[Madpaddy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2847679.stm

Am now running laptop with the contents of my whiskey cabinet. Popping the odd 50cc fuel cell myself to keep me happy.

[Guest]

Thankyou babypeanut. I'm glad at least one peakfreak has heard of the vrb.

If you use the search feature here, you'll find the idea has been brought up before.

The 'benefit' is a 'quick change' of electolyte. In the same way adding gasoline is a 'quick addition' of energy. In addition the capitol cost of storage of the electrolyte is 'a barrel' VS what you might need to contain other energy potentionals.

No idea how toxic the electolyte is. Oil is toxic (mostly), gasoline is, Natural Gas, Methane, Methonal, Ethyl Alch, battery acids, et la. If it can store energy, odds are its toxic.

[pilferage]

Please show me the URLs where one can buy these 1/10th cost panels.

They don't 'cost' anything for the consumer, they're not available to the consumer and I never said they were...
I can't remember where exactly I found the '1/10' approx. (let me interrogate Google a bit more), but here are some related links.
http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=2402
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/rele ... solar.html
http://www.physorg.com/news2394.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 121504.php
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6802
since a euro is ~1.30 this is more like 1/7-1/8, but comparing that 1 euro per watt to the 8-10 dollars per watt is ~1/10...
http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsIndustry.htm
I'm still pretty sure I saw the 1/10th figure, I just can't remember where.

[Guest]

I'm still pretty sure I saw the 1/10th figure, I just can't remember where.

So it is a projected cost rather than shipping product.

[pilferage]

So it is a projected cost rather than shipping product.

I believe so. Even if I was completely wrong about the items being 1/10th of the cost, according to the European article (2nd from the top), they are projected to be ~1/8th of the cost to mass-produce. The only stumbling block left is doubling the efficiency, which considering the progress they've made so far, doesn't seem out of reach. As of now, they're still ~1/8 of the cost @ ~1/3rd the eff., and they're scalable! (according to the article)

[ozkrenske]

As has been mentioned any supposedly silver bullet here is unlikely purely due to the inability to make it in big enough quantity/volume fast enough. Instead a stream of many small silver bullets is required to simultaneously increase efficiency and move demand away from Oil/fossil fuels. Of particular importance would be suitable storage methods.

An awful lot of power generators sit idle at times, but still consuming resources, having a means to store this slack in the system would be very beneficial. The same technologies could be applied to patchy energy sources like wind, solar and tidal. If we could store a portion of their generated power from peak output it would be available later when direct generated supplies are low. At the moment there are few small scale solutions for this besides having large banks of relatively inefficient batteries. At the social scale large potential energy storage means are possible. Multi thousand ton flywheels have potential to store power but are limited in the amount and are major engineering feats of their own, with major energy investments. An uphill pumping system for hydro is an obvious solution, as is seperating reactive chemicals for later reaction to generate power, even generating hydrogen from water has potential to store currently wasted power. The problem with all these is scaling, cost and efficiency. The smaller the scale the better, the greater the efficiency the better and obviously the cheaper the better. I believe pumped water has nearly a 50% reclaim rate from energy applied if engineered right so maybe we need a lot more closed cycle dams constructed for storage purposes. These combined with a wind farm could lead to said farm producing a much smoother feed of power to the overall system and cover gaps in generation.

For generation of power, there are many smaller scale approaches that could supply a lot more power in smaller piecemeal bits to the grid, seperate they have only small effects, but many small effects become a large effect. Waste biomass from mills (wood and cane come immediately to mind), specifically grown biomass, thermal layer generation ( both high saline pond and ocean thermal ), Off shore current generation, Tidal, Wind, Solar (be it panel, exposed thermocouple, heat trap, tower*, closed cycle vertical evaporation**, tethered lighter than air***), large scale physical movement****. While a number of these are fanciful some are doable at least in small scale in many places across large areas of the planet. The key thing to remember is a lot of things have been shown to be better than break even over as little as five years but the scale of their generation and their generation curves are not as profitable as fossil fuel approaches at the moment.

For transport, efficiency should be king and it won't be unless costs go up, but as this post is about replacements I give you - Ethanol from sugar ( preferably from the most efficient source possible, probably tropic cane. ) is a suitable supplement to Oil based fuel and can either be blended or used as a complete replacement. Methane can be used and generated in many ways, biogeneration from biowaste products is certainly possible and we in the west do not lack biowaste. I believe there are massive problems with Factory production of Pigs etc and their waste, some farmers already use methane for heating purposes. Wood gas and Coal gas used to light the streets of London and New York and this gas could be used to power cars as well, the waste is barely waste either and can be used in other methods to generate electricity.

Now the problem with these approaches for both large corporations and Government is simply that they don't like dealing with large numbers of customers or suppliers and especially hate it when people are both. What is needed is a true means of financially reconpensing suppliers and users. If a user was charged the true cost, not given special deals by local and state governments conservation would occur. ( Here in Aus Governments have waved bills for Aluminium smelters to get them to locate here and then been forced to continue doing so to keep the company, In Queensland this currently eats nearly 1/8th of the power generated in the state. Many Government organisation waste huge amounts of power as well, I laugh/cry when I see well lit signs suggesting the conservation of power at 3 in the morning.)

On the supplier side forcing marketting boards to accept generated power and pay for it, even for small distributed generators would see a lot of additional insentive to generate power at small local scales. Excess power can be stored physically at a reduced payment to the supplier if they are over supplied. The problem with this is that it takes political will to reform energy distribution on both sides of the ledger and is resisted by what is easily the largest industrial sector in any country.

My number one technology though for massive energy reform would have to be efficient, compact, high density, energy storage. This would act as a moderator to power generation and as a boost to the use of electricity for auto use.

Just a few ideas.

Now for the asterisks, please ignore if you don't like overengineered small scale power generation ( or substitution ) methods

* Tower - Generates power from different means, heat lift from huge greenhouses and Wind sheer (a tower of 100 meters hight will almost always experience a wind sheer between its top and its bottom causing a draft to flow upwards).

** Closed cycle evaporation - Not exactly high power, but It can be used to shift water vertically. Evaporated moisture lifts to the top of a heating chamber and is then condensed into a higher chamber. Used by myself to purify water and get it 3 meters up a pole using little more than black plastic, the sun some plastic pipe, shade and a metal condenser. This can be easily boosted by the use of high saline solutions for heat trapping and reflected sunlight. I have seen a farm not far from where I live use five big black distilling tanks to evaporation lift water into two elevated tanks for small scale irrigation purposes. Apply additional solar heating and High saline fluid in the bottom tanks and a few micro hydro devices and the said hippy/biker/farmer could grow his crop off grid, with 24 hour lighting . In Tropical climates this could easily generate power to at least assist low energy life, the tanks will be necessary anyway for localised water supply, just never drink from the black tanks. This can probably be done using other fluids and gas combinations but water is probably the easiest to use and least toxic.

*** Tethered lighter than air - Very interesting actually, Take one baloon, balute, blimp, zepplin. Paint it black to absorb heat as much as possible make it barely capable of lifting itself and several hundred feet of tether at the coolest point of the night. Wait for the sun. ( little known fact most zepplins had to carry ballast and excess gas to allow for moderation of elevation due to day night temperature variations even after they painted them with highly heat reflective materials. (The hindenburgs outer skin was actually highly heat reflective but also burnt very well.)) Now as the sun begins to warm the gas in the tethered baloon it proceeds to increase it's lift, apply massive gearing to this continuous vertical force and use the power to either generate power or refill vertical water storage. Large baloons can exert multiple 100's of ton's of vertical force continuously and will continue to do so for 8-10 hours of every day. Once cooling begins start winding the baloon in as gravity slowly returns it to it's next day starting position.
Alternative to the above, is to use said baloon to generate poweror use energy from drag in high wind conditions the only trouble here is the ability to retrieve the baloon. Some plans seem to use these types of baloons to apply force directly at times to transport in certain know wind corridors. This is done in similar ways to the sails of yesteryear, large surface area would cause a lot of wind assistance to something moving in the same direction. Tethered baloons apparently were capable of apply substantial force to ships during WW2 and cut fuel useage on West East Journeys, I imagine proper scheduling and courses would allow for substantial fuel savings during long Water passages.

**** Here in Aus, and I assume in other countries, We have a large number of Trains (5000 + tons) carrying large volumes of produce and minerals from multiple 100 meter elevations to sea level. Often a lot of the journey is actually flat and only in relatively short distances is most of the elevation traversed. Regenerative breaking transfering power into the grid during these descents would have to assist generation as a whole, but being short term peak generation would be best at refilling local energy stores. Train schedules should easily allow vertical water stores to be refilled for later use in local power generation.

[MonteQuest]

An uphill pumping system for hydro is an obvious solution, as is seperating reactive chemicals for later reaction to generate power, even generating hydrogen from water has potential to store currently wasted power. The problem with all these is scaling, cost and efficiency. The smaller the scale the better, the greater the efficiency the better and obviously the cheaper the better. I believe pumped water has nearly a 50% reclaim rate from energy applied if engineered right so maybe we need a lot more closed cycle dams constructed for storage purposes.

For transport, efficiency should be king and it won't be unless costs go up, but as this post is about replacements I give you - Ethanol from sugar ( preferably from the most efficient source possible, probably tropic cane. ) is a suitable supplement to Oil based fuel and can either be blended or used as a complete replacement.

I agree that storage is a big issue here. This is why I feel small decentralized energy production that would feed excess back into the grid would be the best form of utilization rather than outright storage.

As to pumped storage, you have few geological sites left and then there is the availability of water. And as an Aussie who is experiencing "peak water" down under, I'm sure you can relate. Our existing dams don't have enough water as it is. Ethanol is a heat sink, EROEI<O.

The best technological miracle would be to use less of it.

[Guest]

Howdy Monte, (I apologise for bad gramma but thats what you get at 3 in the morning.)

First up closed cycle two tier dams, are actually considerably better at conserving water. You don't get just one energy release per unit of water instead you get 100s and as the dams would actually be for power only, we can cap/seal them and take them to near empty each drain cycle while refilling with surge supplies and off cycle generation. The need for large catchments and large volumes is also reduced.

Note that Water is just the most convenient means of storing generated electricity as potential energy. A bank of heavy weight trains going up an escarpment can be used specifically for energy storage as well. Give yourself a rail line with a 300 meter altitude change and run ballasted trains up hill with excess electricity and roll em down again for regeneration. Almost certainly not as efficient as pumped water or as precise but probably something that can be done more quickly and cheaply and in areas with little water.



As to ethanol I am still uncertain about the effective EROI, but for Tropical Cane I am certain it is positive. For Corn I believe it is close to break even but that method is being pushed by large US agri producers. Brazil and Cuba both use cane based ethanol supplementation and I would doubt they would continue doing so over thirty years if it is negative EROI. The rapid growth cane also supplies substantial biomass for burning to power mills, at around 20 times the mass of sugar extracted. For OZ that is ~200 000 000 tons of replenishable biomass for self powering with some generating capacity going to the grids.

Tropical cane sugar production is at the moment around 80 million tons which I believe from has ~10 million tons of non primary ethanol extraction as bi product. This is around 60-70 million barrels of oil equivalent. (Not much I know but still useful substitute in the producing countries.) Now what about primary syrup/juice ethanol production. With different cook methods and the loss of about 15% of sugar output gains of almost 200% in ethanol output can be effected without actually using sugar directly for ethanol. So we can generate ~200 million barrel equivalents of ethanol right now without major mill changes and with a small reduction in sugar output. (Brazil already outputs 80 million barrel equivalents themselves in this way.)

But what about direct use of sugar cane sugar for ethanol? Well if we shifted half of output to fermentation for ethanol that would gain 400 million barrel equivalents. Now add in cellulose degeneration on the 1500 million useable tons of cane residue (this will require major infrastructure investment) and another 2000 million barrels are able to be supplied while halving the useability of the cane waste. So around ~2600 million barrels is able to be created world wide from existing crops. About the equivalent of a months global oil supply. Now if we were to specifically grow for ethanol we should be able to push this up significantly, approaching 5 billion barrels equivalent without major problems.

Other means of production, Corn, Beet etc run around 1/3rd as energy efficient and in output per ton of feed stock, and close to 1/10th per crop area. But you need the climate to grow the stuff. So southern regions of the US can, but the world production is dominated by South America, Australia and SE Asia. Meaning the US and Europe will need to trade with these areas for Ethanol in the future ( and already do, It is incredibly cheaper to buy waste product ethanol in major volumes from Brazil than from Corn based generation projects.). Again I believe the push for Corn based ethanol Etc is just a massive form of agri business subsidisation from the US tax payer.


As to using less oil I did state that efficiency is king, which does translate to using less. I stand by my assertion though that it is not going to happen enough to have major effects on demand, before there are major shocks already running through the economy and this will be too late to massively replace/reform personal transport. (The shocks of the 70's were political and the efficiency fix occurred in the years following, when Peak Oil shocks appear they will continue and not go away, after a few months.) I can certainly see rationing and diversion to bulk transport being needed to keep important things ticking while millions of normal consumers struggle with reduced transport and massively reduced net income after the 'oil tax' effect. Definitely no more pre made salads sent from California to New York etc.

[Djian]

There is a lot said about home appliances that can be turned off/on depending on peak times etc. But this is only one side oof the demand on energy and I would the the easiest to manage if we really want to.

But what about transportation energy? I've read somewhere that in the Netherlands they already have some public transportation working on hydrogen technology and there it is really a matter on how to store or produce the needed energy in the vehicle itself!

Does anyone know something about these tests and the outcome they yield?

[MonteQuest]

The single best invention that would save the day would be a supra-conductor that functions at elevated temperatures.

The question was, what was the most "likely' technology.

[pilferage]

The single best invention that would save the day would be a supra-conductor that functions at elevated temperatures.

Hmm... yeah, Supras are pretty slow...
What's the difference between a 400hp Supra and a 600 hp Supra?









Nothing! They both run 12s quarter miles!

But seriously there already is the technology, it just needs to become cheap...
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/05/8/21

[Cool Hand Linc]

Locally we have a small lake often called a pump back lake.

Water from a larger lake is pumped up to the small lake during times of lower energy consumption. Then allowed to run down through generators to produce energy during high demand times.

Seems to work well.

[khebab]

Actually no, it is a question of making it work at room temperature or higher. Beleive me, if that could be done, billions would be invested into implimenting this idea.

Just in electrical distribution within the grid alone would have a vested interest of 10's of billions of dollars in North America! If it existed, the money would be there!

Supraconductivity faces a number of difficult challenges in order to be really applicable. the first one is obviously the temperature which is still very very low. Another one is that they used mainly rare materials wich are very expensive and not easy to handle in a manufacturing process.

I'm more optimist about nanotubes wich have superconductivity properties at room temperature. see Webpage Supertubes

[JayHMorrison]

Locally we have a small lake often called a pump back lake.

Water from a larger lake is pumped up to the small lake during times of lower energy consumption. Then allowed to run down through generators to produce energy during high demand times.

Seems to work well.

We have the same thing here in the Carolinas with Duke Power. Total is over 1600 MW for peak usage times. (desciption below) It is fairly significant. It is more than most coal power plants or about 2/3 of a Nuclear power plant.

I spoke with a duke power engineer. Their long term goal is to use excess wind power to refill the lakes so that the energy can be used when it is needed during the peak periods.

1065 MW
http://www.dukepower.com/aboutus/plants ... dcreek.asp

612 MW
http://www.dukepower.com/aboutus/plants ... cassee.asp

Bad Creek Generating Station is a 1,065-megawatt pumped storage facility located in Oconee County, eight miles north of Salem, South Carolina. Owned by Duke Power, Duke Energy’s electric utility, the four-unit station began generating electricity in 1991. Bad Creek is named for the two streams, Bad Creek and West Bad Creek, that were dammed to create the Bad Creek reservoir.

Water stored in a lake is released into underground power tunnels. The water rushes down the tunnels, driving huge turbines, which are underground at the base of a dam. The spinning turbines are connected to large generators, which produce the electricity. The water then flows through draft tubes into a lower lake. A pumped-storage hydroelectric station uses the same water over and over again, making more efficient use of water resources.

When demand for electricity is low, operators can refill the lake, as if they were “rechargingâ€

[Cool Hand Linc]

I can't locate any links about this lake we have. I have been there. The discharge is set up so the water is ejected up just a bit. It causes a lot of turbulence and aeration of the water. When a discharge occurs, the sand bass fisherman love it. It also helps the lower lake because of increased oxygen levels in the lake.

[earthman]

The miracle we need is a change in our mindset. Then we see miracles everywhere.

To seek a technological miracle is a smoke screen for simply continuing our consumption and waste without any self-sacrificing change.

How often to we consume energy without even thinking about it? Using the computer, watching TV, lights, hot water, cold milk, dry clothes and so forth. We have been taking it for granted.

We already have a miracle: bicycles; we just have excuses not to use them.

The Sun is an incredible source of energy that we have not yet figured out how to use it well enough. But 93 million miles away it warms up the Earth and with a magnifying glass you can start a fire. Talk about miracles!

George

[Cool Hand Linc]

Miracle?

Certainly a part of a solution that can change the equations.

Problem with bicycles is that we Americans are not living close enough to the destinations we need to commute to.

I can ride to work by human power if needed but 2/3rds of my co-workers could not. Not easily anyway.

If things were to get bad quickly. God gave mankind a strength and resilience that will allow mankind to survive. Man will adapt and bikes will most likely be a part of that.

In 100 years, the resulting health benefits from human power could just be the miracle that leads to longer lives and less need for petroleum in our daily lives.

[earthman]

Cool Hand,

The nice thing about bikes is that it is a current technology available for everyone to do their part. We already have this and the problem is more our attitude or mindset.

Usually people can think of plenty of reasons why they can't ride bikes, such as the distance problem you mentioned.

Some of the reasons why bikes are not practical are very real, but we can change our attitude and think "how can I solve this problem," rather than "I can't."

We are expecting the goverment or science or God or something to save us from the end of our age. We can take responsibility each for herself and himself and start doing what we can.

Are we addicted to cars? Yes, but can we change? Yes, if we are willing. Are we willing?

That's the big question...not just ride bikes or walk instead of drive, but are we willing to change? Behavior and thinking...and then maybe the world.

George

[UIUCstudent01]

It seriously got me interested in electric bikes. Biking isn't exactly hard on level roads. The limit for the mph is 20, but that can be increased - but wearing a helmet and such would be a must. You skip traffic and a few stop-lights, and sometimes can go on paths not available before by car. You will definitely shave off time in shorter distances.

I have some problems though: the charge for most bikes seems to be an hour (without pedaling at all). The battery will also eventually die - how much is a battery + when will it die. If a battery didn't need to be replaced + charged so often, it would be good. If there were chargers everywhere, that would soften that crutch. And if you run out of a battery, you can keep pedaling and still go reasonably fast.

I would almost consider getting an electric bike now (and adapting it to go faster than 20 mph) if it were somewhat necessary for me (which it isn't, I can walk everywhere that I need to go in less than 10 minutes - or take a bus). Maybe during the summer I might tinker around a bit and work out some numbers on the adaption of an old mountain bike a bit...

++Additional bonus++ :: People get exercise! People live longer! People don't take the environment for granted! Don't have to pay gas prices!

--Detrators-- No climate control (snow, storms, and intense heat) Music isn't as accessible (iPod is good, but you need to be aware when you're biking I think, especially in suburban/city environments)

I definitely can see electric bikes and smaller vehicles being used past Peak Oil. Nuclear power + renewables may be able to charge these bikes very easily. Although, I don't know how viable/sustainable the battery would be. But in the short-term, it's a very good investment.

[Cool Hand Linc]

Earth man,

I am not disagreeing with the concept of changing the mind set. We do need this. It is really a must. In ten years I suspect reality will begin to set in and the choice will slowly be removed from the equation.

Truely the mind set does need changed here.

Look at the Philippines. The use a smaller displacement mototrcycle that is geared a little lower. Add a side car and the family has transportation that is fairly efficient. They can use an 1/2 a coffee cup of fuel to transport 3 people the same disatance an SUV owner will transport just themselves on 1 gallon of gas. We can role back our ideas. I can ride a bike because its just 3 miles or so to work. The people who travel 60 miles could ride a 90cc motorcycle spend less money on fuel and at the same time help their grandchildrens future picture.