Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: Renewable Energy  (Read 1518865 times)

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2200 on: December 03, 2017, 06:06:47 PM »
On average windmills run at 30 to 40 % of their maximum capacity. So that 20 000 MW will generate 6000 to 8000 MW on average. With peaks from 0 to 20 000 MW between it.

Wind farms that have come online since 2013 report capacity factors in the low 40% range with some over 50%.  As we move to 140 meter hub heights the DOE predicts that 60% will become the norm.

Even at 40% CF wind is now the cheapest way to generate electricity.  Unsubsidized wind is now less than $0.03/kWh which is lower than the operating prices for many paid off coal and nuclear plants.

Alexander555

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2503
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 185
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2201 on: December 03, 2017, 06:08:07 PM »
Yes, it's a good thing. But still plenty work ahead. If you look at that 100 MW battery from Tesla. It's build to power 30 000 homes in a case of emergency.  But only for 1 hour.  That's a big battery for 1 hour of power. The last time these homes went off-grid for a couple of days.

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2202 on: December 03, 2017, 06:47:01 PM »
Huge job ahead.

But we already had a huge job ahead.  Over the next 30 or so years most of the electricity plants we are using right now will age out.  The average lifespan of a coal or nuclear plant in the US is about 40 years.

It's not a matter of doing a big job.  It's simply what we decide to use to replace those worn out large thermal plants.  And luckily for us wind, solar, and storage will cost a lot less to install than would have new fossil fuel and nuclear plants.

gerontocrat

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 20384
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 5289
  • Likes Given: 69
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2203 on: December 03, 2017, 07:18:47 PM »
Yes, it's a good thing. But still plenty work ahead. If you look at that 100 MW battery from Tesla. It's build to power 30 000 homes in a case of emergency.  But only for 1 hour.  That's a big battery for 1 hour of power. The last time these homes went off-grid for a couple of days.
The South Australia screw-up was mostly bad management - the gas powered generators did not come on when needed. The fossil fuel politicians in charge tried to blame renewable energy.

In the UK the French and Chinese are building a new nuclear power station - Hinkley C. When it comes online in 7 to 10 years time ( perhaps) the operator is guaranteed about 13 cents a kwh wholesale price. Current estimates are that the consumer is going to be stiffed for about 40 billion USD over the 30 years guaranteed price (+ inflation ?).

Certainly Hinkley C will be a contender by the time the damn thing is built for the most expensive electricity being produced by a new facility in the world. One could build an awful lot of wind and solar capacity with battery back-up with that sort of loot. With such shorter lead times and a bit of basic forward planning that investment can be done as and when needed, and use new forms of backup such as EVs as the technology develops.

But this relatively simple administrative procedure is beyond the ken of those who presume to govern us, who want to leave something BIG to point at when they are retired.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

gerontocrat

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 20384
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 5289
  • Likes Given: 69
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2204 on: December 03, 2017, 07:35:36 PM »
I repeat below a posting from  Conservative Scientists & its Consequences that belongs here I think.

Re: Conservative Scientists & its Consequences
« Reply #2032 on: Today at 07:31:32 PM »

Alexander555  Today at 05:57:31 PM
If they would not use natural gas. And you would be talking on the scale of a medium city. How would you heat them ?

You are right to point out that bottleneck that has had me scratching my head for some time.

In the UK nearly all housing relies on gas for hot water and heating - the "combi boiler". In my wanderings all down eastern europe and scandinavia district heating was the norm for towns and cities, powered by hot water from waste heat from power stations  - even though after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact many in eastern europe were in dire straits.

As yet I have seen very little discussion on this.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2205 on: December 03, 2017, 08:58:02 PM »
Quote
It's build to power 30 000 homes in a case of emergency.  But only for 1 hour.
No it was not designed for that purpose at all and will never be used in such a naive way. It is a piece of overall grid systems engineering designed to stabilize grid frequency at fifty cycles per second.

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/PDF/Guide-to-Ancillary-Services-in-the-National-Electricity-Market.ashx

The battery is adjacent to and wired into the adjacent Horndale wind farm, with both run by a French energy company Neoen. Tesla is outta there; they will not operate the battery. In fact they didn't even build it, the contract went to an Adelaide engineering firm, Consolidated Power Projects. Nor did Tesla make the component batteries, Samsung did.

Horndale currently exports its excess energy production into the national grid and is part of a trial showing that wind can supply a base load level of energy, known as frequency control and ancillary services or FCAS, competitive with traditional base load sources like coal and gas.

“It will help stabilise the grid in a state that now gets more than 40 percent of its electricity from wind energy, but needs help when the wind dies down.

Storage can respond within a fraction of a second. It can address those stability issues very quickly without needing to resort to using large power plants,” said Praveen Kathpal, vice president of AES Energy Storage.

The battery will make brownouts less frequent and enable the local grid to restart faster and less expensively than before. It is not a peaking plant though conceptually related to temporary demand shaving.

As soon as there's a signal from the grid that there is a demand for extra electricity, then the battery will discharge briefly into the grid at the required rate.

During periods of low demand and high wind, it's recharged by Horndale. Thus the battery acts more as a load and frequency buffering system or power conditioning capacitor.

If the wind drops off or if there's a fault that happens near a network or a power station trips offline, this battery can rapidly respond for a short amount of time to provide voltage and frequency support in that local area until the rest of the generators in the system catch up and whatever other adjustments need to be made by the system operator.

It basically becomes a resource for system stability and security to protect against voltage and frequency disturbances. However it is not intended nor designed nor advertised as a fix-all solution for all possible energy generation loss scenarios (eg Puerto Rico).

The Australian state has faced widespread load shedding at times and a statewide blackout last September. Usually between 6pm and 7pm, there's a peak demand and the normal average peak demand in South Australia is something like 1600 megawatts. During heatwaves this becomes closer to 3000 megawatts.

Tesla says the lithium ion batteries in the Jamestown array have a life of about 15 years, depending on usage and how aggressively they are recharged. The battery components are replaceable and the circuitry should last 20 to 30 years.

The batteries used in energy storage facilities that connect to the grid are not exactly the same as those seen in Tesla cars but have some design elements in common. Tesla has partnered with Panasonic on the development and production of its Powerpack technology.

Despite this, it partnered with Samsung on the Southern Australia facility because Panasonic could not produce the required batteries within the tight deadline.Tesla will soon be facing stiff competition from power firms. Next year, a battery storage facility 50% larger than Tesla's in Australia will be turned on in South Korea."

I had thought the US had a near-monopoly on morons but that is not correct: there are leaders in Australia who have not a clue even today what the battery capabilities are, for example coal promoter  federal Treasurer S. Morrison:

"By all means have the world's biggest battery, have the world's biggest banana, have the world's biggest prawn like we have on roadsides around the country but that is not solving the problem," Morrison said.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 11:48:29 PM by A-Team »

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2206 on: December 03, 2017, 09:51:11 PM »
Last I heard the contract for Hinkley Point runs for 35 years and the price per MWh increases with inflation. 

If Hinkley came online this year the wholesale cost of electricity from the reactor would be about $0.14/kWh which is only a penny less than the UK's average retail rate.

Wind and solar contracts (we call them Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in the US) are generally 20 to 25 years long and the price is fixed.  A wind PPA at $0.02/kWh in 2017 will mean that the utility is still paying $0.02/kWh in 2037 or 2042.  But the value of that 2 cents will be significantly less due to inflation.  25 years at an average of 3% could lower the effective cost to 1 cent by the end of the contract.

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2207 on: December 03, 2017, 09:54:50 PM »
Quote
I had thought the US had a near-monopoly on morons but that is not correct: there are leaders in Australia

Please, let's not leave out the UK (Hinkley) and Canada (tar sands). 

Perhaps it's genetic or some strange quirk in the English language....

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2208 on: December 03, 2017, 09:57:20 PM »
Quote
How would you heat them ?

Heat pumps.  Lots more insulation and weather tightening and use heat pumps.

All future buildings should be designed to need very little heat.  That is a technology we well understand and can codify.

numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2209 on: December 03, 2017, 10:31:36 PM »
Yes, it's a good thing. But still plenty work ahead. If you look at that 100 MW battery from Tesla. It's build to power 30 000 homes in a case of emergency.  But only for 1 hour.  That's a big battery for 1 hour of power. The last time these homes went off-grid for a couple of days.

If you look at the graph that Sigmetnow posted, you'll see that the battery is being used not to power 30k homes for an hour once a day, but to play the market, soaking up cheap electricity and dumping it out when there's a brief demand peak -- it's cycling back and forth repeatedly on short periods.

numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2210 on: December 03, 2017, 10:46:22 PM »
Quote
How would you heat them ?

Heat pumps.  Lots more insulation and weather tightening and use heat pumps.

All future buildings should be designed to need very little heat.  That is a technology we well understand and can codify.

Large parts of where Alexander is talking about have temperatures below what a heat pump can handle.

I don't know that we have a great answer for electrification of heat that can handle a polar vortex incursion: over a broad area you get light winds (and strong winds at the margin) and very cold temperatures. Hydro power does fine with that, because you don't tend to lose much streamflow during a cold snap; and nuclear also is fine. A majority solar + wind grid would need a *lot* of spare transmission capacity to go from what's normally a heat pump setup to, during that cold snap, a lot of resistive heat.

The US sees this effect at relatively low latitudes, so its solar power would do well during a cold snap. Scandinavia and eastern Europe not so much.

Alexander555

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2503
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 185
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2211 on: December 03, 2017, 11:04:55 PM »
Yes , i understand that it was not build to power 30 000 homes every day for 1 hour. But that is what it can do. And i understand that it helps to stabalise your net. It's 100 MW spare capacity. But if 40 % from your energy comes from wind, and the wind dies, that battery want help very much if your normal demand is like 1600 MW. You can add solar, but that is also unstable. And you would need a lot from it to compensate for the loss of wind. And you would need a lot of windmills to compensate the potential loss from your solar. And if you lose them bowth , that would require a very large battery. To big to become reality. It could maybe cover a minimum, like for hospitals for a longer time. And shutting down industrial facilities. Probably our industrial production will look different tomorrow than it is today. Fast delivery, always having everything..... it will probably all become a little bit less normal.

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2212 on: December 03, 2017, 11:45:56 PM »
Quote
Large parts of where Alexander is talking about have temperatures below what a heat pump can handle.

During the very coldest hours some resistive heating might be needed.  But modern heat pumps are much better than I suspect you realize.

Really cold places can use geothermal heat pumps.  Extract the heat at 55F a few feet under the surface.

Coldest places need lots of insulation.  There are houses in far northern settings which need very little heating. 

If need be we could do some electricity -> synfuel for the coldest hours.

A lot of spare transmission or local storage. 

There are multiple solutions other than burning fossil fuel.  And nuclear is simply too expensive.

numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2213 on: December 04, 2017, 12:13:47 AM »
True, ground-sourced heat pumps would work well for this region (and apparently are common in Scandinavia).

I certainly wasn't including fossil fuels as a "great answer". Synfuels or burning biomass are both mediocre answers, because of the pollution from burning things. In an urban environment it gets a bit much.

Sigmetnow

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 25763
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1153
  • Likes Given: 430
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2214 on: December 04, 2017, 12:14:33 AM »
Yes, it's a good thing. But still plenty work ahead. If you look at that 100 MW battery from Tesla. It's build to power 30 000 homes in a case of emergency.  But only for 1 hour.  That's a big battery for 1 hour of power. The last time these homes went off-grid for a couple of days.

If you look at the graph that Sigmetnow posted, you'll see that the battery is being used not to power 30k homes for an hour once a day, but to play the market, soaking up cheap electricity and dumping it out when there's a brief demand peak -- it's cycling back and forth repeatedly on short periods.

This:  :)

Australia:  Tesla 100MW battery flexes muscles early this morning – delivers 70MWh of ‘stored wind power’, shows off fast switching
Quote
The unit also got to show off its ability to switch quickly from charging to pushing electrons onto the power grid. According to the below image from RenewEconomy, it looks like during a 4 hour period the battery was able to switch state at least 14 times.
...
In the old world, responsibility to deliver electricity in 30 minute settlement periods was acceptable because old technology – gas/coal – needed that long to react.

Tesla’s battery can react nearly instantly. The coal and gas people know they’ll lose out to batteries in the most expensive, most profitable settlement periods because they’re slow. This will become more obvious every single day now that the data will be so clear to see.
https://electrek.co/2017/11/30/tesla-100mw-battery-flexes-muscles-early-this-morning-delivers-70mw-of-stored-wind-energy-shows-off-fast-switching/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2215 on: December 04, 2017, 12:14:47 AM »
Quote
that battery won't help very much if your normal demand is like 1600 MW.
Please read the Chap.2 of the AEMO's Ancillary Services explanation. That is where and when the Tesla battery kicks in. Fifty cycles per second, gotta maintain that frequency irrespective of demand variations, large or small, fast or slow. Turbine inertia doesn't play the role it once did.

It is not a backup system for home fridges nor a grid pricing opportunity feast for Enron cowboys. Australian hospitals already have installed UPS (uninterruptible power supplies) from the day they are first built, as do all essential services in all developed countries. Last thing you want to do is assume a remote power pylon is still standing or a transformer at your local substation hasn't blown.

Electrical grids (power systems engineering) have undergone nearly a century of intense development. It has moved on from making sure everyone has a supply of smart candles.

http://energy.mit.edu/publication/future-electric-grid/

Quote
Regulation frequency control can be described as the correction of the generation / demand balance in response to minor deviations in load or generation. Contingency frequency control refers to the correction of the generation / demand balance following a major contingency event such as the loss of a generating unit/major industrial load, or a large transmission element.

Regulation services are continually used to correct for minor changes in the demand / supply balance. However, contingency services, while always enabled to cover contingency events, are only occasionally used. Regulation services are controlled centrally from one of AEMO’s two control centers. Contingency services are controlled locally and are triggered by the frequency deviation that follows a contingency event.

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/PDF/Guide-to-Ancillary-Services-in-the-National-Electricity-Market.ashx

I have a humorous (?) anecdote to share about intellectual decline in the US (aka KW vs KWH). Talking to campers last spring at the next site over at Joshua Tree NP, it turned out the lady taught electric engineering at UC Berkeley. I asked how the students were these days. She said "they've gotten better, first day of class I asked if it was ok to teach the rest of the semester in Hangul [[Korean]]. It was."
« Last Edit: December 04, 2017, 12:45:18 AM by A-Team »

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2216 on: December 04, 2017, 12:26:09 AM »
Quote
How would you heat them ?

Heat pumps.  Lots more insulation and weather tightening and use heat pumps.

All future buildings should be designed to need very little heat.  That is a technology we well understand and can codify.

Large parts of where Alexander is talking about have temperatures below what a heat pump can handle.

I don't know that we have a great answer for electrification of heat that can handle a polar vortex incursion: over a broad area you get light winds (and strong winds at the margin) and very cold temperatures. Hydro power does fine with that, because you don't tend to lose much streamflow during a cold snap; and nuclear also is fine. A majority solar + wind grid would need a *lot* of spare transmission capacity to go from what's normally a heat pump setup to, during that cold snap, a lot of resistive heat.

The US sees this effect at relatively low latitudes, so its solar power would do well during a cold snap. Scandinavia and eastern Europe not so much.
In Southern California, near the ocean, heat pumps make sense economically. In Southern Nevada, where winter temperatures regularly drop below freezing, an air/air heat pump burns more electricity than straight resistance electrical heating.
Using tap water to extract heat from, or to utilize as a heat sink, is illegal in both states. and in most jurisdictions.
If you think our local has harsher winters than Southern California, think of a different method of staying warm.
Terry

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2217 on: December 04, 2017, 12:44:23 AM »
A question.


Is methane, captured say from residential septic tanks, considered a fossil fuel, or a renewable resource?


It's by definition not fossil based, and if not captured and utilized, the methane simply escapes and plays havoc with our atmosphere. I think that a family might be able to capture enough CH4 from the effluent they produce to heat a properly insulated home, possibly with enough left over to cook with, or even enough to also provide fuel for a small absorption system refrigerator.


I don't know how sewage is handled in the arctic, but this could be an energy source that is presently being wasted.


Discussion?
Terry

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2218 on: December 04, 2017, 12:59:03 AM »
Quote
methane, captured say from residential septic tank, a viable energy source?
No, wouldn't be enough. However it is common in the US to capture methane from soggy landfills (simply using soil-over-tarps to collect it), then burn on-site (to carbon dioxide) in caterpillar diesel for utility electric, as for instance at the Lane County, Oregon facility at Short Mtn. Digesters also fairly common but not ubiquitous for higher volume hog and dairy farm sewage.

The thing with methane is only archaea can make it, it requires strict anaerobic conditions (to avoid nickel, iron sulfide, and molybdate cofactor poisoning) plus the absence of better terminal electron acceptors such as sulfate, manganese oxide, iron oxide, nitrate and so forth that are energetically more favorable (and so more competitive biologically). Composting toilets like the clivus multrum are by design aerobic and so do not make or capture methane. These would not work in the Arctic (until summer) as there is zero microbial activity of any kind in the frozen state.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2017, 01:05:01 AM by A-Team »

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2219 on: December 04, 2017, 01:45:47 AM »
Septic tank sludge builds in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. By adding enzymes, or enzyme producing bacteria to both chambers of a septic tank, or a digester system, the CH4 production is much enhanced, and while higher temperatures speed the process, the process itself is exothermic.


There was a community near San Diego that was experimenting with this in the 50's, and I fought the State of California over the manufacture and sale of enzyme based septic tank additives in the 70's. I won !!


I haven't kept up with the literature from that time, but my recollection is that quite a few BTUs could be extracted.


Modern digesters, as I understand it, now are built with 3 or more chambers and are designed to keep the anaerobic sludge agitated by the flow of the incoming effluent.
While dairy farms are the most obvious sites for large volumes of gas, and cow poo is a wonderful source of enzyme producing bacteria, an enzyme enhanced, human waste only system, will produce gas throughout the year.
I suspect that the reason it hasn't been utilized is the vanishingly small cost of natural gas. (except possibly in isolated arctic communities)


I'll try doing some homework.
Seems as though Mother Jones and others had some articles, and perhaps some leads.
Terry




numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2220 on: December 04, 2017, 02:09:45 AM »
Power from landfill methane or trash incinerators count as waste in the statistics. It's often folded in with biomass, which is not entirely appropriate if you're incinerating waste petrochemicals and plastics, but it's not a big amount so who cares. The main reason to do these activities is to avoid atmospheric methane, and to avoid using land area for trash -- not to produce electricity or heat.

Sewage sludge you can compost, but it's still nasty stuff thanks to all the drugs and flame retardants and so on that don't break down in a compost pool. Accordingly, some places spread it on crops, others dump it into the sea. Because of course that's what you'd do with hazardous waste.

Composting in the Arctic is no problem, as long as you have enough waste. The bacteria will keep the pool warm. One house wouldn't have enough waste, but a town does.

Archimid

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3511
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 899
  • Likes Given: 206
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2221 on: December 04, 2017, 02:17:19 AM »
5-10 MW of abandoned hydro power just powered up a whole town in Puerto Rico.

https://www.telemundopr.com/noticias/Energizan-parte-de-Jayuya-con-energia-renovable-lago-dos-bocas-aee-461700773.html

Translated by google
Quote
The auxiliary operator of the Electric Power Authority, Jorge Bracero announced today the energization of parts of Jayuya thanks to the hydroelectric power station of Lago Dos Bocas in Utuado.
The plant, built in the early 1940s, has a capacity of 5 to 10 megawatts "completely clean," Bracero explained on his Facebook page. Click here to watch the video.

He also assured that it is "renewable by the natural flow of water".
The Dos Bocas hydroelectric plant is one of the 21 plants built in the 20th century, under the Fluvial Sources Authority, now known as the AEE.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2222 on: December 04, 2017, 02:17:46 AM »
Methane from sewage and composted waste can be a renewable energy source.  We're going to keep growing, eating, and 'processing' stuff.  We really should compost out the methane from food/plant waste and put the residual back into the soil rather than putting it in a landfill and then tapping the gas from there.

We should be working harder for a no-landfill future. 
--

I gave a number of ways to deal with heat pumps in very cold climates.  I'll list them more formally.

1) Super insulation.  Occupant body heat, cooking and water heating will do much of the job.

2) Resistive heating.  Marginal areas where it gets really cold not to many hours of the year.

3) Biogas backup.  Urban areas could do some heating with collected biogas.

4) Geothermal sourcing of heat.  Very good solution for the coldest places. 

5) Synfuel.  Apparently progress is being made in Europe on turning electricity to H2 and storing that H2 for later use.

6) Storing heat.  Install insulated water/salts storage and heat it up when there's extra electricity.  Use a water to air heat pump to pull out the heat as needed.


numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2223 on: December 04, 2017, 03:12:17 AM »
If you separate out the food and plant waste, you should probably compost it aerobically. That'll result in a lot less atmospheric methane than fermenting it anaerobically and hoping to capture the methane.

There's methods to convert food waste to liquid fuels, but AFAIK they're either too expensive or not effective enough outside some niche uses.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2224 on: December 04, 2017, 03:54:05 AM »
Quote
If you separate out the food and plant waste, you should probably compost it aerobically. That'll result in a lot less atmospheric methane than fermenting it anaerobically and hoping to capture the methane.
Right. Home composters run micro-aerobically, that is the whole purpose of turning them and have wire cloth on the bottom. If not they would ferment with organic electron donors and receptors, ending up like yoghurt, beer or vinegar with zero methane byproduct. (Fungi and bacteria are utterly incapable of producing methane.)

Methane production by archaea arises either as a fermentation of acetate or by anaerobic cellular respiration. In the former, the methane derives from the methyl of acetate with byproduct CO2. In the latter, H2 or formate are the oxidized with C02 the terminal electron acceptor and source of the carbon atom in the waste product methane.

The difference is important and explained here https://tinyurl.com/hl25rla and here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_respiration. There is very little energy to be had either way:

Quote
Anaerobic microorganisms play a major role in the global carbon cycle by remineralizing the large quantities of organic matter which enter anoxic marine and freshwater environments. Methane and CO2 are the end products of anaerobic decomposition, which occurs in a diversity of habitats, such as the rumens of ruminant animals, the lower intestinal tracts of humans, sewage digesters, landfills, rice paddies, and the sediments of freshwater lakes and rivers.

The methanogenic decomposition of organic matter requires microbial consortia composed of at least three interacting metabolic groups of anaerobes. The fermentative bacteria degrade polymers to H2, CO2, formate, acetate, and higher volatile carboxylic acids. The acetogenic bacteria then oxidize the higher acids to acetate and either H2 or formate.

The strictly anaerobic methane-producing microorganisms are the final group in the consortia and utilize H2, formate, and acetate as substrates for growth. Methane producers represent the largest and most diverse group within the Archaea domain.

Most of the methane released is oxidized to CO2 by the strictly aerobic methanotrophs; however, a significant proportion escapes into the upper atmosphere where methane has a major role in
the greenhouse effect.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC206491/pdf/jbacter00083-0013.pdf

Compost produces methane only when in an anaerobic digester with no better oxidants. But often there would be in food waste or outhouse situation. As in Arctic marine sediments, sulfate and nitrate (anaerobic respiration) can substitute for oxygen, with however less energy (fewer ATP) produced. The waste products here are sulfide and nitrite, rather than methane. E coli can respire to hydrogen gas which is often confused with methane.

Can't say this often enough: no bacterium in the last three billion years has produced methane. Wrong phylum. It takes a whole suite of specialized archaeal enzymes that have never been gotten going in as purified enzymes in vitro lab system to produce methane. They are not stable lyophilized or in air and not for sale anywhere. And in vivo they have never produced a single molecule of ethane, propane, butane, etc.

Methane, being a single carbon with its outer electron shell happily wound up with tetrahedral hydrogens, is exceedingly stable, hard to capture and store compared to longer chain alkanes. Not quite as bad as helium and diatomic hydrogen but still much more difficult to work with than propane..

It is all very similar to nitrogenase, too sensitive to molecular oxygen. We would all love to get rid of the energy intensive Haber-Bosch process using an in vitro enzyme mix running on sugar and hydrogen gas and air. Nothing commercial to show there after sixty years of effort.

For heat, it is far better to burn buffalo chips like the natives did. The trick there is finding them already dried out. If they are damp, the energy released by oxidation is wasted in latent heat of vaporization of all the water. How is the drying to work in the Arctic?
« Last Edit: December 04, 2017, 02:27:03 PM by A-Team »

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2225 on: December 04, 2017, 04:12:05 AM »
Quote
A dairy farm which converts manure into methane gas has increased production so fast it is now making enough gas for 6,000 homes.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-35482839

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2226 on: December 04, 2017, 04:46:33 AM »
5-10 MW of abandoned hydro power just powered up a whole town in Puerto Rico.

https://www.telemundopr.com/noticias/Energizan-parte-de-Jayuya-con-energia-renovable-lago-dos-bocas-aee-461700773.html

Translated by google
Quote
The auxiliary operator of the Electric Power Authority, Jorge Bracero announced today the energization of parts of Jayuya thanks to the hydroelectric power station of Lago Dos Bocas in Utuado.
The plant, built in the early 1940s, has a capacity of 5 to 10 megawatts "completely clean," Bracero explained on his Facebook page. Click here to watch the video.

He also assured that it is "renewable by the natural flow of water".
The Dos Bocas hydroelectric plant is one of the 21 plants built in the 20th century, under the Fluvial Sources Authority, now known as the AEE.
The first really good news i've heard out of Puerto Rico of since the hurricane! By the way, sorry about the Cotto decision. He was always one of my all time favorites win or lose.
Terry

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2227 on: December 04, 2017, 05:05:26 AM »
If you separate out the food and plant waste, you should probably compost it aerobically. That'll result in a lot less atmospheric methane than fermenting it anaerobically and hoping to capture the methane.

There's methods to convert food waste to liquid fuels, but AFAIK they're either too expensive or not effective enough outside some niche uses.


Capturing methane in a properly designed system is trivial, when gas capture is the objective. Further south converting a rural septic system to a methane capturing digester isn't terribly difficult, and with a new installation it's that much easier.


How is your sewage presently treated? Is each home connected by pipe to a central system, does each home have a cistern that requires pumping and then transportation to a central facility, or does each home have a septic tank connected to something similar to a cesspool, where the liquids seep back into the ground?


Terry

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2228 on: December 04, 2017, 05:14:42 AM »
Quote
A dairy farm which converts manure into methane gas has increased production so fast it is now making enough gas for 6,000 homes.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-35482839


This is the process I'm referring to, although my thoughts don't run to this size of operation.
Terry

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6774
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1047
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2229 on: December 04, 2017, 05:43:03 AM »
I know a farmer who used to run 28 kilowatt in summer off methane from manure outta 800 pigs. But he quit, didn't have enuf insulation and wound up with a mess every winter when temperature dropped. Didn't want to spend the money to redig and insulate. Electric from the utility was cheaper. Gone back to spraying pigshit on fields.

sidd

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2230 on: December 04, 2017, 06:41:20 AM »
Quote
A dairy farm which converts manure into methane gas has increased production so fast it is now making enough gas for 6,000 homes.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-35482839


This is the process I'm referring to, although my thoughts don't run to this size of operation.
Terry

There are very low tech methane digesters in use in India and other countries.  The systems provide enough gas for cooking and eliminate the need for women to spend large amounts of time collecting firewood. 

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2231 on: December 04, 2017, 09:37:54 AM »

There are very low tech methane digesters in use in India and other countries.  The systems provide enough gas for cooking and eliminate the need for women to spend large amounts of time collecting firewood.
Perhaps a slightly higher tech system could provide enough gas to take the chill off a well insulated home, and have enough left over for other uses?



I found one link so far that may help with some basics


http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/cook2/docs/methane_digesters.pdf


In the 50's they were modifying concrete septic tank lids as well as the incoming and outgoing sani-tees and producing usable amounts of "bio-gas". By the 70's we were producing broad spectrum enzymes that would eat just about any organic found in household drains. These were for clearing drains, septic tank leach fields, and cesspools, we never considered using them for gas production, possibly because I was busy trying to figure out how to pay the lawyer.


Modern fiberglass septic tanks should be much easier to modify, and the latest broad spectrum enzymes should be much more efficient at producing CH4.
Terry

numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2232 on: December 04, 2017, 01:18:18 PM »
Capturing methane in a properly designed system is trivial, when gas capture is the objective. Further south converting a rural septic system to a methane capturing digester isn't terribly difficult, and with a new installation it's that much easier.

What fraction leaks? You don't need to leak much to be as bad over the next century as burning fossil fuels (over the next millennium the fossil fuels are always worse).

Quote
How is your sewage presently treated? Is each home connected by pipe to a central system, does each home have a cistern that requires pumping and then transportation to a central facility, or does each home have a septic tank connected to something similar to a cesspool, where the liquids seep back into the ground?

Some of Iqaluit is on pipes, and some is trucked. The smaller communities are all on trucked services. A septic tank wouldn't work on permafrost.

The sewage tank is outside the building envelope, which seems like a pity in terms of conserving heat -- and having the tank freeze is a problem. But I can imagine why they'd do it that way for olfactory reasons.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2233 on: December 04, 2017, 02:38:22 PM »
For a quick reality check, here's a 25 year history of commercial utility electric from landfill methane capture.

Short Mountain Landfill Gas - Emerald People's Utility District
https://www.epud.org
https://www.epud.org/about/power-resources/short-mountain-landfill-gas/
https://www.epud.org/news/waste-to-watts-epud-turns-harmful-gas-into-power/
https://www.epud.org/news/epuds-methane-power-plant-turns-25/

Quote
Like spinning straw into gold, the Short Mountain Methane Power Plant takes ozone-damaging landfill gas and turns it into valuable electricity. The first phase became operational in 1992. The second phase expansion started up in 1993. The project's total cost was $2.6 million. It generates about 15 million kilowatt hours 

Landfills aren't going away; instead there's been massive consolidation because of licensing issues. The other trend, at least for Seattle and Portland, is barging them out to a single gigantic dry,  properly lined site in the desert. Such sites won't produce methane (by design, no water) but neither will they contaminate groundwater because leachate is collected and sprayed back on the top. In fact landfills like Arlington won't produce CO2 either. The dry garbage just sits there under the tarps.

Ditto our slash pile in Tucson. Yard trimmings here break down on a century time scale, primarily from UV and brittleness. At first I rented a chipper and spread them out to enrich the soil. But the chips too just sit there ten years later. You can seal H2 and O2 in an ampule and not see any water formed over the lifetime of the universe even though the reaction is highly exothermic.

Here's a nice summary of what goes on in a home septic system and why, like the human lower intestinal track, it mostly produces H2 and CO2 rather than CH4:

Quote
Anaerobic microorganisms play a major role in the global carbon cycle by remineralizing the large quantities of organic matter which enter anoxic marine and freshwater environments. Methane and CO2 are the end products of anaerobic decomposition, which occurs in a diversity of habitats, such as the rumens of ruminant animals, the lower intestinal tracts of humans, sewage digesters, landfills, rice paddies, and the sediments of freshwater lakes and rivers.

The methanogenic decomposition of organic matter requires microbial consortia composed of at least three interacting metabolic groups of anaerobes. The fermentative bacteria degrade polymers to H2, CO2, formate, acetate, and [longer chain] carboxylic acids. The acetogenic bacteria then oxidize the higher acids to acetate and either H2 or formate.

The strictly anaerobic methane-producing microorganisms are the final group in the consortia and utilize H2, formate, and acetate as substrates for growth. Methane producers represent the largest and most diverse group within the Archaea domain.

Most of the methane released is oxidized to CO2 by the strictly aerobic methanotrophs; however, a significant proportion escapes into the upper atmosphere where methane has a major role in
the greenhouse effect.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC206491/pdf/jbacter00083-0013.pdf JG Ferry 1997

We were afflicted with the Powerwall misunderstanding at the time our rooftop panels were put in. The installers diplomatically explained that its meagre kwh capacity made no sense at all relative to net zero. A $20 styrofoam cooler from Home Depot can keep food cold for a week or more if power goes out. A $30 fan rigged as swamp cooler can step in for AC.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2017, 04:51:33 PM by A-Team »

Zythryn

  • New ice
  • Posts: 81
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 9
  • Likes Given: 47
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2234 on: December 04, 2017, 02:59:29 PM »
In Southern California, near the ocean, heat pumps make sense economically. In Southern Nevada, where winter temperatures regularly drop below freezing, an air/air heat pump burns more electricity than straight resistance electrical heating.
Using tap water to extract heat from, or to utilize as a heat sink, is illegal in both states. and in most jurisdictions.
If you think our local has harsher winters than Southern California, think of a different method of staying warm.
Terry

There is a huge difference between air source and ground source heat pumps.
Granted, ground source heat pumps don’t work well everywhere, but they do work well in lots of places.
Our house in Minnesota uses zero natural gas, propane etc.. It is all electric and uses heat pump tech for heating, cooling, domestic hot water and clothes drying.
Our solar panels supply more net energy than our house and transportation use annually.

Heat pump technology can be used very efficiently in cold climates.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2235 on: December 04, 2017, 04:36:58 PM »
Burning 'buffalo chips' makes more sense than home septic methane. First, septic systems are not properly anaerobic because flushing brings in oxygenated water. They cannot be sealed because of back-pressure issues and egress to the drain field. Indeed ours becomes clogged with mesquite roots which (unlike ash trees) are obligatorily aerobic.

And what is the daily dry weight of non-mineral solids going into the system from a small household?  Realistically, not a quarter of the carbon could ever be converted to methane. Why not just burn a half a broken shingle in the wood stove?

Municipal sanitary systems in the US have taken the opposite tack: vigorous aeration, with trace and bulk nutritional supplementation as advisable. Microbial oxidative capacity, eg by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, covers a vastly more extensive range of organic compounds than anaerobic. The follow-on step is often discharge to rivers so the idea is to consume everything possible in the aeration basins. It's not perfect however: the water downstream today is still measurably awash in opiates, birth control hormones and tranquilizers.

The number one problem in cool wetter climes is infiltration by stormwater. Some large cities like Portland, OR started off with commingled and leaky collection systems. The volume of water overwhelms the aeration basins and dilutes organic compounds below effective microbial uptake levels, resulting in direct discharge of raw sewage because microbial metabolism doesn't have time to consume it. In Eugene, OR the city blew in thermo-plastic liners all over town to the sanitary sewers (first smoking out illegal hookups). Reducing infiltration was vastly more affordable than expanding the treatment facility.

Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton 2002
https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-You-Relations/dp/1567510604
« Last Edit: December 04, 2017, 04:54:12 PM by A-Team »

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2236 on: December 04, 2017, 06:49:38 PM »
Capturing methane in a properly designed system is trivial, when gas capture is the objective. Further south converting a rural septic system to a methane capturing digester isn't terribly difficult, and with a new installation it's that much easier.

What fraction leaks? You don't need to leak much to be as bad over the next century as burning fossil fuels (over the next millennium the fossil fuels are always worse).

Quote
How is your sewage presently treated? Is each home connected by pipe to a central system, does each home have a cistern that requires pumping and then transportation to a central facility, or does each home have a septic tank connected to something similar to a cesspool, where the liquids seep back into the ground?

Some of Iqaluit is on pipes, and some is trucked. The smaller communities are all on trucked services. A septic tank wouldn't work on permafrost.

The sewage tank is outside the building envelope, which seems like a pity in terms of conserving heat -- and having the tank freeze is a problem. But I can imagine why they'd do it that way for olfactory reasons.
First, thanks for the information re. sewage transport and collection in the Iqaluit region, and confirmation that Iqaluit is in a permafrost zone.
As far as the fraction of leaks, it's vanishingly small in part because the pressure is so very low. A typical residential or commercial system operates at 6-7 water column inches, or between 1/5 and 1/4 of a pound/sq. inch. The metering system drops the line pressure to these levels before the gas enters your home.
This could be compared to the orders of magnitude larger pressures found in refrigeration, A/C, or Heat Pump systems, where refrigerants are expected to remain entrapped forever.


Terry

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2237 on: December 04, 2017, 07:13:04 PM »
For a quick reality check, here's a 25 year history of commercial utility electric from landfill methane capture.

Short Mountain Landfill Gas - Emerald People's Utility District
https://www.epud.org
https://www.epud.org/about/power-resources/short-mountain-landfill-gas/
https://www.epud.org/news/waste-to-watts-epud-turns-harmful-gas-into-power/
https://www.epud.org/news/epuds-methane-power-plant-turns-25/

Quote
Like spinning straw into gold, the Short Mountain Methane Power Plant takes ozone-damaging landfill gas and turns it into valuable electricity. The first phase became operational in 1992. The second phase expansion started up in 1993. The project's total cost was $2.6 million. It generates about 15 million kilowatt hours 

Landfills aren't going away; instead there's been massive consolidation because of licensing issues. The other trend, at least for Seattle and Portland, is barging them out to a single gigantic dry,  properly lined site in the desert. Such sites won't produce methane (by design, no water) but neither will they contaminate groundwater because leachate is collected and sprayed back on the top. In fact landfills like Arlington won't produce CO2 either. The dry garbage just sits there under the tarps.

Ditto our slash pile in Tucson. Yard trimmings here break down on a century time scale, primarily from UV and brittleness. At first I rented a chipper and spread them out to enrich the soil. But the chips too just sit there ten years later. You can seal H2 and O2 in an ampule and not see any water formed over the lifetime of the universe even though the reaction is highly exothermic.

Here's a nice summary of what goes on in a home septic system and why, like the human lower intestinal track, it mostly produces H2 and CO2 rather than CH4:

Quote
Anaerobic microorganisms play a major role in the global carbon cycle by remineralizing the large quantities of organic matter which enter anoxic marine and freshwater environments. Methane and CO2 are the end products of anaerobic decomposition, which occurs in a diversity of habitats, such as the rumens of ruminant animals, the lower intestinal tracts of humans, sewage digesters, landfills, rice paddies, and the sediments of freshwater lakes and rivers.

The methanogenic decomposition of organic matter requires microbial consortia composed of at least three interacting metabolic groups of anaerobes. The fermentative bacteria degrade polymers to H2, CO2, formate, acetate, and [longer chain] carboxylic acids. The acetogenic bacteria then oxidize the higher acids to acetate and either H2 or formate.

The strictly anaerobic methane-producing microorganisms are the final group in the consortia and utilize H2, formate, and acetate as substrates for growth. Methane producers represent the largest and most diverse group within the Archaea domain.

Most of the methane released is oxidized to CO2 by the strictly aerobic methanotrophs; however, a significant proportion escapes into the upper atmosphere where methane has a major role in
the greenhouse effect.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC206491/pdf/jbacter00083-0013.pdf JG Ferry 1997

We were afflicted with the Powerwall misunderstanding at the time our rooftop panels were put in. The installers diplomatically explained that its meagre kwh capacity made no sense at all relative to net zero. A $20 styrofoam cooler from Home Depot can keep food cold for a week or more if power goes out. A $30 fan rigged as swamp cooler can step in for AC.


Yes, I spent decades in both the high desert and the low desert. I've seen branches, skin and poop that survived from the last ice age. My baggy of Giant Sloth poo has begun to break down since my move to more moderate climbs. :-[


Fortunately we're concerned with the 60 to 70% CH4, 29 to 39% CO2 biogas figures that Stanford University came up with as recently as 2010


http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/cook2/


Terry

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2238 on: December 04, 2017, 07:32:24 PM »
In Southern California, near the ocean, heat pumps make sense economically. In Southern Nevada, where winter temperatures regularly drop below freezing, an air/air heat pump burns more electricity than straight resistance electrical heating.
Using tap water to extract heat from, or to utilize as a heat sink, is illegal in both states. and in most jurisdictions.
If you think our local has harsher winters than Southern California, think of a different method of staying warm.
Terry

There is a huge difference between air source and ground source heat pumps.
Granted, ground source heat pumps don’t work well everywhere, but they do work well in lots of places.
Our house in Minnesota uses zero natural gas, propane etc.. It is all electric and uses heat pump tech for heating, cooling, domestic hot water and clothes drying.
Our solar panels supply more net energy than our house and transportation use annually.

Heat pump technology can be used very efficiently in cold climates.
I should have noted the difference between the bolded. In desert regions these are referred to as Water Source Air Conditioners or Water Source Heat Pumps. My greatest successes were those that relied on swimming pools to provide the needed water. A warm pool and a cool house, what could be better. In a geo system water is required as the thermal transfer medium, swimming pools freeze up and crack. and in the desert damp soil is a rarity.
The fountains that Evil Knievel leapt so fearlessly over were an integral part of the system that kept Caesar's guests cool through the Las Vegas summers.
Anywhere damp ground that doesn't freeze to depth is available, water source heat pump systems are a possibility.
Terry
BTW - Sounds like you have a marvelous system.

TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2239 on: December 04, 2017, 07:52:22 PM »
Burning 'buffalo chips' makes more sense than home septic methane. First, septic systems are not properly anaerobic because flushing brings in oxygenated water. They cannot be sealed because of back-pressure issues and egress to the drain field. Indeed ours becomes clogged with mesquite roots which (unlike ash trees) are obligatorily aerobic.

And what is the daily dry weight of non-mineral solids going into the system from a small household?  Realistically, not a quarter of the carbon could ever be converted to methane. Why not just burn a half a broken shingle in the wood stove?

Municipal sanitary systems in the US have taken the opposite tack: vigorous aeration, with trace and bulk nutritional supplementation as advisable. Microbial oxidative capacity, eg by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, covers a vastly more extensive range of organic compounds than anaerobic. The follow-on step is often discharge to rivers so the idea is to consume everything possible in the aeration basins. It's not perfect however: the water downstream today is still measurably awash in opiates, birth control hormones and tranquilizers.

The number one problem in cool wetter climes is infiltration by stormwater. Some large cities like Portland, OR started off with commingled and leaky collection systems. The volume of water overwhelms the aeration basins and dilutes organic compounds below effective microbial uptake levels, resulting in direct discharge of raw sewage because microbial metabolism doesn't have time to consume it. In Eugene, OR the city blew in thermo-plastic liners all over town to the sanitary sewers (first smoking out illegal hookups). Reducing infiltration was vastly more affordable than expanding the treatment facility.

Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton 2002
https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-You-Relations/dp/1567510604


I'm considering individual family digesters, so everything you write about the problems of large municipal systems finds no resistance here.
According to the Stanford studies each adult was good for ~1/2# per diem. Those measurements may date back to the original work done in the 70's, so perhaps today's larger people would produce more?


Off topic, but if your mesquite roots are into your leach field this is good, transpiration. If the roots are in the septic tank or the sewer line this indicates a leak and it should be repaired, soon.
 A kid that had worked for me in California opened his own pumping service in Tucson. During the early 70's he was making big bucks pumping the slurry out of closed gasoline station tanks so they could fill them with oil to keep the oil shortage going just a few more months.


What a world.


Terry


TerryM

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6002
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2240 on: December 04, 2017, 09:09:01 PM »
Whew !
I finally caught up with the comments. :P


While Grand Junction Colorado is far larger the Iqaluit, and while they're compressing their bio-gas to power municipal vehicles, it's possible that the City Fathers of Iqaluit could learn something from their southern neighbors.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/16/colorado-grand-junction-persigo-wastewater-treatment-plant-human-waste-renewable-energy


If individuals processed their own home waste before it was sent to the municipal facility, some "free" energy might be extracted. Alternatively, if the community invested in a much larger digester, they might be able to provide space heating, hot water, and power for municipal generators.


Either would be preferable to the diesel generators and oil fired heaters presently used.


While neither of these solutions might be viable where piped natural gas is available, in the sparsely populated arctic this could change things for the better.


Terry
BTW
Am I correct in assuming that should septic tank waste prove to be a viable source of biogas, then the production, capture and use of this gas would be seen as an improvement over the energy sources presently available in isolated arctic communities?


If so, we could continue and discuss the design constraints that permafrost, huge temperature swings, low population density, and high transportation costs, would present in such a project. The fact that very low tech solutions have proven themselves in less extreme conditions might give us hope that these obstacles can be overcome.
Would a separate thread be appropriate?


Another blog discussing human feces as a biogas source.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/human_feces_as_biogas_source




Sigmetnow

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 25763
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1153
  • Likes Given: 430
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2241 on: December 04, 2017, 10:27:09 PM »
Tesla headed to the US Supreme Court over solar dispute
Quote
In a class action lawsuit, Tesla says Salt River Project (SRP) is acting in a monopolistic manner by imposing unfair fees on potential solar power purchasers. Salt River responded that they can’t be sued in a class action – and that’s what has reached the Supreme Court.

In the original case, filed in March 2015, attorneys for Tesla contend SRP’s new pricing plan approved last year amounts to a “substantial penalty” on customers.

“Because solar customers are unable to completely disconnect from SRP’s grid — they still need power in the evening hours and at other times when their energy demands exceed what their solar energy systems produce — they cannot escape SRP’s penalty,” the lawsuit contends.

That penalty, according to Tesla lawyers, is about $600 a year, an increase of about 65 percent over prior rate plans. That compares with an average 3.9% increase for residential customers who buy all their power from SRP. ...
https://electrek.co/2017/12/04/tesla-solar-supreme-court/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

sidd

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6774
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1047
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2242 on: December 04, 2017, 11:12:00 PM »

Sigmetnow

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 25763
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1153
  • Likes Given: 430
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2243 on: December 05, 2017, 02:26:12 PM »
 :'(

What Was Once Hailed as First U.S. Offshore Wind Farm Is No More
Quote
Cape Wind, the offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts that drew the ire of the Kennedy and Koch families, is officially dead.

Energy Management Inc. has ceased efforts to build what was once expected to become the first offshore wind farm in the U.S., according to an emailed statement from Chief Executive Officer Jim Gordon. The project’s Boston-based developer has already notified the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that it has terminatsed the offshore wind development lease it received in 2010.

Cape Wind suffered a slow death. Efforts to develop the 468-megawatt offshore farm, proposed to supply power to Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, began in 2001 but came up against relentless opposition from a mix of strange bedfellows including the Kennedy family and billionaire industrialist William Koch. While Energy Management won several court battles, the project couldn’t survive the 2015 cancellation of contracts to sell its power to local utilities. ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-01/cape-wind-developer-terminates-project-opposed-by-kennedys-koch
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Bob Wallace

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3855
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 41
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2244 on: December 05, 2017, 06:01:30 PM »
Long term (let's call it 20 years from now) we should be able to eliminate or almost eliminate landfills.

Two steps that I see.

1) Use no materials that can't be reused (steel, aluminum, etc.), biologically broken down (some sort of composting), or used as fuel*.  That would probably mean moving from petroleum based plastics to plant based plastics, for example.

2) Sort the waste stream.  Work has already been done to build robots that can sort waste.  This should be a solvable problem. 
---

* Burning a tree branch does release CO2 but that is carbon that was already in the above-surface carbon cycle.  Extremely different from extracting sequestered carbon from underneath the surface and adding to our atmospheric carbon load.



Sigmetnow

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 25763
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1153
  • Likes Given: 430
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2245 on: December 05, 2017, 08:26:07 PM »
Bitcoin doesn’t require governments to issue currency, or banks to process payments.  What it does require is energy — a lot of it.

Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future
Quote
Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to power nine homes in the U.S. for one day. And miners are constantly installing more and faster computers. Already, the aggregate computing power of the bitcoin network is nearly 100,000 times larger than the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers combined.

The total energy use of this web of hardware is huge — an estimated 31 terawatt-hours per year. More than 150 individual countries in the world consume less energy annually. And that power-hungry network is currently increasing its energy use every day by about 450 gigawatt-hours, roughly the same amount of electricity the entire country of Haiti uses in a year.

That sort of electricity use is pulling energy from grids all over the world, where it could be charging electric vehicles and powering homes, to bitcoin-mining farms. In Venezuela, where rampant hyperinflation and subsidized electricity has led to a boom in bitcoin mining, rogue operations are now occasionally causing blackouts across the country. The world’s largest bitcoin mines are in China, where they siphon energy from huge hydroelectric dams, some of the cheapest sources of carbon-free energy in the world. One enterprising Tesla owner even attempted to rig up a mining operation in his car, to make use of free electricity at a public charging station.
...
By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.
https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

numerobis

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 837
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 16
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2246 on: December 05, 2017, 09:39:56 PM »
The 31 TWh per year / 0.45 TWh *increase* per day doesn’t add up. At that rate of acceleration you top the claimed annual consumption in a couple weeks even starting from zero.

Regardless it is a fairly silly currency system. In order to process transactions you need to mine; that means there’s a fast growing transaction cost.

Alexander555

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2503
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 185
  • Likes Given: 49
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2247 on: December 05, 2017, 09:54:55 PM »
If it is using so much energy, and it keeps going.What would happen with the electricity price if it stops at some point. A collaps ? And  big parts of that market are already low on profits. Because of the competition. In Europe the price is negative at some points, when there is plenty of sun and wind. And the traditional plants are hard to turn off.

abraca

  • New ice
  • Posts: 12
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 4
  • Likes Given: 10
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2248 on: December 05, 2017, 10:11:43 PM »
The 31 TWh per year / 0.45 TWh *increase* per day doesn’t add up. At that rate of acceleration you top the claimed annual consumption in a couple weeks even starting from zero.

It doesn't have to add up - it doesn't claim it was accelerating in that pace last whole year, it just claims so about recent days. It only shows that power consumption *may* double in next 2months.

Regardless it is a fairly silly currency system. In order to process transactions you need to mine; that means there’s a fast growing transaction cost.

I don't want to judge without much insight what is silly here.
But the high power consumption is the most important part of the idea: the more it uses the more the whole network is secure. And that security is what drives the bitcoin's value. Which in turn help it make it even more secure.

Currently 31TWh means 42`500kWh per bitcoin mined. It should be possible to buy that amount with $4`000 easily, so as you can see it is very profitable with current value. Should the value go up in future, the energy usage will go up adequately.
For example the power usage currently shouldn't go anywhere past 80-90TWh per year, at which level some miners will opt out to not generate loses - it should eventually stay in some equilibrium.

Will bitcoin be valued around $1m to make power consumption high enough to drive prices of electricity up for everyone? How will equilibrium look like then? Will we turn whole earth to paperclips... err, one big bitcoin mining machine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizer

Sigmetnow

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 25763
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1153
  • Likes Given: 430
Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #2249 on: December 06, 2017, 08:18:39 PM »
Star Trek Foundation funds WARP solar water purification system in Puerto Rico
Quote
Puerto Ricans in the coastal town of Loíza have looked to an MIT invention to get their water supply flowing again. Serving 600 Puerto Ricans, the solar plus water purification system produces 850 gallons of clean drinking water daily, with rooftop rain barrels as storage.

The solar panels used are a rollable thin-film product. ...
https://electrek.co/2017/12/06/star-trek-foundation-funds-warp-solar-water-purification-system-in-puerto-rico/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.