Re: Research Topics

["Kevin Chisholm" <kchisholm@ca.inter.net>]

Dear Andries
del...
>
> Next to adaptation, I expect my elected representatives to support
national
> programs and international cooperation to look beyond the short term and
> think and plan ahead. What's more, I expect their positive stimulance for
> programs going beyond the political whim of the day (the 4-year cycle).

The problem with "political stimulation" is the cost. Political stimulation
of events is effective when it is of the nature of "priming the pump." If
the pump is "just about ready to start" then Government assistance can be
very helpful. If the Governments try to "prime the pump" before its time to
start has come, then this will result in enormous waste. Here in Canada, the
Government spent enormous sums on helping renewables get "up and running",
and sadly nearly all of these funds have been wasted, with little or nothing
to show for them now.
 I
> believe a pro-active attitude is called for, without dramatizing the
> situation. The long term effects of the energy+emissions picture (might as
> well change that out for the world fresh water supply) are very much key
to
> the living conditions of  next generations.

OK.... if I was a Government Bureaucrat working in the Back Rooms, and
wanting to put together a series of recommendations, I would want to
recommend Projects and Policies where monies spent now would make a
difference.
>
...del...>
> (I am not sure Anouk is really helped by all this in terms of concrete R&D
> subjects....but alas)

I think that the expected price of oil energy should be the largest single
determiner of which biomass projects should be favored, and when they should
be favored, either with funding to support research, or with funding to
support implementation.

Imagine that we know the price of Crude Oil for the next 50 years, assuming
the Worlds present energy mix. We could then say which renewable
technologies would be most likely to become economically advantageous first.
It would be these technologies that Governments should support with Research
and Implementation funding. Funding placed in this manner would make the
biggest difference quickest. Then, with an increase of renewables in the
Global Energy Mix, the Crude Oil price estimate could be revised, and a
"second round of funding " could be implemented, for the next set of "most
likely to be economic" projects.
>
...del...>
> I don't know if city dwellers on our planet really have the option to
switch
> back to solid fuels....
> In 50 years time half of the worlds population might live in city
> environments where individual use of solid fuel is not permitted any
longer
> due to air pollution restrictions.

This is indeed a valid point. However, as energy costs increase and
transportation costs increase also, there will be a tendancy to
decentralization. It will simply cost too much to commute to the City. Many
industries can indeed decentralize, with little or no competitive
disadvantage. Not all, but many. Vastly improved communications will vastly
improve on the conditions necessary for decentralization. As energy costs
increase, people will find it advantageous to live in more energy efficient
housing.

> But coal in central heating/power plants might be a possibility, but is
> considered already less than desirable right now!
> Perhaps coal can be gasified in situ and piped in?
> Wood in smaller rural communities remains an option (compare Kermit
> Schlansker on this List)
> But wood to heat a city of a million and more?

You are quite right.... this will never happen. It would be logistically
impossible on a sustainable basis.
>
> At the present, fuel oil is so cheap that it is hardly worth saving.
> As
> prices increase, then it becomes financially attractive to spend
> money to
> save energy. At the present, businesses will spend money on energy
> cost
> reduction projects having a 3 to 4 year simple payback. There is
> enormous
> "oil saving potential" in the projects now having a 4 to 8 year
> payback. A
> doubling of oil prices will make them economic, by present
> investment
> standards.
>
> That "enormous savings" will not so big on a world wide basis, since it
only
> applies to 25% of current world usage. The other 75% already tightened up
> due to economic constraints (taxes etc). Projects with longer payback will
> only make a few decades difference at best.
>
Good point!! However, the 25% of the World is probably the 25% that consumes
the most energy. Specifically, for example, the US is obsessed with low
energy prices, and as a consequence, there is most waste taking place there.

...del...>
> Problem is, we still have an expanding world population as well as
expanding
> economies in the 2nd and 3rd world.
> Even if their per capita energy use will lags behind 1st world use, the
need
> in barrels of oil will increase over the years.
> So, I don't think the pressure is taken of as such, it will just be a
> balance at a higher price level but under constant demand pressure!.
> Leaving a gap to be filled with cheaper energy sources.

OK.... you have some good points here also, but look at Cuba.... the US has
been implementing restrictive trade practises and generally hasseling Cuba
for the past 30 years. Cuba has adapted to these pressures, and in some ways
is ahead of the Western World as a result. The whole coultry has basically
switched over to Organic Farming practises, greatly reducing their energy
and fertilizer requirements. Cuban Agriculture is far less concerned with
world energy prices than would be the US.
>
> In addition to its fossil carbon content, it also has a significant
> sulphur
> and ash disposal cost. This is just a wild guess on my part, but the
> guess
> is that the price of natural gas in large quantities is very close
> to the
> cost of coal energy plus the cost of sulphur and ash disposal.
>
> Coal plants can be operated at close to zero sulphur and ash costs by
> turning it into gypsum and concrete (with a positive commercial value).
But
> it takes technology to reach the quality level to operate that way.

This is great when it can be done.

> I presume dumping will increasingly be considered "the easy way out" and
> will depend on "permission" of authorities for "dated" coal plants only.

OK.... if they don't grant continued permission, then the coal plants close,
and there is increased on natural gas or petroleum resources.
>
> On gas versus coal:
> The price of bulk natl gas is up to 3 times that of coal on a Btu basis.
> However, the conversion efficiency in gas turbines can be 50% better than
a
> state of the art coal plant.
> A GT plant has about half the investment charges per kWh as a modern coal
> plant with emission controls installed

I don't know but I would have thought that a Combined Cycle natural gas
plant that had the 50% greater energy efficiency would cost more than the
"Rankine only" coal plants. The combined cycle plants need the gas turebines
PLUS the boilers and steam turbines.

> The sulphur/ash removal costs in a modern coal plant are around zero.

Would not that only be true in the fortunate circumstances where the power
plant had sale for its wastes?

> A GT plant has half the O&M charges from a coal plant.
> Altogether works out, very roughly, to a 15-20% cost advantage for a coal
> plant.

You haven't "reversed your conclusion," have you?
>
> Why, then, are so many gas plants built, you ask?
> (perhaps another thread)
>
>
> This is exactly how we viewed it when I went to school!
> We were convinced that the available emissions window for CO2
> emissions-from-fossils would be transferred to the 2nd and 3rd world, and
> that the 1st world would mainly switch to nuclear power to make that CO2
> window available.
> As it turns out, the only place where nuclear is currently expanding is
> where we didn't expect it to go in the first place, and over here in the
1st
> world we are head over heels in biomass and renewables to compensate for
> fossil fuel power we expected to be mainly transferred by now....
> Talk about scenario's..........

That is indeed interesting. Does it perhaps make the point that it does not
take a very large increase in fossil fuel pricing to result is a very
significant switch to renewables?
>
...del...>
> As for the higher value purpose....agreed.
> But there is a lot of energy used for plain bulk, which is nevertheless
> still necessary to keep society running.

I presume by "plain bulk" you mean the general energy requirements for
electricity and transportation. Is this correct?
> That's what needs to be covered as well, i.e. the lower value purposes.
>
Many of the "lower value purposes" are just the ones that are most amenable
to conservation effort. For example, if I was "Energy Dictator" for Los
Angeles, where about 2/3 of the rush hour traffic is single person
occupancy, I could eliminate about 50% of road traffic and transportation
energy consumption simply by requiring that people employ car pooling, and
that only cars with 4 people in them would be allowed on the "rush hour
lanes". Alternatively, I could allow these people to arrive at the same net
result simply by increasing the price of gasoline adequately. :-)

>
> In general, I don't see renewables getting much cheaper than they
> are now.
> The major increases in renewables consumption will come when the
> fossil
> energy costs rise to the point where renewables are economic.
>
> Depends on the technology, perhaps?.

Certainly, it does, but the fundamental driver is high fossil fuel cost. As
fossil fuel costs increase, it will be amazing how many "new technologies"
become economically viable.

> Solar might get quite a lot cheaper now mass production is on the way.
> Wind in fact went through an industrialization phase already this past
> decade, but the jump from 1.5 MWe turbines to 2 to 3 MWe turbines will
still
> bring generation costs per kWh down further.

There are some interesting fundamentals with wind vs. solar. Specifically,
once a site is selected and approved for wind, the "site cost" would be
about the same, whether a .5 or 5 MW turbine system is installed. Solar
sites have a power output which is almost directly proportional to area.
Also, turbines benefit from "economies of scale, while solar panel cost
would be relatively independant of size.

> Biomass is such a variety of options, is hard to label in one go.
> Personally, I believe in cofiring of biomass in coal plants given the
> enormous potential of that world wide.
> (by comparison, annually 1050 million tons of coal in the US alone!)
> Many ways to have that biomass fed to coal plants.
> And a very direct replacement of long-cycled CO2 from coal to short-cycled
> CO2 from biomass.

Co-friring of biomass is indeed a great way to go. It allows biomass to be
burned in a way that it can "share then economies of scale" with coal.
>
...del...>
> Re Club of Rome
> Well, they were right as far as they went, but they did not go far
> enough to
> give correct answers. They predicted we would be out of copper, but
> we still
> have loads of it readily available. They were wrong, even though
> they did
> indeed have some neat concepts.
>
> Their answers were as good as their assumptions.

Exactly!!! And this is was my concern earlier in this thread..... the
connectivity between increasing price and extending availability was being
overlooked.

> For instance, they assumed a much higher rate of electrification with a
lot
> higher use of cabling.
> Since lots more aluminum was used for overhead lines and communications
> became glass fiber oriented rather than copper, such predictions were too
> linear.

Exactly!!! As copper became scarce, its price rose, and it became more
economic to use aluminum!! They were in gross error to ignore the effects of
substitution.
>
...del...
> What we will indeed run out of is CHEAP oil. But nobody seems to be
> making
> the connection between price and consumption. We have already run
> out of $2
> oil, but we presently have lots of $20 oil. AS time, and consumption
> go on,
> then we will indeed get to the point where the $20 oil is all gone,
> but
> there will still be $30 oil
>
> You end the example at $30 oil, I recall in 1982 the break-even price for
> the Canadian oil sands to be $40/barrel. In the meantime it came down, but
> even oil sands will be final.

Their reserves are quite large.... it will be a long time before they are
depleted.

> We will not only run out of CHEAP oil, but eventually run out of ALL oil
and
> gas which can be produced for prices to allow it to be used on the scale
and
> for the purposes it is used for now!!!!!.

 As these points are successively reached, we will conserve and substitute,
extending the remaining supply. But we will not run out, for this very
reason.

 That calls for alternatives and
> that is what is at stake here: WHAT alternatives and WHEN and for what
> PRICES.

As prices rise, the $, as the "universal arbiter", will allow things to get
sorted out.

> That there always will be some sewing machine lube oil left (I love your
> example!), is very true, and is probably not debated by many.
> What is meant by "running out", I think, is the bulk of oil+gas as used
for
> bulk fueling as applied today.
> Correct?

My concern is with the shallow and simplistic term "running out." As
presented, it infers "absolutely no more oil", and I contend that it is
silly to do this without mentioning oil price.
>
...del..>
> Let's be glad OPEC only can manipulate the price, and not manipulate and
> destroy the actual supplies to up that price!!!
> Remember what is done to up the price of apples?

OK.... the advantage with oil is that it doesn't rot.... they can simply
hold it off the market with no loss in value.

> Fortunately, if the oil price is too high to our liking, we'll be able to
> enjoy it a little while longer :-)

Exactly!!
> Unfortunately, also the natl gas price I pay for home heating is linked to
> that OPEC price, although no OPEC country is involved. So, who can I
blame?

This is a clever way for the natural gas companies to lock you in to natural
gas, while at the same time leaving themselves open to windfall benefits
when the oil prices make their periodic leaps upward.

Kindest regards,

Kevin Chisholm

 best,
> Andries
>
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