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213 comments on Electrical Supply: Time, Scale, and the Need for Decision in Planning Future Power Plants

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tstreet on November 17, 2008 - 10:32am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Peaking personally? Good one.

Is the primary heat source in Bristol electric power? What percentage of heat in Bristol is provided by electric power. I also wonder about the preponderance of electric heat in Ohio due to the "freezing in the dark" comment from heading out.

In any event, I doubt that the vast majority of folks in the U.S. (England,too?) have even started picking the low hanging fruit of energy conservation, putting aside any attempts to provide heat and power in a more efficient and/or renewable fashion. With a very modest investment in new appliances and a modest change in life style, I have been able to cut my electricity use in half.

Let's get cracking on all the ways we can use less heat and electricity before we start freaking out about all the people who will freeze in the dark because of a moratorium on new coal. Here in Colorado, coal plants are even being cancelled due, in part, because of the state mandated renewable energy goals.

I still believe there is much truth in the idea that necessity is the mother of invention. Unfortunately, the massive reduction in oil and gas prices lately has probably set back that mother by a few years.

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Heading Out on November 17, 2008 - 11:01am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

With a very modest investment in new appliances and a modest change in life style, I have been able to cut my electricity use in half.

You again are extrapolating up from what an individual can achieve to assume the same level of activity will be practical for all the folk that the power station supplies. I am not sure how you would mandate that folk have to change their appliances, and pointing to an economic gain does not help folk who don't have the money to make the change. Similarly there is a difficulty in imposing a required change in life style - forcing such, either through a lack of power availability, or political concern, is not likely to result in political re-election.

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tstreet on November 17, 2008 - 11:30am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Without a change in subsidies, credits, programs, incentives, and disincentives, I don't expect that a sufficient number of people will cut their energy use. I expect that if we continue business as usual and make no changes in government policies, including efficiency standards, that we will continue to build more coal plants and that global warming will get out of control. I am not extrapolating based upon my own personal decision to save energy; I am extrapolating based on a radical change in government policy. There are lot of things that can be done before we actually talk about forcing people to make changes.

No one forced Coloradans, for example, to mandate a renewable portfolio standard. This was initially approved by the voters and then expanded by their elected representatives. There has not been a negative political fallout. This will lower the requirements for coal fired power plants.

No one forced the people in Boulder, Co. to approve a carbon tax.

It may very well be that the people in Ohio have a very different attitude; regardless, those concerned about this situation should do everything in their power to educate, to lead, and to effect change on the local, state, and federal level. The people may be ready for a lot of changes that they are not given credit for.

The EPA decision is an opportunity. Now is the opportunity to carve out a complex of policy decisions based upon the assumption that we will not have additional coal plants going forward.

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conservationist on November 17, 2008 - 3:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Do light bulbs count as appliances? I'm sure the folk can afford CFL's - which will reduce your lighting wattage by 75%.

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DaveMart on November 17, 2008 - 11:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Most, around 80%, of homes in Britain are heated by gas, which they burn in combination boilers. These are very efficient, so the efficiency of the actual generation of the electricity to supply homes for the purposes of heating would imply a taking a large hit.
To counteract that in the British climate you can use air-source heat pumps which multiply efficiency by 2.5-4 times, depending on whether it is a new build or not.

If you use a notional 40% as the average efficiency of burn at central facilities, against a notional 80% for gas fired central heating, it is around a wash after you have installed a heat pump regarding energy use efficiency for existing housing stock.

The cost of installing heat pumps or moving to CHP systems would be high though.

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OMGlikeWTF on November 17, 2008 - 3:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

1kWh of gas in an efficient boiler would provide about 0.9kWh of heat.

The same kWh of gas through a combined cycle power station then a heat pump would create roughly 0.5kWh of useful electric (after transmission) and therefore 1.5kWh of heat (assuming COP of 3 for the heat pump)

Using CHP and heat pumps as a co-generation stop gap as http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3661

1kWh of gas through a small engine generating 0.3 kWh of electricity powering heat pumps to produce 0.9 kWh of heat with the 0.6kWh of waste heat being put to good use also provides a total of 1.5kWh of useful heat from the original kWh of gas.

The most likely use of coal in the future IMO will be gasification and co-firing with natural gas in a combined cycle.

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DaveMart on November 17, 2008 - 3:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yeah, there are all sorts of figures and assumptions that are going to produce slightly different results.
I don't think that they are likely to affect my basic point that the high efficiency of combi gas boilers mean that raising the efficiency of burn with central generation is going to be difficult.

Your factor of 3 for heat pumps in existing build sounds high, as they work most efficiently in underfloor heating configurations, and at minimum to get anywhere near that figure for older builds radiators would need replacing to oversize them by around 20% to make up for the lower temperature of the water.

One way to raise efficiency might be to adopt the fuel cells that they are introducing into houses in Japan to provide both heat and power.
To say that the technology is immature and expensive though is to understate the case.

My real point of difficulty though is that short of underground coal gasification or the exploitation of land hydrates, I can't really see where the gas is going to come from, within a few years.

Coal burn or nuclear seem to me to be the only affordable alternatives in large quantity, where land based wind at high speeds is not available.

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orbit500 on November 18, 2008 - 6:13am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi again, Dave

I've completed my house renovation but have kept my partial underfloor heating from a condensing gas boiler. The trouble with underfloor is it only works on the most modern builds with high insulation and air tightness. I have 18mm wood over concrete screed and have calculated 80w m^-2 output - which is about 30w short so I top up with a convector gas fire. I looked at running additional rads from the manifold but at 45c flow temperature the deltaT is less than half that of a conventional primary flow so the radiator would need to be over 2x bigger, not 20%. ( 45-21 room vs 75-21 ).
I have noted the effectiveness of primary window draught proofing ( especially on the old leaded lights ), secondary glazing, under suspended wooden floor celotex and caulking, sealing over downlighter holes with fibre loft caps ( and replacing the bulbs with Osram Decostar IRC 20/35w which give exactly the same lumen, temp and CRI output but use 40% less energy and project all their heat downwards ). All I need to do now is swap my wife for a low energy version :)
On the control side I have a full weather controlled modulating system. It lowers the rad temps as the demand lowers calculated as a function of outside, inside and target temp in the 4 zones. It learns the response time of the house and will start heating earlier if it's cold and never come on at all if there is a sudden warm spell.
I also chose a boiler that will run off propane if needed and remote pumped showers from oversized tanks in case of intermittent water supply.

I think we need to be careful to distinguish not only between individual and collective actions but the impacts of not doing so on both levels. If there are intermittent power cuts then me having genset/battery backup is a valid option but if power become chronically unreliable then even the most extensive off-grid system won't bring food to your table or stop others coming to take yours.
My experience in South Africa is that communities will stratify by wealth as security deteriorates as a function of employment and resources.
By all means set up for intermittent power outages, even keep a week or two of food and water on hand but realistically if circumstances go beyond that then nothing short of an armed enclave will give you total security.
Having a brightly lit, warm house with food on the table in a cold, dark neighbourhood of people with starving children is not a recipe for success.
There is no option but to be strategic about this and reduce demand. Whether that is ration by price or by smart meter, efficiency grants, programs and leglislation or otherwise across all resource types is a matter of debate.
Unless we abandon any pretence to democracy and revert to an almost feudal society with rent paying serfs maintaining a gated landlord class and avoiding the armed guards.
Like Russia, Brazil, China and South Africa then. Great :(

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DaveMart on November 18, 2008 - 7:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

On your first paragraph I would emphasise that it is 20 years since I have had any building experience, and insulation and efficient energy use were hardly priorities at the time.
As you say, underfloor heating can only be installed realistically in a new build, and that is where you get the efficiencies which can approach 4 times.
My 20% oversized radiators was simply what it said on the tin on a couple of sites that install heat pumps, so your real world experience is very valuable.

Your second paragraph I find depressingly accurate, with the twist that in the UK I cannot see civil war being avoided, as we have all the ingredients of ethnic and religious divide which AFAIK when times get tough have historically always led to vicious warfare.
I would be interested in any counter examples anyone may have.

Although I am not a card-carrying doomer for the world in general, as I feel that it is possible that in many areas such as China and France the technological basis may allow them to pull through in relatively good shape and maintain a technological civilisation, I have a really hard time seeing how anything like the present 60 million population is likely to be kept going in the case of the UK.

It would be a different matter if we currently run most of our electricity from nuclear as France does, but the time is likely to short now to do so, and high power prices will price our goods out of the tough market.

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Cld12pk2go on November 20, 2008 - 8:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I too have managed to considerably cut my usage recently.

My usage is down 45% YOY.

How?

I purchased a Kill-o-watt for about $30 and started measuring most of my usage.

The wife's rice cooker was using about 33 kw-h a month keeping rice warm. She now puts it in the fridge after cooking and microwaves when needed.

All entertainment systems and computers are now on power strips, which are turned off when not in use. This saved about around 120 kw-h/month.

I upgraded my main workstation computer and drastically cut its power consumption. This coupled with using the "Stand by" mode and turning my dual 24'' LCD monitors off after 3 minutes of inactivity saved me over 150kw-h/ month.

I found a radio that was plugged in in the garage for the last several years pulls a constant 1w when off. The coffee maker in the kitchen pulled a constant 5w when off. These are now only plugged in while in use. These saved ~4 kw-h/month.

I installed a programmable thermostat, which saved me roughly 30% on heating/cooling cost (gas heat, electric AC). This is probably ~200-300 kw-h/month savings in the summer.

Lights are turned off when not in use (every light in the house was already CF).

The second 50-gallon water heater was valved off and the breaker turned off. The label indicates this likely saved ~30-50kw-h/month.

My sister-in-law moved out, which got some significant load off my power bill :-), which wasn't measured.

Going into this recession, I feel good about this very high ROI I shall continue to get from these simple cost cutting measures.

My usage last month was 585kw-h in a 3100 sq-ft house. Not too bad. One year earlier was 1057kw-h.

Since I am in Columbus, OH and do not want to freeze in the dark I see this as a good first step. The wind here certainly isn't going to be economic for wind power generation and my neighborhood restrictions forbid any solar cells or solar water heater installs (lame I know, but I wouldn't put them in with the current ROI anyways).

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AlanfromBigEasy on November 22, 2008 - 6:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I just opened my lowest ever electric bill, 73 kWh !

I was gone for 11 days though (although the refrigerator still ran).

Best Hopes for Energy Efficiency,

Alan

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213 comments on Electrical Supply: Time, Scale, and the Need for Decision in Planning Future Power Plants

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