Energy Crisis

[peter d]

So I've heard lots of complaining about California's new energy code that will take effect this year. I have to say that at least California is doing something to address the problem of unrestrained demand for energy. Some may see the rules as draconian but these are the measures that must be taken, like it or not.

Fact: Energy use continues to grow every year.

Fact: Fossil fuel resources that power the world's economy are finite and in decline. World oil production has hit a peak and will now be in decline until depletion.

So it's either limit demand (conservation), find new supply (geologists have located most of the fossil fuel resources in the earth, so this option is out of the question) or else we will pay the price - literally.

 

[petersonra]

Re: Energy Crisis

Well, your first statement is indeed true. The second statement is an assertion that has been around since the early 1900s and has been proven totally false over and over again.

The facts are that there is plenty of hydrocarbon energy available, it just gets a little more expensive to get it out of the ground, or to get it in a form where it can be used. There are virtually limitless supplies of hydrocarbons available as the price goes up. The US alone has something like 300 years worth of total energy usage available in known coal reserves. That does not count the tar sands, and shale deposits that dwarf the known oil, gas, and coal deposits by at least an order of magnitude.

The so called energy shortage is and continues to be entirely politcal in nature.

 

[peter d]

Re: Energy Crisis

Well Bob, suffice it to say I don't agree with you. Let me also point out that I am not an environmentalist. I am just concerned about the energy use of this country.

Yes, the deposits of the unconventional fuels are enoromous, no doubt about that. But it takes massive amounts of energy to extract them and refine them into useable fuels, and the environmental cost is huge. Have you seen how much earth they must extract and refine to make the tar sands project worthwhile? And how much natural gas it consumes in the process?

Cars, buses, planes, trucks, trains and the modern gas turbine power plants can't run on coal. So what good do 300 years of coal supply do us? It's useful if the steam engine makes a big comeback.

Are you really saying that it's false to claim that fossil fuel resources are finite and in decline? Maybe this new report from today will change your mind.

[ April 28, 2005, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: peter d ]

 

[peter d]

Re: Energy Crisis

Anyway, getting back to the original point, I would like to see more states adopting more stringent energy codes.


Another thing I would like to see: Cease the production of all T12 flourescent and mercury vapor lighting fixtures. Ballasts and lamps should still be availlable for replacement use, of course.

With electronics so prevalent these days, I can see a cost effective electronic ballast for sodium and metal halide lamps in the future in all fixtures.

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

When we get hungry enough for more energy, it is there for the taking. Alaska has reserves of oil that has been and will continue to be used. Oil is available on the continental shelf and more in deep water. Wind power is starting to be a major player on the grid. Nuclear would be great if everyone wasn't afraid of glowing in the dark (look at what they are doing in Europe). The fast breeder reactors would be fantastic if it were not for producing so much plutonium. Fusion power is on the far horizon. Burning wood works better than most people give credit to and it is renewable. Generating power from wave technology is on the far horizon and solar energy is here for some parts of the country.

This litany could go on but you should be getting the picture by now. Yes Peter, there is energy to burn, all you have to do is pony up the cash. By the way, hydrogen can be produced with electricity that is generated from coal to drive fuel cells.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

Addressing only what I heard today:

designers/electricians will have to supply the kitchen with flour. lighting for 50% of all wattage used for lighting in the kitchen

I'm completely open to seeing this as a good idea. But how do you see lighting installations changing to adjust for this?

I see it as completely antiproductive but I wont say why yet.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

I used to like the hydrogen idea, but it's really volitile. And you don't get more than a watt back from a watt invested.

I think nuclear is the sanest route but freaked out politics prevail. Got to get the news makers and politicians off the job. They seem to thrive when things don't work.

[ April 28, 2005, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: physis ]

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

Hydrogen is getting safer as technology progresses. Without a doubt, we will have some horrendous accidents and something will be done to fix that problem. Look at the track record of gasoline and the problems with it when we first started to us it. We learned how to handle gasoline and we will learn how to handle hydrogen in our infrastructure and automobiles.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: Energy Crisis

Anyway, getting back to the original point, I would like to see more states adopting more stringent energy codes.

The use of energy should be regulated by cost, not by the government.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

The use of energy should be regulated by cost, not by the government

Or at least sanity and not by government.

 

[apauling]

Re: Energy Crisis

I agree that nuclear should be developed, but the problem is that the history of construction is not filled with glowing reports of construction companies overbuilding projects. When projects of this politically sensitive nature and potential danger are brought up, I think of all the boondoggles about them. It is not the science, it's the people. Character flaws that i could not imagine before start becoming the operating rules for decisions.

For example, the politicos always want to build in some scenic area, dead on some major earth quake fault. They want the intake/outflows to warm national marine sanctuaries. They want them built by their cousin or brother-in-law, and run on tight budgets, with little oversight. When profit is the bottom line, I wouldn't trust Mother Theresa. It's not the science, it's the greed and power mongering, and political maneuvering.

Attempts at forced energy savings usually backfire one way or another. There were studies that proved that 55mph actually used more gas for a variety of reasons.

This scenario happened a while back with some public agency and no one involved said anything. provider of some public agency, water , power, asks public to conserveas the supplies are low. The public complies to such an extent that the agency asks for relief from restrictions controlling how much it charges for its service as usage is down. The cost of the service didn't go up, but the idea that profit should be the base of all decisions creates bizarre scenarios where the public just gets asked to grab their ankles over and over.

I think that is why many are afraid of nuclear energy, stockpiled waste, contaminated water, three eyes and two noses.

I'll get off the box now.

paul

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

Paul, the biggest problem with building a nuclear plant is that the plans are made and approved, financing is secured, and then the opposition continues into the court system. The costs for the delays are horrendous until the cost overruns push some people to believe they can cut corners to catch up. How many nuclear plants of any type are on the drawing board? That is the reason.

By the way, the scenic areas are usually areas where nothing else can be done or it would have already been broken up into farm land. We don't pick fault lines to build on but we do build in areas where faults exist and we build for the area the same as they do in California.

It is interesting to me how everyone is so concerned about thermal pollution. The fish in this area will move closer to the discharge pipes in the winter just because of thermal pollution (I guess they don't know any better). Oh, we don't permit nepotism in my company.

I do agree with you about forced energy savings. What is interesting is that we are required to make an investment into power delivery facilities and then the push is on to conserve energy. We are now painted as the bad guys since we are not getting a return on our investment. How do we survive if we can't make a reasonable profit? Could you survive if you were force to work for less than it costs you to do the job?

Paul, I think there are too many people who listen to the drivel that is spewed by the environmentalists and pseudoscience and believe the rhetoric. We really need more educated people who have a bit of science background. Those people would not have a fear of nuclear energy, stockpiled waste, contaminated water, three eyes and two noses because they would know that the fear would be unfounded.

I'll get off the box now, it is your turn.

Charlie

 

[mc5w]

Re: Energy Crisis

I disagree with banning T12 fluorescent fixtures for several reasons:

1. In some applications high output T12 bulbs are the best possible technology because the number of bulbs is smaller. It takes energy to make the bulbs. T8 bulbs are a gimmick and what matters is what kind of phosphor is inside of the tube. In fact, some newer grocery stores use 16 foot high output fixtures that use 2 F96T12/HO bulbs in the tanden configuration.

2. In many applications the efficieny of T12 bulbs could be just about doubled by reflectorizing 1/2 of the inside of the tube.

3. The efficiency of 2x2 and 2x4 suspended fixtures with prismatic lenses can be nearly doubled by just simply turning over the lens so that it is prism side up. You have to take the lens frame out and partially dismantle it to do this. Prism side down traps about 2/3 of the light inside of the fixture which is how the fixture hides the bulbs. Prism side up provides the same light diffusion but you get more light from the same bulbs or you can remove 1/2 of the bulbs.

4. T8 bulbs have a harder time keeping themselves warm inside of unheated warehouses and in outdoor fixtures.

5. Electronic ballasts have severe reliability problems. See http://home.earthlink.net/~mc5w/badnewsballasts.txt . Electronic ballasts are either cheap Chinese junk or not quite as cheap Mexican junk.

Mike Cole, mc5w at earthlink dot net

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

By Charlie:

I think there are too many people who listen to the drivel that is spewed by the environmentalists and pseudoscience and believe the rhetoric

Well, since no ones up here at the moment I'll climb up for a comment.

It's not so much the fault of the population for buying into nonsense. The trouble is that there is hardly anything but nonsense to be heard.

Unless someone is educated in a related field there is very little likelyhood of being exposed to meaningful information associated with energy period.

I don't know how to see it as anything other than disinformation and propaganda.

I'll leave the soap box for the next guy.

Edit: I always have to edit.

[ April 29, 2005, 12:55 AM: Message edited by: physis ]

 

[hurk27]

Re: Energy Crisis

I can remember back in the big energy crunch of the "70's" that it was the big push to economize as much as possible. And while I was at Mid Florida Tech we even had to take a small course on the subject. But to many contractors was trying to capitalize on it and there were many flimflam artist that tried to get every dime out of the home buyers that it left a very bad taste in the mouth of many. So it went by the way-side.
The problem is now we have politicians who are trying to push it down our throat.

I see our freedom slipping away........

 

[mc5w]

Re: Energy Crisis

By the way, a power breeder reactor cannot be used to make bomb grade plutonium. In a weapons reactor the depleted uranium rods that are used to make PU-239 have to be changed every few months to keep PU-239 from turning into PU-240. This dictates that a weapons reactor has to be a swimming pool reactor with heavy water or a graphite reactor where the rods can also be frequently changed.

In a power breeder reactor a substantial amount of any PU-239 turns into PU-240 because the depleted uranium rods would have to stay there for 1 year or more. Since PU-240 is a perfectly satisfactory power plant fuel the depleted uranium rods might as well stay in for 3 years to increase yield.

The reason why the Russians liked to use graphite moderated reactors was that they could use 2 or 3 or more independent cooling circuits which made emergency cooling rather easy. The reasons why Chernoble blew up when they were doing a trip-to-station drill ( which simulates a blackout condition ) are these:

1. When you substantially decrease the power level ( below 60% ) of ANY nuclear reactor you have stability problem because of stored neutrons in the moderator. The moderator acts as a neutron capacitor and the 1/2 life of neutron decay into a hydrogen atom is 12 minutes. This means that if you scram a reactor you have to wait 2 hours for 99.9% or so of the neutrons to go away before restarting. The reactors that were able to get back on line quickly on 14 August 2003 were the ones that had a relief valve that bypassed the turbine so that they could run the reactor at 60% power while not generating electricity.

2. Light ( ordinary ) water in a graphite reactor acts as an extra set of control rods because of the absorbtion cross section of hydrogen. Somebody at Chernoble forgot that as they boiled water out of the reactor they needed to push in control rods.

3. Steam reacts with hot graphite to mke producer gas, which is a very flammable, EXPLOSIVE, and poisonous mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The carbon monoxide component is what makes it explosive and poisonous. Producer gas fortified with hydrogen was what was used in city gas mains before they had natural gas in them.

One of the things that the Russians did do right with the RBMK reactors was to encase them with sand for thermal insulation, radiation shielding, and to provide soft support for reactor components as they expand and contract. The sand diluted the molten core thus preventing a China syndrome.


Actually, the safest possible breeder reactor would be a graphite moderated design that is cooled with sodium metal. This design could have 3 independent cooling circuits for reliability and pressurization with sodium metal cooling is about 30 to 45 psi at the bottom of the cooling loop. Sodium metal reacts very slowly with steam which is how you clean sodium pipelines. Sodium also reacts very slowly with graphite.

One way to control leaks at flanged pipe joints is to use 2 or 3 gaskets with gas pressurization and gas pressure monitoring between the gaskets. Any leak in or out would trip the gas pressure switch.

Molten sodium metal is piped routinely by chemical plants without incident. Sodium fires are actually very easy to control as long as you do not use water - sodium oxide tends to fall back down on top of the sodium or in other words the product of combustion is a fire extinguisher. You can tolerate a small leak by using a metal pan with a perforated cover that restricts air circulation over the sodium metal that falls into the pan.

 

[apauling]

Re: Energy Crisis

I guess my problem is that i feel stuck in the middle. I'm enough of an environmentalist to care about the things I mentioned. Bodega Head is dead on the San Andreas fault, not even off by a hundred yards. This is not one of them unknown, thought to be inactive, relatively innocuous faults. It was probably one of the most famous in the west until Loma Prieta. Bodega Head is definitely a very scenic area and to me better than Monterey.

On the other hand, I am not one of them new agers who believe that there is a problem with the science, at least up front. Depleted uranium weapons seemed to be one of the types of ideas that I am worried about. It is not one of the things we, as the public, even get to discuss. It semed to bite back as far as some are concerned in the first gulf war. Some say the devil is in the details.

You seem to agree in some ways with what i was saying about the cutting of corners, and I believe there is no rationality, profit or otherwise to cut corners with nuclear plants. To me that is the real bottom line. Until we can agree that profit cannot be the bottom line, that safety is the bottom line, there is no reason to discuss the issue. It's that simple. it's not new age, it's not magical thinking, it's not unfounded fear, it is the only way I could support any nuclear energy construction.

I will not attempt to argue species specific temperature sensitivity, but i do know that some species will die, and others will thrive. merely because many environmentalists are nuts is no reason to discount environmentally sound thinking. So it all needs to be debated, that's life.

I wasn't thinking about the nepotism within companies, i was worried about it in terms of large government projects. It may be where you are that a nuclear plant wouldn't involve every political big wig in the area, but out here, every d... long enough will be stirring the pot for their own gain.

So there i am, in the middle again (isn't that a song), and I don't think the answer will come easily. To me it's like NASA, god did we do wonders when it was about what we could do, but we really effed up when the bottom line was to perform for whatever reason. Problems were glossed over. There are no parachutes that get someone back from space and there are no parachutes that can save us from a Chernobyl (sp) or 3 Mile Island if we get sloppy. Bottom line is about making it work, not making a profit.

and i'll get back off my soap box again

paul

 

[electrofelon]

Re: Energy Crisis

This is all very interesting. Conservation is definitely a major player. If everyone used mostly compact flauros, we could probably shut down a dozen or so coal plants. They have come a long way and I do not notice any difference in the light. I would like to do a test and see just how many people can.

But what really confounds me is the insignificant amount of effort that is put into finding sustainable sources of energy. We absolutely must have sustainable/renewable energy, eventually anyway. One theory is that technology will come up with the energy answer and thus we do not really have to worry about it, but that is taking a big risk. Oil is what allows .1% of the population to feed the other 99.9%, without it there would be massive famine and billions would die. Of course we wont just run out of oil overnight, but we will run out or cheap oil, we already are. I believe that we need to aggressively develop biodiesel, wind, and solar sources of energy. We need to shift some of the heavy government petroleum subsidies to these sources. Many say that solar is expensive, but how expensive is oil? Look at our military budget and 9/11 - not so cheap.

The problem is people are often scared and resistive of change. For example, about ten miles from where I live, there is a wind turbine site that is in the planning stages and the amount of resistance from the community is incredible. One major reason given by the opposition is appearance - Funny how no one thinks twice about all the power lines and poles that are literally everywhere you look. NIMBY and out of sight out of mind. When I see wind turbines I see a beautiful sight: tall graceful structures that signify a society that is planning for the future and is respectful of the needs of future generations. Ok that is my contribution to this thread, Good night.

 

[kentirwin]

Re: Energy Crisis

FYI on just the T12 vs T8 thing. In September of 2000 a new Federal Fluorescent Ballast Rule went into effect mandating the phase out of most T12 ballasts. Jump forward to right now - "Magnetic ballasts may not be manufactured for the covered T12 lamps after March 31, 2005, or sold after June 30, 2005. Magnetic ballasts for T8 lamps can continue to be manufactured for applications sensitive to IR or EMI." Visit the supply house and try to order some T12 luminaires. I started retrofitting T12 ballasts in one of the plants on our site in the fall of 2000. I have seen no unusual failure rate of lamps or ballasts. I administer a power monitoring network and have trended consumption in that plant since January 2000. In that space of time we have done nothing else to reduce consumption. In fact we have consistently increased loads. However, total consumption is still trending down. The only thing that could account for that are T8 lighting itself and associated lower operating temperatures that lower HVAC load. About 1500 luminaires of mostly the two lamp variety were retofitted.

 

[rick hart]

Re: Energy Crisis

There are politicians making political hay out of the energy crisis- yes crisis.
So what else is new?
For whatever reason, energy prices are high because increasing consumption is not in balance with current production.
The surest way for fight higher prices is to decrease demand. That can be voluntary, but rarely is. That is where government gets involved- to make people do what is needed because they will not do it on their own. New ways that cost more usually need to be crammed down peoples throats for awhile before most people see the benefit- can you say GFCI receptacle protection prior to 1972?

Energy management is equal parts of conservation, efficiency, research and mandatory guidelines to get us to a place nobody wants to go because it is inconvenient. All are the responsibility of government to lead us into the future because business will not explore new ways when it is always better for the bottom line to take the most common path. So what if we have energy codes that are a pain; they can be ammended as we go along, just like the NEC.

You really can't think we actually have an unlimited supply of fossil fuel. We didn't have an unlimited supply of dinosaurs to make the stuff in the first place. How long it takes to run through the stuff is the key. We burn it up fast, we run out sooner. We use less, we have more time to develop alternatives. We come up with a better alternative before we run through the fossil, great. The payoff of these mandated conservation measures is not today in todays dollars but in the future where nobody can see. Some one said earlier something about unless you are in the energy field, you really don't have much access to good energy information. Everyone here is in the energy business. As important as the NEC is to todays electrical installations, energy codes will soon have the same sort of importance.
Energy management has come a long way from the darkness of the late '70's to where we are today. Things are cheaper to operate while getting more out of any given unit of energy.