reproductive or
developmental defects.
Times Beach was incinerated because the
dioxin levels exceeded (just barely) the
EPA threshold: enough to cause 1 excess
cancer per 1,000,000 population.
E=mc2
We saw earlier that matter is the “stuff” the universe is made
of.
Einstein says “No, the ‘stuff’ of the universe is mass-energy.”
Mass and energy are two different manifestations of one
phenomenon.
Energy is not conserved. Mass-energy is conserved.
Energy content of one gram of mass:
E=(1x10-3 kg)(3x108 m/s)2=9x1013 joules
E=90,000,000,000,000 joules
Enough energy to last you several thousand years!
The Sun
“Every day, the sun radiates (sends out) an enormous amount
of energy – in fact, it radiates more energy in one second than
the world has used since time began.” (Sorry, I closed the web
page before I copied the link.)
Optimistic, but useless trivia. I’ll explain.
This is more useful:
“The fraction of the energy from the sun that reaches the
earth in just one day is still more than enough to cover the
energy use of the world in a whole year.”
“However, not all the energy of the sun that reaches the earth
can be used effectively.”
Alternative Energy Sources
Forces Do Work
Strong
Weak
“Nuclear”
Electromagnetic
Gravitational
Most of the energy we use—that I can think of—is “nuclear” in
origin.
E=mc2
solar
“nuclear”
wind
fission
fossil
fission
solar thermal
solar electricity
biomass conversion
hydroelectric
ocean thermal
gravity
geothermal
geothermal
tidal
“Solar” energy comes
from nuclear reactions in
the sun!
Renewable: e.g., we use
energy from the sun
today, and it gives us
more tomorrow.
Remember this figure?
Renewable: means we use energy from the sun today, and it
gives us more tomorrow. The “fuels” for the other energy
sources are finite! (So is the sun’s fuel, but not on the scale of
human lifetimes.)
Past and projected world energy consumption (DOE):
Here
today,
gone
tomorrow.
Here
today,
here
tomorrow.
Today’s lecture is not about energy we’re “using up.”
It’s about energy that is replenished by the sun.
Let’s talk about some sources of that renewable energy.
I’ll bet if you answered the question “What do you think of
when you hear the term ‘solar energy?’ ” you would think of
something like this…
Or maybe the International Space Station.
Solar Photovoltaic Energy
If so, you were thinking of “solar photovoltaic energy.”
According to the DOE: “Photovoltaic devices use
semiconducting materials to convert sunlight directly into
electricity.”
“Solar radiation, which is nearly
constant outside the Earth's
atmosphere, varies with changing
atmospheric conditions (clouds
and dust) and the changing
position of the Earth relative to
the sun.”
“Nevertheless, almost all U.S. regions have useful solar
resources that can be accessed.”
Solar photovoltaic energy involves direct conversion of sunlight
into electricity. April 2006 go to slide 56.
When a photon of light strikes a conductor, it may provide
enough energy to “liberate” an electron from an atom.
If the conductor is a metal, the extra “free” electron will
rapidly be “consumed” by an atom has lost an electron.
If the material is a semiconductor, an electron-hole pair may
be formed.
From howstuffworks.
If you connect this semiconductor material to an external
circuit, it delivers an electric potential, just like a battery.
If you get the feeling I didn’t explain this very thoroughly, I
didn’t. You need to study quantum mechanics to understand.
“I think that I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”—
Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning quantum theorist
If you connect this semiconductor material to an external
circuit, it delivers an electric potential, just like a battery…
…except as long as the sun shines, the solar cell supplies
energy.
The solar cell voltage depends on the solar cell material.
1.1 V (silicon)
1.6 V
About 1.5 volts is “typical.” Go to slide 59.
You have to maximize the amount of light that reaches layers
D and E.
Difficulties to overcome:
The obvious one: you only generate electricity while the
sun shines.
You have to find a way to store your energy. Batteries?
Passive storage?
Net metering (discussed in a couple of slides) lets you use
the nations electrical grid like a giant battery.
You put energy into the grid while the sun shines on you,
and use somebody else’s energy when the sun shines on
them. Go to slide 64.
The Laursen’s 57 kW
residential system.
Difficulties to overcome:
This is an approximation to the actual
solar spectrum.
Silicon (common solar
cell material) “needs”
1.1 eV photons.
The wavelength of such
a photon is about 1100
nanometers.
Lower-energy photons can’t deposit their energy in silicon.
Higher-energy photons “waste” all of their energy except for
the 1.1 eV.
Efficiency also decreases with temperature (and these things
are going to get hot.
From http://www.solarserver.de/lexikon/solarzelle-e.html:
Efficiency of a solar cell made of single-crystal silicon: about
24 % (laboratory) and 14 to 17 % (production). (expensive)
Efficiency of a solar cell made of polycrystalline silicon: about
18 % (laboratory) and 13 to 17 % (production). (cheaper)
Efficiency of a solar cell made of amorphous silicon: about 13
% (laboratory) and 5 to 7 % (production). (cheapest)
Solution: “stack” solar cells made of different materials.
Silicon, gallium, arsenic, phosphorus, indium, aluminum—do
any of these chemical names make you nervous?
Solution: find a full-spectrum solar photovoltaic material.
http://www.lbl.gov/msd/PIs/Walukiewicz/02/02_8_Full_Solar_
Spectrum.html
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-fullspectrum-solar-cell.html
Net Metering
“In 34 states, consumers can install small, grid-connected
renewable energy systems to reduce their electricity bills using
a protocol called net metering.” (http://www.ases.org/)
You plug your energy system into the power grid and start
charging the electric companies for your power.
Actually, your electric bill is reduced by the amount of energy
you provided—or maybe some fraction thereof.
Remember, I told you about this when we were talking about
perpetual motion machines? It’s not quite as good as selling
power, but it still is worth money.
From http://www.dsireusa.org/:
“Missouri House Bill 1402, passed in 2002, provides for the
interconnection of wind, biomass, fuel cell and photovoltaic
systems up to 100 kW.”
“Although the bill refers to this arrangement as ‘net metering,’
this is not actually the case. Rather, it is net billing: Any
generation that that is fed back to the grid is credited on the
next bill at the avoided cost rate, not the retail rate as in true
net metering.”
“Net excess generation at the end of the month is also
credited at the avoided cost rate on the following month’s bill.
A utility does not have to enroll qualifying customer-generators
beyond 10 MW or 0.1% of the utility's peak load for the
previous year.”
Solar Photovoltaic Power Plants
See this web page for a list of the 50 largest, which range in
output from 500 kW (0.5 MW) to 4 MW.
The top 3: Germany, California, Arizona.
For comparison, a “large” power plant has an output of 1000
MW, or 250 times the largest solar photovoltaic power plant.
Solar Thermal Energy
Heat for your home:
25 kW dish system
Solar towers.
Pilot plant in Manzanares, Spain, operated for seven years
between 1982 and 1989, and consistently generated 50kW.
A 200 MW power plant, enough to power 200,000 homes, with
no fuel required and no emissions.
Planned for Australia.
Hot air flows up through
the tower, past turbines,
generating electricity.
Biomass Conversion
My opinions (briefly stated) on this:
The idea is to convert plants into some kind of fuel (e.g.
ethanol).
This is an example of harvesting solar energy.
It will require energy to grow, harvest, and process the
biomass.
The laws of thermodynamics say you will never get as much
energy out as you put in.
If you can minimize the fraction of energy expended by
humans, it might become worthwhile.
There will be emission questions related to the processing of
biomass.
I see this as a method of producing alternative transportation
fuels…
…which could save our economy…
…but I have not seen the data which tells me it will be a net
source of energy.
I am touching this topic only briefly because of lack of time...
but I never promised that I would be unbiased.
Hydroelectric and Geothermal Energy
Remember this graph…
Why is hydroelectric energy projected to be flat?
When California had its electricity shortage, why couldn’t the
Northwest states come to the rescue?
They were raising their electricity prices because they were
experiencing a shortage of electricity.
Hydroelectricity requires a location
where flowing water experiences a
large decrease in height over a
short distance.
We’ve already dammed most of the
good sites. The tree-huggers will
fight to prevent dams elsewhere.
How is this solar energy?
For anybody not in my class who happens to be reading these
notes:
How you interpret the term “tree-huggers” depends on your
own personal baggage, doesn’t it?
Don’t automatically assume that I carry the same baggage!
—me
There are a few places on earth
where thermal energy from
below the ground escapes in
large enough quantities to make
it available for large-scale use.
What do you consider
appropriate uses for these
locations?
Wind Energy
Why do I classify wind energy as a subcategory of solar
energy?
Five of the sixteen windmills at
the Havøygavlen windmill park in
Norway.
This windmill park generates
about 40 MW of power (1/25 of a
1000 MW power plant).
Altamont (Patterson Pass) Wind Farm, California.
The creator of the web site where I borrowed these pictures
says:
“The dangerous wind power plant is surrounded by fencing,
warning signs, and locked gates. Deadly high voltage electric
lines run under foot and over head. Windmills can be seen
lining the hills in the distance.”
“Clearly, the natural shape of the hills has been sacrificed for
terraced foundations for the decrepit windmills. No one who
sees this can claim they are better for the land, or much
different in appearance, than oil derricks, which would be
fewer and farther apart, and produce more energy.”
Something else to think about: “Local wildlife researchers have
received $2 million to find ways to reduce the number of birds
killed each year by wind turbines.” (Santa Cruz Sentinel)
Here come some of my opinions again:
If there is coal or oil in the earth somewhere, humans will
eventually go get it. Coal and oil are too valuable to leave in
the earth.
If there is wind to be farmed, humans will eventually farm it.
It’s too valuable not to farm.
I would rather not consider the scenarios under which coal is
not mined and wind is not farmed.
Remember, my personal values may have something to say
about coal mining and wind farming, but they are not relevant
to the present discussion.
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html
I can picture a giant windmill farm stretching across the Great
Plains from Texas to the Canadian Border. Skip to slide 87.
Borrowing heavily from the wonderful (although slightly old)
Physics 162 course material at the University of Oregon:
Power that can be extracted from wind is proportional to wind
speed cubed.
KE proportional to V2.
Amount of air proportional to V.
Power proportional to amount of air times KE, or V3.
27 more times energy in 60 mph wind than in 20 mph wind!
Windmill efficiency is not 100%. Large structures impede wind
flow (bad). High wind speed actually lowers mechanical
efficiency.
To generate 10,000 KWH annual from a 20 mph wind that
blows 10% of the time:
windmill area = 10,000 KWH/220 KHW per sq. meter = 45
sq meters
this is a circular disk of diameter about 8 meters
this is not completely out of the question for some homes
even a small windmill (2 meters) can be effective:
20 mph 10% of the time --> 2500 KWH annually
40 mph 10% of the time --> 20000 KWH annually
20 mph 50% of the time --> 12500 KWH annually
4 small windmills at 20 mph 10% of the time --> 10000
KWH annually—would keep you powered up!
The hypothetical Great Plains Energy Project:
One turbine tower per square mile stretched out from Texas to
Canada.
300,000 total towers. Each tower 850 feet high. (Important so
as to get above friction induced by ground based obstacles.)
Each tower has 20 generators and is powered by a two blade
propellor of diameter 50 feet.
Capacity of single tower is 500 KW capacity so total capacity is
150,000 Mega Watts (1/2 the US consumption--1998).
Note, we already have 600,000 oil wells in the US and no one
seems to mind.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
Underwater windmills!
Out of time for today!
Hydrogen Power
Hydrogen…
“It's the most abundant element in the universe. It promises
limitless supplies of pollution-free energy.”
As long as you don’t worry about the laws of thermodynamics.
H2 is a good way to transport energy from one place to
another.
But the hydrogen in the “limitless supplies” in the ocean is in
the form of H2O.
How are you going to get the H2 out of the H2O?
It takes energy. More than you get back when you burn the
H2. Answer: nuclear power plants.
Hydrogen is not a source of “new” energy. It is a potentially
good way to transport energy that is abundant in one location
to another location where energy is less abundant.
http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm solar tower
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/1998/phys162.html good links
http://carto.eu.org/article2489.html graphs
http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/edc/
http://www.ases.org/ American Solar Energy Society