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Post by sigurdur on Jul 17, 2011 13:48:15 GMT
Ok.....from my vacumm, what are the disastorous effects of global warming? I am not talking predictions here.....I am talking facts.....empirical observations that are valid. Rising temperatures have led to stronger storms. Sea level is rising unabated. The oceans are growing more acidic (which means EXACTLY the same as "growing less basic") Glaciers and sea ice is melting. All this takes time. It is a slow-moving calamity and it is happening right now. Richard: The rising temps and stronger storms is not really playing out. Sea level is rising, but the rate of increase has slowed and sea level has been rising and falling during the Holocene. Prof Mann published a paper about sea level rise recently which convienently ignored proxy data from the RWP that showed sea level was higher then than present. Rel thread on this board about that paper. The ocean becoming less basic is a concern. This is an area I know very little about but am learning as Skeptical Science is posting very informative threads about this. Sea Ice, which I assume you mean the Arctic is melting. According to Shindell/Schmidt the issue is more black carbon than co2.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 17, 2011 17:54:43 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 17, 2011 19:18:49 GMT
scpg02: The one in 1925 was a whopper, there is no question about that. Nothing this year has even come close to the energy expended in the 1925 tornado.
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Post by trbixler on Jul 18, 2011 20:53:50 GMT
Small potatoes wrt GMs Volt. "Electric Car Maker Folds, Salinas Loses $500,000" "A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before any cars could run off the assembly line. The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan." www.ksbw.com/r/28586219/detail.html
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jul 18, 2011 21:27:27 GMT
Small potatoes wrt GMs Volt. "Electric Car Maker Folds, Salinas Loses $500,000" "A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before any cars could run off the assembly line. The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan." www.ksbw.com/r/28586219/detail.htmlYet another golf cart bites the dust. ;D This thread is about the Reality of green power, including the machines that are promoted on that basis. Thanks for posting this, although I'm sure the usual folks will shed tears over the loss of this company, and no doubt claim they could have saved the planet if only they'd been handed more taxpayer money.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 19, 2011 5:08:38 GMT
Small potatoes wrt GMs Volt. "Electric Car Maker Folds, Salinas Loses $500,000" "A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before any cars could run off the assembly line. The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan." www.ksbw.com/r/28586219/detail.htmlYet another golf cart bites the dust. ;D This thread is about the Reality of green power, including the machines that are promoted on that basis. Thanks for posting this, although I'm sure the usual folks will shed tears over the loss of this company, and no doubt claim they could have saved the planet if only they'd been handed more taxpayer money. Apparently green solves all problems, green backs that is.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jul 19, 2011 12:06:12 GMT
Here's some more Reality. Comparing Coal fired power to alternatives. Partial: papundits.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/co2-emissions-reduction-a-radical-plan/
CO2 Emissions Reduction – A Radical Plan
Posted on 07/19/2011 by TonyfromOz
2
A minimum of 23% CO2 emissions reduction could actually be achievable.
The Australian Government is in the process of attempting to introduce Legislation to place a price on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. The hope is that by doing this, it will have the effect of lowering those CO2 emissions by 5%. There are calls from the Australian Greens Party that this aim is too low, and we need to be aiming for somewhere in the vicinity of 20% emissions reduction.
What if I was to tell you that an emissions reduction of between 20 and 30% is actually attainable. It can be done without introducing a draconian new Tax, and it can be achieved without going down the renewable energy path, which can only supply tiny amounts of power for barely 6 hours a day, and is horrendously expensive.
On top of that, this radical plan has a price tag that while seemingly high, is in fact a fraction of what it will cost to go down that renewable energy path.
This actually is something that can be achieved.
How, you ask.
The answer in fact is what is perceived as the problem.
Coal fired power.
As happens with everything, technology improves over the years, and the same happens in the area of electrical power generation.
Those existing large scale coal fired power plants in Australia are all twenty to forty years old, and some even older.
New large scale coal fired plants have generators that can produce considerably larger amounts of power, they use better turbines to drive the generator, have better boilers to make the steam to drive the turbine, and have better furnaces to make the heat to make that steam, and most importantly in this case, they burn less coal, do that more efficiently, and in the process emit less CO2.
They are already using these new coal fired plants, especially in China, where large scal plants of this nature are being brought on line delivering power for consumers at the rate of one new plant a week.
So, if those older plants here in Australia were to be replaced with these new plants, there will be an overall reduction in the current emissions of CO2, and the most surprising thing in all of this is that those reductions could be in the vicinity of 25 to 30%.
Having said that, it is more complex than just changing over, and that needs some careful explanation.
For more than three years now I have been explaining how this blind acceptance that CO2 causes Climate Change/Global Warming has ramifications that very few people are aware of. Right from day one I nailed my flag to the pole and said that I do not agree that those CO2 emissions do cause what we are told they do. What I have done however is to warn of those secondary ramifications, that of the effect that this false belief will have on the electrical power generating sector.
40% of those CO2 emissions come from coal fired power generation, almost the cheapest form of generating large scale electrical power we have, and one that has an abundant and long lasting supply of the fuel it requires, the coal itself.
To generate the huge amounts of power that are required, these coal fired plants are the best method of actually doing that. Because the plants are robust in nature, they can operate on a 24/7/365 basis, and the only down time is for carefully scheduled maintenance.
To produce those huge levels of power a large generator (in fact a turbo alternator) runs at 3000RPM, or 50 rotations each second. Those generators can produce between 600 and 700MW of power, and they weigh in the vicinity of 1300 tons. So consider the drive required to turn that 1300 tons at 50 times a second.
Everything has to work backwards from the generator, because of the huge weight involved here. That generator needs a large turbine to drive it. The turbine needs immense amounts of high temperature high pressure steam which needs a huge heat source, the furnace, to boil water to the steam required.
Coal is burned in the furnace, and here’s where people have little concept of just how much coal is burned.
Those older large scale (2000MW+) coal fired plants can burn between 6.5 and 8 million tons of coal a year, which is around one ton of coal every four to five seconds.
Each ton of coal being burned produces on average 2.86 tons of CO2, so now you can see why those coal fired power plants are huge emitters of that CO2.
A large scale coal fired plant will have two to four of these large generators on site, the usual being four of them, hence the plant will produce around that 2000MW of power, depending on how old the plant might be. As an example, the plant at Bayswater has four 660MW generators for a total Nameplate Capacity of 2640MW. Each of those generators weighs 1342 tons.
As I mentioned, everything depends on the weight of the generator. You cannot just put one of those generators on top of a pole with a fan out the front and hope it will work. An average sized generator for one wind tower will produce 2MW, so here you can see that to equal that one generator at Bayswater, you would need 330 towers, and as wind power is so variable, they only work on a limited basis, the best case being around 6 to 7 hours of power a day.
There is Concentrating Solar, which is perceived as being able to replace large scale coal fired power. As I mentioned everything works backward from the generator. You cannot hook up one of those 1300 ton 700MW generators to a plant of this nature because those plants cannot make the steam required to drive that weight at that speed. The best they can manage so far is around 250MW in total, and the average power produced is around 150MW, and only for around 8 hours a day at the best. If that solar plant has heat diversion, they can manage only 50MW for 18 hours, so again you can see that this also cannot compete with large scale coal fired power generation.
NEW GENERATION COAL FIRED POWER
The most critical thing in all of this, as I have mentioned is the generator itself.
New large scale generators can produce 1000MW and more. This is achieved by better materials for the magnets in the rotor giving a higher magnetic field, wrapping those magnets in more electrical wiring to induce even higher magnetic fields, the classic electromagnet, supercooling that rotor so an even higher magnetic field again can be induced. Then better wiring in the stator where the actual ‘power’ is generated.
Hence these larger amounts of power can be generated. The technology has now advanced to the stage that these larger generators actually weigh less than those existing 1300 ton behemoths that produce less power. They still rotate at that 3000RPM.
So now the driving turbine does not need to be as large. Technology has improved here also, and those driving turbines again are smaller, better, and weigh less as well.
There are more efficient boilers to produce the steam required to drive the turbine.
The furnaces are also a quantum level better producing greater heat at a higher pressure to boil the water to steam. Those furnaces burn the coal more efficiently as well.
The coal crusher technology has also improved for feeding it into the furnace. There’s better air injection as well.
See now how everything works backwards from the generator itself.
Because the coal is burned more efficiently a considerably less amount of coal is required for the process, and because it is is burned more efficiently, then there are considerably less emissions of CO2 from the process.
NEW TECHNOLOGY COAL FIRED POWER IN AUSTRALIA
There are currently two proposals in Australia to construct new large scale power additions to the existing power supply. Both projects have been approved, and now all that is required is for the process to be decided as to which one will be used, coal fired or other options.
One of those processes is for new technology coal fired power.
Both projects are to be added as extensions to existing large scale coal fired power plants, one at Mt Piper near Lithgow, and the second for Bayswater, near Musswellbrook, both in New South Wales. Both proposals are for an addition of 2000MW of Nameplate Capacity at each plant, 4000MW in all.
Here is the relevant information for the expansion at the Mt Piper plant. (pdf document)
The proposal for the coal fired process calls for the addition of two of those 1000MW generators.
Every step in the process utilises the most recent technology, and the most important thing to look at here (with respect to emissions) is the furnace.
In this case, that furnace will be the new ultra supercritical furnace, and this information is from that linked site above:
Supercritical steam is that which occurs above the critical point of water at 22.1 MPa and 374 degrees C. Ultra-supercritical, is generally regarded as plant which operates with steam conditions above about 26 MPa and 580 degrees C. This allows more efficient consumption of coal and results in lesser CO2 emission levels per MW produced than the existing subcritical technology currently used in Units 1 and 2.
The most important part of this statement is that this process has a more efficient consumption of coal resulting in less CO2 emissions.
What is also mentioned is that for this process, that of producing 2000MW of power, this new addition will be consuming less than 5 Million tons of Coal each year.
As I have mentioned earlier, existing large scale coal fired plants (2000MW and greater) consume on average between 6.5 and 8 million tons.
So, right there, is less coal being consumed, in fact 23% less coal being consumed, at the lower existing amount of that 6.5 million tons.
That being the case, then even at the current rate of emission, there would be a saving of 23% in CO2 emissions. The above statement says that the coal will be consumed more efficiently with less emissions, so in fact, the emissions savings will be greater than that 23%. In fact the existing Mt Piper plant has a total power production of 1400MW and CO2 emissions of 9.1 Million tons of CO2. The new expansion plant will have a total power of 2000MW and emissions just on 10 million tons, 43% more power for only a 10% increase in emissions, which is a comparative reduction in emissions of 30% over the original process.
THE CO2 TAX AND REPLACING THOSE EXISTING COAL FIRED PLANTS WITH NEW COAL FIRED PLANTS
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Post by slh1234 on Jul 19, 2011 18:31:43 GMT
Very interesting article, CuriousGeorge. Recent engagements have brought me in contact with design on smart grid. I won't call myself an expert, and my focus is still on the technical challenges of implementing this at the database level, but even in this role, I have become somewhat familiar with the concepts behind several components of smart grid concept and implementation. Again, not expert level, but here are a few points: The coal fired or gas fired generators take a long time to fire up and spin up. Because of this, they run at or near a level to produce for peak demand even in times of lower demand. A few things that are done to try to lower the level that generators must produce are: Distribution of generation. Different areas reach peak and off peak at slightly different times. When you can change distribution to pull from surrounding areas to meet peak demand when they are producing surplus, then the overall power requirement goes down because each area can produce a little less electricity. The use of peakers is not new at all. Hydro-electric plants can be used as peakers because they spin up very quickly, and can be brought offline very quickly. If you have power in reserve in places like hydro-electric, then you can produce less electricity at the fired generators because you have the capacity to quickly ramp up at peak time. This also leads to less waste. (Every technology such as hydro-electric has a drawback, though. With hydro-electric, even places like the San Luis reservoir are subject to drought which can last for more than a year. You have to plan for the drought because that means you have to produce more at your fired generators, but you can plan this far enough in advance to adjust the power output from the fired generators. Wind generation doesn't give you enough lead time, even if it produced enough power.) You can also reduce peak demand by things such as solar panels on the tops of companies' roofs. I think this is viable for companies in areas like California or Arizona (not for Washington state ), but not viable on a large enough scale to provide power for a city. Other alternatives like tide power (proposed for the San Francisco bay, but as I understand, tied up in politics) may not provide electricity directly to the city, but they may be usable for things like pumping the water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir in places like San Luis (if that is done - I understand it is) so that it will be available for hydro power for peak demand. And the direct method that gets people very excited (in a negative way) is where electric companies offer companies incentives to reduce their power during peak - sometimes by allowing the electrical company to control thermostats during peak demand hours. The companies in the US are given price breaks when they agree with this. This is all designed to reduce the peak demand - remember that the power plants produce for peak demand pretty much round the clock, so reducing the peak demand reduces power production expenses well beyond peak demand hours. It's all about spreading off-peak excess to meet peak demand, finding generation sources that can spin up quickly to be used in peak, and in reducing peak demand so that less generation is required round the clock. All that to say that there is a demand side to it, too, and emissions can be reduced on the demand side. Since most of our life at home is in off-peak hours, we're not likely to have to reduce consumption there - at least not now. All of that makes me think of what can be done with other technologies such as electric cars since we park them at home during non-peak hours, but I'm not an authority on what impact that could have. I'm not a greenie by any stretch, but I am fascinated with technology - especially the ones I get a chance to have some impact on. And the article on the generators is a very good think-piece for me. I just wanted to point out that there is technology beyond just the generators themselves that helps make the entire system more efficient.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jul 19, 2011 21:00:30 GMT
slh1234 . Glad you found it interesting. I think rational people have no problem with the various alternatives filling the role of "peakers" - other than the cost of doing so. Which, as the author points out, would be considerable and there are many longterm, and trickle down costs to consider as well. The minute you try to make these alternatives (other than the proven tech of hydro and nuclear) fill base load requirements the cost "skyrockets" (to coin a phrase).
The unreliability of solar and wind are also large factors as you noted. A peaker is by definition an emergency supply. So it becomes a cost/benefit analysis - how much should be spent (initial and lifetime ) on an unreliable technology? Very little, in most people's opinion.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jul 20, 2011 23:11:44 GMT
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 20, 2011 23:28:41 GMT
government subsidies were what made green profitable. With those drying up, no point in investing.
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 20, 2011 23:47:59 GMT
I think Green investing will come back within 10 years as the cost of fossil based energy rises enough to make the green worthwhile. Till then, it is a dead horse investment. As Maggie noted, without subsidies, there is no return.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jul 21, 2011 0:07:38 GMT
I think Green investing will come back within 10 years as the cost of fossil based energy rises enough to make the green worthwhile. That's quite an assumption. A lot can happen in 10 years. I sure wouldn't be willing to bet on it happening. Especially given the technological advances in recovering fossil fuel, and efficiency.
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 21, 2011 0:33:14 GMT
I think Green investing will come back within 10 years as the cost of fossil based energy rises enough to make the green worthwhile. That's quite an assumption. A lot can happen in 10 years. I sure wouldn't be willing to bet on it happening. Especially given the technological advances in recovering fossil fuel, and efficiency. When the government is funding research there is no reason to find a workable product as you just go back for more money to continue the research. The incentive to actually create something that is cost effective is not there. When companies fund research, they expect a workable economic product to be developed. Look at IBM, or Bell Labs in its heyday. Right now nano teck is coming up with novel ways for photo elec power. I think there are a lot of products that are on the edge, and drying up the gravy train will promote economic development and mass marketing.
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Post by julianb on Jul 22, 2011 11:17:12 GMT
I posted this at wattsupwithat earlier today, seems I may be wrong about banning new plants, thanks slh1234, but I'll keep my fingers crossed until it actually happens. My long late uncle was chief electrician at a Scottish paper mill that generated its own power, and back in the fifties I remember him telling me that their new boilers were superheated in the mid 700°C range, about the same as the Royal Navy destroyers used at that time. Surprising the new ones are less than that.
Julian Braggins says: July 21, 2011 at 10:26 pm
In our Alice in Wonderland of the southern hemisphere the flow of climate aid is revealed in this extract from the front page of The Australian newspaper of 20th July, 2011. “Indians call for end of coal aid. Indian environmentalists have challenged Canberra to prove its commitment to climate change by lobbying to end millions of dollars in subsidies for so-called efficient coal-fired power stations in developing nations. Under the Kyoto Protocol, developers of clean-energy projects in poorer nations are rewarded by allowing them to offset the costs by selling carbon credits to emitters in developed countries. Climate Action Network India board members Srinivas Krishnaswamy said the policy acted as an “indirect deterrent” to renewable energy projects by subsidising business-as-usual energy options” So it seems we Australians are subsidising new coal fired plants in India by taxing our old coal fired plants here, (and banning new coal fired plants here), and borrowing 100 million dollars a week from China to balance the budget. Looks like cheap energy for the poorer masses is not on the environmentalist’s agenda.
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