The Energy Matrix
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Water Falls Two large ducts carry some of the
water from this river to a generating plant near base of fall. When the
river is near flood stage most of the water goes over the fall and the energy is
dissipated. Some estimate that the United States is only exploiting a
fraction of its potential hydro-electric
Cheap Oil, Jan.19,2007 Bad news for clean alternative
energy, oil drops to about $50 a barrel. If your trying to sell or develop alternative energy, cheap oil is bad news, because it undercuts
alternative products.
Cogeneration growing. Central heating systems date back to the days
of DC power generation in lower Manhattan during the Edison/Telsa Era. High
Pressure Steam Plants provided steam
Heat Storage Heat storage are an important element of solar
power systems. Power plants that use concentrated solar heat to generate
steam to drive turbine driven electric generators, require heat storage to
maintain steady power output. See
reference article, Click here . Heat stored in super heated water can provide
steam to meet sudden changes in load.
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Cogeneration (Continued) to heat tall buildings and to drive machinery in manufacturing plants. Edison electrified down town Manhattan in the fall of 1882, with power from the Pearl Street station. The large dynamos of the Pearl Street station were powered by steam from its coal fired boilers. At that period steam engines exhausted their spent steam directly into the atmosphere generating waste heat at over 100 degrees centigrade. See reference article, Click here! All the elements for cogeneration were available at that time. There were blocks of building and factories that were supplied with steam from central plants, and there were many homes close by that were burning coal in their cellars to produce low pressure steam to heat rooms. Then, coal was cheap, and no one worried to much about pollution. There was no impetus to invest capital on cogeneration. Today we are concerned about the cost of electricity for power and the cost of oil for heat. However, we no longer have steam distribution networks in our cities. The cost of power plants that outputted both electricity and heat would be considerable. The cost of networks of insulated pipes for low pressure steam or hot water distribution would be immense today as would be cost of getting a permit to construct a smoke stake in the center of any city in the USA. In many parts of World central heating plants are in use today, these cities are in an excellent position to take advantage of centralized cogeneration systems. However, an inverse technology is taking hold
even in the USA.. Rather than produce power and sell the heat. Many
facilities are producing heat and hot water and selling the electricity back to
the electric utilities. One method is to use gas turbines to generate
electricity and than heat water or air with the turbine
exhaust. Excess electricity is sold back to the electric company via the
existing power lines. Utilities that sell both gas and electricity
are promoting this technology. However most of the electricity in the USA is produced using coal fired boilers, and the waste heat is dumped into our rivers. This heat is generally considered environmental pollution. Cogeneration and heat transport using steam for a distance of over six miles was practiced in Germany in 1937. Click hear for details. Today we could probably design pipe lines that operate at less than one atmosphere. Thus, low exhaust head pressure could be provided for steam turbines at a power plants and this steam travel many miles to condensers in city centers. In the city centers the condenser heat could be used to heat water for central heating systems. Low pressure lines would have to be almost completely devoid of curves and be well insulated. They would be an expensive option, but should be included in the energy matrix.
Links: http://www.oit.edu/default.aspx?DN=4145,3913,2769,7,1,Documents
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What is the Matrix? In the future we will consider questions such as "Is corn a better solar collector than silicon"
Nuclear Energy and HVDC The safety of nuclear energy is
hotly contested in the US. High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission
will not effect nuclear plant safety. It could make worst case scenario
nuclear accidents economic impact less severe. HVDC
Practical Electric Cars by 2010 By 2010,Japan will have electric cars with
50 mile range and capability of being recharged in 15 minutes. The cars
will use lithium battery packs that will last
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